So... y'know that study claiming that porn actresses have high self esteem?

[redqueen]

I know those that pay attention noticed it was a flawed study hardly worth noting, due to major problems with methodology, but I ran across this 2007 interview with Sharon Mithchell, one of the study's authors, and found it ... interesting.

Promoting Healthcare for the Porn Industry

In 1998, former porn star Sharon Mitchell founded the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation in order to raise awareness about health issues among porn performers. NPR's Scott Simon speaks to her about keeping those in the adult-film industry safer, healthier, and happier.

...

SIMON: Why not just require all actors to use condoms?

MITCHELL: Wouldn't that be wonderful? I am a clinician that serves a world that I know very, very well because I come from it, and I know the pressures that these talent members go through not to use the condoms. They're offered more money; they're told, look, these films will not sell if there are condoms on it.

SIMON: Not to get graphic, but you'd think in these days of computer enhancements and special effects, it would be no more necessary to endanger a performer that way than it would be to require Tom Cruise to jump off a 12- story building.

MITCHELL: Absolutely, Scott. But they're not looked at as performers. They're looked at as commodities; they're looked at as body parts that are going to be edited into a product that's going to make money. And this industry - albeit mainstream as it's become - they're not going to say, okay, let's go ahead and spend half-a-million dollars. You know, let's just digitally edit out the condom, which can be done, obviously, but they just don't want to spend any money.

SIMON: In helping porn performers, are you just enabling them to do something that is destructive?

MITCHELL: You know, some days I feel like I'm sweeping back the ocean with a broom. I wake up and I think, this is amazing, I mean, we do catch a tremendous amount of HIV that would have ended up in the industry, and I can literally say that I save lives. We've put a lot of people into rehab, we help a lot of people leave porn and get an education, we have a scholarship program, and with all this, some days, you know, when I see a young girl walk in and I just know that she's just going to get run over by all these producers and agents and types of things that she probably hasn't experienced or even thought of experiencing, I think am I just fattening them up for the kill? What am I doing?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17044239

Emphasis mine. And my answer:

Putting band-aids on a grade 3 infection?

[ismnotwasm]

1. Unfortunately AIM went bankrupt after the LAST HIV Snafu

It's putting band aids on hollow point bullet wounds. The pornography industry has no credibility whatsoever.

[redqueen]

2. Nor do the academic "experts" being paid to crank out the industry's ersatz studies.

The absolute nerve of those who not only blindly swallowed that swill, but then turned right around and regurgitated it as if it was meaningful.

Why liberals fight so hard to maintain their massive blind spot where the sex industry is concerned is truly frightening. The cognitive dissonance required to insist on scrutiny and skepticism regarding every massively profitable industry but that one ...

All these 'academics' who blithely ignore the suffering of so many in order to shill for the sex industry remind me that there are two kinds of intellectuals - the intellectuals who do the bidding of the elite, and those who are part of the revolutionary class.

It's really not difficult at all to spot the difference. Unless they're writing about the sex industry, and then it just gets so gosh-darned confusing!

[Squinch]

3. Oh, Redqueen, don't you know? They're all just the girl next door, working her way through college!

And they're doing it because they like the sex and the opportunity to meet people.

[redqueen]

4. It's fucking heartbreaking hearing how conflicted women like Jenna Jameson and this woman are...

the few who still plead that No, it's not so bad, really! Look at me! I'm ok! ... you look deeper and you see the pain, the guilt... and you see the money and the society that created this shit... and you realize how few exited women are given the attention that these cheerleader types are given... and you realize why... and then you think about all the women who are ignored, silenced, etc. These are the majority, by far... but hey... why let them get in the way, right? There's money to be made, and delusions to maintain.

[Squinch]

7. As always, yes. Follow the money. But I don't believe for a second that most of the men

touting the viewpoint that there is nothing wrong with the porn industry are deluded. They speak as if they are deluded, but I think they are fully aware that they are rationalizing the use of people as objects, and they fully understand that their actions contribute to the ruination of lives. They just don't want to stop, so they spout their nonsense to make themselves feel better.

[seabeyond]

8. you are spot on. i am gonna post something tomorrow. i have read enough to know the reality of the

MENS porn world from the puter. day in and out. day after day after day. a reality that is humiliating and extreme in its own right, yet the constant need to insist that their world is not effected. so not only are they well aware what they are doing to these human being with the consumption, but they are well aware of the effect on themselves and how much it changes them as human being, just too damn cowardly to own it. i think that is what the real struggle is with the issue.

it is like a druggie. i know, i have been there. and i know people would look at people like me and feel sorry for me, or sad for me. and i was all, ... hey, i am doing what i want. i am good. but i also knew i lied to myself.

[BainsBane]

5. I didn't have to get past the subject line to know it was bullshit

In a related study, fast food workers making minimum wage are just as happy as investment bankers. I mean, it's their choice to work in McDonalds, right!!!???

[seabeyond]

9. absolutely. half way conscious as a human being, it was easy enough to figure out.

i did not even bother to argue this in that thread.

oh lookie, every one is AS happy/healthy/whatever, as anyone else.

[Gravitycollapse]

6. The evolution of porn has been really horrific. Gonzo porn has become the norm...

And the level of violence in these short take, amateur acts is absolutely mind boggling. If you go to a mainstream free porn website, my estimate is at least 80% of the total content exploits sexual violence in one form or another.

For instance, I recently came across a gonzo porn called "Lesbian sluts caught licking forced to fuck two guys."

What kind of culture do we live in when corrective gang rape becomes normative in pornography? These types of videos are not the exception to the rule, either. They are everywhere. It's terrifying. And there's no way that you can have porn actors and actresses with healthy self-esteems after being subjected to such things.

