SJF,

'I think some men's defence of porn is a deep fear they are being made redundant, and losing their traditional male power over women...’

I like your style, but I don't think it really matches. Or make sense now that I read it again. How would an absense of porn make men feel redundant? Highlighting a male power in the pre-feminist era (nowdays women more often than men instigate divorce as they have less to lose) doesn't lessen the still existing female power. Women still get last say whether sex takes place. Men ask for, and women give or withhold sex. It's ridiculous to think of men in the position of power. That's why rape is so abhorent. It's an abuse of male physical power and an attack on women's sexual power. An abuse of female power is more acceptable. In fact increasingly in society traditionally female traits are more acceptable than male ones.

Anyway I still think if men are adult enough to deal with women using sex toys, women should be adult enough to deal with men viewing porn. A lot of women enjoy massive phalluses and super fast vibrating objects, and then moan about their feelings of inadequacy caused by the images men use to get off. I find this pretty hypocritical.

'Another issue that most porn discussions overlook is why so many people don’t use it or need it. They can’t all be prudes.'
That's a very interesting point.

' patriarchal societies place a high value on polygyny'
I think patriachal societies would place a high value on monogamy. That way the alpha males don't all have 10 wives, leaving the majority of the males with no partner.

pelican,

' there are many factors at play eg. the values taught by family, positive and negative experiences with the opposite sex, teachers and peers'
That's the point. The author feels violent porn is the most influential factor. So much so that the world becomes 'uninhabitable for women and girls' and men wont be able to percieve women as human beings with feelings.

What a disgustingly biased article. Only yesterday I read in the Sydney morning herald that more and more women are onto the internet.

This is the kind of feminism that absolutely sickens me to the core. Every pornographic image you see has a willing woman participant who, gasp IS ENJOYING THEIR JOB.

Author is a misandrist. I would love to do a parody article, but it's probably a waste of time.

if anyone at all wrote in support of this article, you seriously need your head checked. this is a disgrace

Steel: "Every pornographic image you see has a willing woman participant who, gasp IS ENJOYING THEIR JOB."

Actually Steel, while I agree with you that this is a poor article, and while I know a lot of women in porn enjoy their jobs, not all do. Some of them hate their jobs, and some are indifferent. Kind of like every other type of job. Except often with more drugs.

While we're on the topic, a lot of people seem to think that porn actors (as in people in porn who aren't porn "stars") earn heaps of money too. Actually not. Like anything else, if you're popular, if you really are a porn star, then sure, but there's a lot of women and men earning an average-ish wage. And if you've got a drug habit to support, it may not go far.

I am pro-porn and not a fan of this article (see my post above), but cliched rhetoric about how everyone in porn is "empowered" and "doing *exactly* what they want to be doing" just isn't true, and, in failing to allow for the complexity of the industry, doesn't help pro-porn cause.

Whitty

‘”patriarchal societies place a high value on polygyny”
I think patriachal societies would place a high value on monogamy. That way the alpha males don't all have 10 wives, leaving the majority of the males with no partner.’

I said ‘polygyny’ not ‘polygamy’. ‘Polygyny’ is the pseudo-biological hokus pokus that men are wired to be more sexually active than women. This is despite the fact that, heterosexually speaking, mathematics alone renders this impossible. After all, it’s women that men have to have sex WITH.

‘How would an absense of porn make men feel redundant?’

I didn’t say that. I said ‘some men's defence of porn is [due to] a deep fear they are being made redundant’. Polygyny assumes that it’s in men’s biological nature to ‘stray’ – a social construct that keeps women in a state of permanent insecurity lest they lose their desirability. This is what I meant by men’s ‘infidelity’ being used as a bargaining chip in maintaining power over women. As women become less dependent on male financial support, pornography offers men a way of maintaining their sense of polygynous entitlement. (Of course I’m speaking in broad generalisations here.)

‘Women still get last say whether sex takes place. Men ask for, and women give or withhold sex.’

The ability to give or refuse sex is a right, not a power. Don't confuse the two.

Sorry to be pedantic, but strictly speaking 'polygyny' in humans is a variant of 'polygamy', whereby men have several wives. It's quite common throughout the tribal world, and in a couple of the United States of America. It does not refer to masculine tendencies to promiscuity, except perhaps in ethology.

Interestingly, there are (or were) cultures in which polyandry exists, whereby several men (typically brothers) might share a wife. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that in those cultures women had a higher status - as I understand it, it was more about retaining patrilineal title to land.

No, I don't think the "digital age" is inherently a "dark" one for women.