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The Forum > Article Comments > Porn hurts women, so say the partners of users > Comments

Porn hurts women, so say the partners of users : Comments

By Petra Bueskens, published 1/5/2012

What is the relationship between use of pornography and the libido deficit of women, the purported mismatch among couples, and men's abiding sense of sexual frustration in marriage?

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Whenever I see articles like this, I see the Nanny state rearing its head, and the rights and freedoms of some individuals being removed to prevent someone else from being "hurt", or "offended".

The realities of life are that men and women are wired differently, porn like prostitution has existed for millennia, and the difference now is that with the internet and broadband it is far more available, so much so that to "do" anything about it would require draconian measures and a level of censorship as yet unseen, and probably impossible.

Secondly the rights of the men who are single and not "offending" anyone, to access legal material is difficult to remove. Womens' rights can be achieved without removing others' rights.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 1 May 2012 6:14:52 AM
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"Anti-porn activist and researcher, Gail Dines similarly observes"
Sorry, citing research done by an "Anti-porn activist" doesn't help your case as that data is most likely biased, Like getting research done by a slave owner and researcher reporting how great slavery is for slaves.
Posted by Lurchi, Tuesday, 1 May 2012 6:56:08 AM
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If 'sexual fidelity' is to be defined as not viewing porn, then why not go a little further and define it as not thinking about other partners? In fact why not prevent men in a relationship from masturbating at all? That way all our relationships would end, we would all die out, and nobody would have to worry about porn any more.

Seriously, anti-porn campaigners like this show a distressing inability to distinguish between real life and fiction. Porn is pictures, words and video: relationships are with people.
Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 1 May 2012 7:41:10 AM
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I “intuitively” agree with Petra Bueskens, that it’s difficult to rationalise the porn epidemic as anything but detrimental to families and society in the long term. Though one has to balance that concern with the perennial reality that family and social mores have never been more than a façade concealing the “deviant” appetites and practices that run rife within, whether repressed or realised. It could even be that the porn industry is facilitating a mass catharsis not only of pent-up sexual energy, but of the general hypocrisy and pretence that structure our lives at every level. At bottom the article betokens a shocked and conservative sensibility, in denial of the “perverse” carnal drives that all the evidence suggests are “normal”, and bent on preserving the bog-standard institution of marriage. Incongruously, she depicts the institution she wants to preserve as a one-sided affair wherein the male uses, abuses and bludges on the female, domestically, while evincing no real capacity for “love”, sensitivity, empathy or fidelity, being incapable of empathising with her needs. Women can fake orgasms but men fake whole relationships, as the joke goes. I’d argue that they’re both fakes and throw out the challenge to the author that perhaps it’s time she gave up on the institution of marriage. She makes a compelling case that it is and has always been a dysfunctional, unequal, vulnerable and abusive arrangement, tortuously riven-through and tied together, I’d add, by imperious, passive-manipulative and feeble (children) power-plays respectively.
Families are cooperative ventures and I suspect healthy marriages and families are rare and constraint-based on mutual respect and consideration, rather than domination, authority and rebellion. The trouble is, the successful nuclear family subsists in an increasingly hostile society—presided over more and more by indifferent market forces rather than state regulation—devoted to cultivating and catering to individual appetite and general prodigality (salubriously promoted as “freedom”, self-discovery and self-expression), rather than cohesive, modest and conservative family units. Even “healthy” families are bound to succumb in a society devoted to peeling away the ideological layers in order to tap the (im)pure, incoherent desire within. Porn’s “freedom”.
Posted by Squeers, Tuesday, 1 May 2012 8:43:49 AM
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Basically porn would not exist if there was not a market for it.

The market is created because there is a mismatch between supply and demand.
Posted by JamesH, Tuesday, 1 May 2012 8:48:24 AM
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Ummm, here's a thought, Ms Bueskens.

"Porn hurts women, so say the partners of users"

How about the partners explain this to their men. You know, talk about it? I know, it is a horribly old-fashioned idea, that people should take some responsibility upon themselves instead of expecting "the gumment" to do something about their grievances. But heck, it's worth a shot, isn't it? Maybe both of them would learn something.

And I found this an interesting statistic.

"The porn industry is gigantic – its profits are larger than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Apple combined (yes, that's right, combined), with worldwide profits currently posited at US 100 billion dollars."

I didn't see a reference for this. Probably just an oversight. It would be fascinating to see those numbers explained - it might give a clue as to what is considered "porn". And if the profits are $100 billion, the mind boggles at the revenue involved...
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 1 May 2012 9:01:24 AM
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