The men who believe porn is wrong

[seabeyond]

McCormack Evans was about 20 at the time, and he had been using pornography regularly for a year or so, since starting university and having private access to a computer. At first, he didn't think this was a problem. It was something he did alone; no one had to know. The habit need never bleed beyond his student bedroom. Then he realised his male peers were using porn too, openly, frequently – almost celebrating it – and it started to make him feel uncomfortable. He had glimpses of how it might influence their lives. There was the librarian moment; a flash of how porn might shift the way he responded to women in the real world. There was the moment he noticed a male friend struggling not to ask the stupid, inappropriate question about oral sex that had occurred to him when a female friend mentioned her sore throat.

*

McCormack Evans, now 22, has just co-founded an online project to get men talking about their use of porn. Other such projects have often come from a religious, conservative standpoint, but the Anti-Porn Men Project is grounded in feminist principles, in the notion that pornography is an important social issue, and has a bearing on violence perpetrated against women and wider inequalities. There are, so far, 10 other people who will be writing on the site, and the idea is to create a community, he says, "where people can share their experiences and problems, and find an alternative voice". In setting up the site, McCormack Evans is one of the few men worldwide to publicly discuss pornography from a feminist perspective – positive about sex itself, open to the idea of people engaging in the widest range of consensual sex acts, but concerned about the industrialisation of sex and where this leads.

*

One obvious problem for many porn users is the conflict between their stated belief in equality and respect for women, and the material they're watching in private. McCormack Evans says he used to exist in a "kind of double consciousness. For that half hour when I was watching porn I thought, 'This is separate from my life, it won't affect how I view the world.' But then I realised it did." Jensen says he hears about this disjuncture "all the time. Men will say, I know the images I'm watching are in direct contradiction to my own stated values, but I just can't stop". McCormack Evans says porn-watchers can quickly descend into self-hatred. "They're sitting there afterwards, and there's an image left on the screen, and they look at themselves and think, 'I'm disgusting' . . . Then their daughter comes in, or their wife, or their girlfriend, and they've just been to Pilates, and the next day they start looking up Pilates porn, or something crazy like that, and they feel even worse. It can become quite self-destructive."


*

Jensen believes "the culture doesn't want to look at it. A lot of it simply has to do with the number of liberal-left men who use porn themselves and don't want to engage in self-critique . . . And when it comes to heterosexual women: do you really want to know what your boyfriend or husband is using? If your husband is masturbating to images of women being degraded, can you really believe it when he says, 'Oh, I don't think of you that way?'. Now that would be naive."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/oct/25/men-believe-porn-is-wrong

[redqueen]

1. Love this comment. He gets it.

There is truly nothing more disturbing than the realisation that many young people nowadays are learning all they know about how to have a sexual relationship...from ponography.

Desperate need for better sex and relationship education in schools and at an earlier age.

As a teacher, believe me, the reality of what young people are looking at - and considering "normal" - is very worrying

[seabeyond]

2. that was just one of many. a lot of good stuff in that article. nt

[seabeyond]

4. here is the article i referred to in the other thread. felt it belonged here.

All of the men ended up pleasuring themselves less than they would have normally had they had access to Internet porn. While they still had the same urges to self-pleasure, most simply decided it was not worth the effort - and that freed up their time. Said Greg, a single guy in his early 20s who works from home as a freelance Web developer,“ I ended up getting a lot more work done.” And when they did make time to self-pleasure, four of the five men also had much more difficulty, er, “getting started."

*

That brings me to my next point: In general, when the guys found new ways to self-pleasure, they also discovered something new about themselves. Fred discovered that he had indeed been becoming something of a “porn-potato” and David, a man in his late 20s who is on the verge of moving in with his girlfriend, really enjoyed his strolls down Erotic Memory Lane.

*

In fact, without easy access to Internet porn and the steady stream of anonymous porn stars, most of the men turned to their own erotic histories and specific sexy memories for stimulation. Nick, who is married in his 30s with two kids, reported that he became more focused on trying to have sex with his wife, which led to some tension, and, happily, some resolution.

*

I find this last point especially interesting. Research that includes MRI brain scans of men and women during the process of sexual arousal has shown that orgasm lights up all parts of the brain, including those associated with memory. Orgasm plays a powerful role in the reward centers of the brain, so it makes sense that the more we associate that positive reward with a particular person, or memory of a person, the more we reinforce our overall relationship with that person.

Going forward, I’d like to explore this point further: Can self-pleasuring with a particular person in mind increase our feelings of love and desire toward that person via the reward of orgasm? If so, it could be a helpful solo-exercise for those couples who feel detached and disconnected from each other.

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/08/take-away-online-porn-and-what-do-you-get/

[redqueen]

5. Thanks! nt

[Jim Lane]

11. I agree except for the "nowadays"

I grew up before there was an Internet, let alone Internet porn, and I didn't learn much about how to have a sexual relationship.

On the other hand, I did learn all 50 state capitals.

[sigmasix]

3. hoping this gains traction

I hope this community is successful in attracting the right people and maintaining a high standard of intellectually and emotionally honest discussions and investigations into the role of violence and objectification in modern, industrialised porn. I'm so tired of watching the circle of victimization this sort of stuff precipitates; from the male and female models involved in the production to the addicted consumers and thier family members.
Erotica that respects the model, artist and consumer does exist- but not as an internet commodity.

[ismnotwasm]

7. That's true

Anything erotic in porn seems to be carefully erased. Erotic literature and art does exist, as you say but outside of the 'bodice ripper' genre, is not available to mass consumption. A pity really.

A friend of mine bought a piece of art based on an erotic poem, it's gorgeous and visceral. Cost a lot too.

[sigmasix]

8. artistic expressions

Artistic expressions of the beauty of human sexuality do not, in general, titilate and arouse the darker aspects of control and commercializing, as the new porn industry does. the manufacturers of toxic power porn remind me of the way the tobacco industry attempted to divest themselves of moral responsibilities by claiming that the science concerning the damage caused by this stuff is inconclusive.
grrr

[ismnotwasm]

6. The animated monster porn

Is a 'thing' now

Porn, now more violent than ever and brought to you with no. limits. at. all.



I need to find a valid study on women and faking orgasms, I have a couple of friends who specialize in women's health, and I know it's far more prevalent than is generally known, my point being all that available porn and men are STILL unable to please a woman to the point she politely tries to make her partner feel better, while having her own needs unmet? if there is a correlation, that tells you something about porn right there.

[redqueen]

9. Most women don't climax from penetration alone.

But that's what porn shows. Many women think something is wrong with them if they don't get off from it.

[ismnotwasm]

10. Exactly

These women actually think that they are the problem.