50 or 80 years ago, pornography was a subversive form of cinema. It incorporated social commentary with humor and sexuality. That was all wiped clean with the invention of home entertainment and cheap video equipment.

[seabeyond]

10. absolutely. i was listening to jensen and it was long. had to break at 43 minutes. so disgusted.

i did not get back to that tape, but i need to. he was saying basically what you are saying. anal. then too tame. (this is the norm, not the fetish). then two guys. then two guys at once. then two guys per hole. then... and this is a fav. stick in ass then stick in mouth. oh yea, make the women literally eat shit. what part of this is for a higher sexual pleasure? nothing. nothing about it is for added stimulation. the sole purpose, the only purpose is to humiliate and degrade women and get off on it.

we were talking fuck toilet. that comes from the porn industry. all i know. the guys pick up on it ... guys really into their porn, and pretend they know nothing. ok, they admit, a fetish. few men do it. i googled it to find out wtf it was. peeing in a woman. peeing in a woman. pages of google, men giggle like little boys. i peed in my wife. i peed in my GF. over and over and over and over.

not unusual, and not a damn fetish. the more we learn, the more we see, the more i find those that obsess with their porn deny any fuckin knowledge of shit in their porn world. all of a sudden they are so damn naive to all things.

this is what these men are jacking off to.

really, only fantasy. ya, doesnt effect a person at all.

and it is 87% of the porn that is in some way violent and degrading to women.

[Gravitycollapse]

11. I considered writing a thesis on violent internet pornography...

Essentially, I was going to watch hundreds or even thousands of videos and measure the frequency of certain events. But I came to the conclusion that I'd break myself in the process.

I use to be super sex positive. Now I'm not so sure. If there is a way to use pornography in a subversive yet constructive manner, we certainly are not doing so.

[seabeyond]

12. i am so fuckin sex positive, it is, well my reality. what this shit is, is absolutely sex negative.

cause it certainly puts one hell of a taint (and i mean that on the original definition, not the one we created that is body parts) on sex. it is faux sex that people are adopting as a real sex life.

[Gravitycollapse]

13. I remember reading somewhere that the majority of people are more turned on...

By erotic, romantic pornography.

I also remember reading that men who have recently viewed violent pornography show a marked increase in hatred towards women.

[ismnotwasm]

14. Porn is NOT sex positive

It's inured us to the horrific, damaged our sexual imagination as well as our practical knowledge of sex and in fact just plain anatomy. It's the rare find of easily available "free" OR paid porn that's actually erotic, so instead it has increasingly become a circus performance, a geek show.

And people don't question it because they think it's sexual freedom; they toss out the "consenting adults" argument ignoring that more and more pornography looks like rape. Like humiliation. Like pain. It's not freedom; its hand-fed corporate sex, fast food desire that adds nothing to sexual health. Multi-billion dollar industry just like any other that expects the public to pick up the tab for any incidental damage.

[duffyduff]

16. Porn is anti-sex by definition

It's always been a human rights violation, but now that it is increasingly violent, the "consenting adults" and first amendment "arguments" are increasingly bogus.

I have always maintained that the media were largely responsible for the pro-porn propaganda starting in the 1970s with shows like Phil Donahue's. Porn wasn't attractive then, isn't now, and never will be.

[PotatoChip]

17. It really is some shockingly sick stuff.

Chris Hedges likens the type of porn we see today as a form of necrophilia. When I first heard him make that statement during a CSpan Book TV interview from about a year ago, I was like, what?... But when I took a look at one of the free, easily accessed porn sites recently, his description kept entering my consciousness and really began to make sense. It's as if the women are just 'there' having their bodies sadistically and violently used, as a sort of non-person entity for the man's pleasure. A kind of receptacle even.

Not sure if I've articulated this well enough, but do you all get what I mean?

Ugh!... And when I think of the fact that much of this stuff is being viewed by impressionable young men, I can't help but wonder what the long term impact will be on them, (if any)?...How will they view sex (and women in general), for the rest of their lives? Will this stuff affect, or even permanently alter how they view future relationships? Or will they be able to compartmentalize those images into the non-reality based exploitation and objectification of women that they truly are?

I have no idea how long this sick trend in the porn industry has been going on, but I don't remember it being anything nearly as disturbing, even just a decade ago; which is why I wonder if this will have, or is already beginning to have some long term societal implications.

Sorry if I appear to be rambling. It's just so hard to wrap my brain around what I've recently seen. Am I being too alarmist?

[intheflow]

15. I think this woman sounds like a realist.

She fully understands what these girls will be doing, but she also understands that some women will always do this because some women think it's their only option, or they're seeking a twisted form of acceptance, or they think they're out thrill-seeking - all blind to other possibilities for themselves and/or blind to what will become of them. I think she's being too hard on herself - what she's doing saves lives as surely as the people who address the female self-esteem and male exploitation issues that drive the industry. Pornography doesn't have a one-size-fits-all remedy, it has to be attacked from many directions before it will die. This woman is helping to ameliorate some pain in a brutal industry. That says a lot about her character and her mission. I applaud her and her work while acknowledging the other work needs to be done, too.

[MadrasT]

18. I have viewed a lot of porn in the past.

And my anecdotal evidence is that it caused me to try a lot of things I would have never thought of "on my own"... and the result of the real-life recreations ranged from "cool" to "meh" to "not especially enjoyable" to "why the fuck would anybody do this for fun?" Probably 90% of it ended up in the "I don't see the point, not doing again" or the "jesus christ that was awful" buckets.

It doesn't just skew men's ideas of what women enjoy -- it fucks with women's ideas of what they are supposed to enjoy.

I am only a one person sample but that was my experience.