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The idea that somehow pornography is good for society, or that it serves some sort of preventative function for males, or (insert rationalization here), make me ill.  Pornography, like religion, has no place in a civilized society.  I found this awesome quote while browsing the interwebs and I agree with much of what it has to say about pornography, the porn industry and human sexuality.   Thank you Jasmina for writing so eloquently about this important topic.

Hello,

I would like you to know, in a nutshell, that I am against the porn industry.

I am against white men who admit that they literally hate women making films to express that hate. I have absolutely nothing against sex or sexual activity or sexual expression or even sexual exploration through consuming sexual content. I am so glad that you love your body and are content with your sexuality — that is a very good thing.

I am against mainstream gonzo porn which depicts very violent misogynistic sex where the synonym for ‘woman’ is ‘slut’, ‘whore’ and bitch. I am against very violent porn where a woman is being slapped around and ripped to shreds is the most available type of pornography; being the default when accessing pornography. I am against the idea that the very accessible porn, free porn, depicts very rough sex as the norm — something which young curious boys (and girls) will access as possibly their first look at ‘sex.’ I don’t like that hardcore porn is now normal porn and softcore porn is just pop culture. I don’t like the way mainstream, popular pornography depicts women. I don’t like that violent acts such as choking on a penis or ‘ripping a tight virgin apart’ are ‘sexy.’

I don’t like that rough, violent sex, which I accept is the way SOME consenting adults choose to have sex is portrayed as NORMAL, as mainstream, as the ‘right’ way to have sex.

Porn isn’t sex, its the manifestation of male directors’ fantasies. I am in no way targeting the sex worker; but I am furious with the porn industry’s extreme mistreatment of the sex worker. I am furious that, because of pornography, men are conditioned into thinking they are entitled to sex because the storyline almost always pans out as ‘soft rape’ where the woman ends up liking it. I am furious that most women in pornography have an average life expectancy of 35, that they have sexually transmitted diseases they shouldn’t even have, that they are unable to leave, that they are beaten, coerced and raped, that their wishes aren’t respected and that most of the time they can’t say no to a film they aren’t comfortable with unless they are highly paid public figure porn stars. This is an industry that has a temper tantrum when the government proposes they should use condoms.

So when I say I am anti-porn; I am not anti-sex, I am not anti-sexual exploration, I am not anti anything people decide to do in their bedrooms. But I am anti-rape-culture and I am anti- to the idea that violent misogynistic sex is the first thing a 12 year old is going to see when they try and google porn. These things aren’t labelled as BDSM or tagged as particularly violent sex aimed at a kink — this is for mass consumption and I am sick to fucking death of boys who haven’t even seen a vagina in real life thinking that a cumming on a girl’s face after she chokes on your dick is healthy sex for everyone.

I have been sexually harassed countless times in my school days and they all tie back to porn. These boys tried to ask me if I had done ____ or _____, which were fucking bizarre actions but they saw them in free porn. In grade 7, 13 year old boys were talking about glass dildos and women shooting ping pong balls out of their vaginas; vaginas which are hardly an accurate depiction of what diversity there is in the actual physical look of a vagina (don’t get me started on the Australian ‘airbrushing’ laws which note that no visible ‘lip’ can be shown in porn that could be accessed by younger boys???).

I’ve been threatened by a 15 year old boy not even 6 months ago that he would shove his dick down my throat, after I confronted him about speaking rudely to me. How did he come to that conclusion? How did he make the connection between a sexual act and violence against me? How did he know he could use his penis as a weapon against me? How did he know that to really threaten me in a way that would grant him power he could use sex as violence? If I were a boy, he would threaten to beat me up, but he chose that instead. These are the things I’m thinking about.

I want this trillion dollar industry to be held accountable for the way it treats its workers and the ideas it passes off as mainstream. This is an unregulated industry. It contributes to the sex trade. It drives supply an demand for child pornography, for rape pornography, for sex trafficking. You can’t have one without the other.

So if you want to be your own boss and be a cam girl that is YOUR choice and your choice alone. You decide what is right for you. I’m not targeting you, I’m wanting this giant, abusive, global industry to be held accountable for the shit its caused. So until sex workers are treated fairly, women are not treated like slabs of meat, violent misogynistic sex is not portrayed as healthy and normal, etc. then I cannot succumb to the idea that mainstream pornography is okay. Because at the end of the day, the average john is going to see these women as dehumanised figures and ultimately will use their body to have an orgasm. And if they’re doing that for a long enough time alone in their rooms, they’re going to, if not develop a power complex, view other women that way, and ultimately possibly develop the idea that they can use sex as a weapon.

This is not black and white; nothing ever is. Sex is healthy but the sex industry isn’t. And sometimes it’s hard to break free but there’s a bigger power at hand here and a lot of things happen behind the scenes that we don’t all see. I’m just very very concerned about the harmful effects of gonzo pornography and the well-being of sex workers everywhere.