antiporn-activist:
p0kemina:
HEAVY TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of rape, violence, abuse, sadism, masochism, torture and more. Reader discretion is advised.
Porn Culture and The Industry
There are over 68 million daily searches for pornography in the United States. Thats 25% of all daily searches (IFR, 2006).
The sex industry is largest and most profitable industry in the world.
“It includes street prostitution, brothels, ‘massage parlors’, strip
clubs, human trafficking for sexual purposes, phone sex, child and adult
pornography, mail order brides and sex tourism – just to mention a few
of the most common examples.” (Andersson et al, 2013)
Pornhub receives over 1.68 million visits per hour. (Pornhub, 2013)
Globally, teen is the most searched term. A Google Trends analysis
indicates that searches for “Teen Porn” have more than tripled between
2005-2013, and teen porn was the fastest-growing genre over this period.
Total searches for teen-related porn reached an estimated 500,000 daily
in March 2013, far larger than other genres, representing approximately
one-third of total daily searches for pornographic web sites. (Dines,
2013)
Internet porn in the UK receives more traffic
than social networks, shopping, news and media, email, finance, gaming
and travel. (Arthur, 2013)
Several recent studies have found that teenagers around the world report
using porn to gain information about real life sex (Lauzus et al, 2007)
(Wade et al, 2005) (Flood, 2009) ( Giordano & Ross, 2012)
Across the board it has been found women watch less porn than men.
17% of
women admit to struggling with pornography addiction (Internet Filter
Review, 2006)
Condoms are only utilized in 10.9% of top rated scenes (Bridges and Wosnitzer, 2007)
Every 39 minutes a new porn film is created in the United States.
20% of American men admit they access pornography at work.
13% of women admit to
accessing pornography at work (Internet Filter Review, 2006)
70% of all Internet porn traffic occurs during workdays (9am – 5pm) (Sex Tracker, 2012)
The porn industry makes more money than Hollywood. (US Statistics)
The porn industry makes more money than The National Football League, The National Basketball Association and
Major League Baseball combined and more than NBC, CBS, and ABC
combined. (IFR, 2006).
The porn industry has larger revenues than the top technology
companies (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix)
combined (IFR, 2006).
13,000 adult videos are produced annually, amassing over $13 billion
dollars in profit. By comparison, Hollywood released 507 movies and made
only 8.8 billion (Bridges and Wosnitzer, 2007).
Free
websites comprise between 70-80% of the adult material online, typically
used as “bait” for pay websites, guiding viewers to premium pay
services.
90% of free porn websites and nearly 100% of pay porn websites buy their material rather than create it themselves.
Porn, Youth and Child Abuse
Children as young as 11 years old are regularly accessing hardcore gonzo pornography
(IFR, 2006). Following first exposure, the largest consumer group of
internet pornography is boys between the ages of 12-17.Approximately 20%
of all internet pornography is child sexual abuse. (National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, 2013).
A recent study found that seven out of ten youth have been
unwillingly exposed to pornography in the United States (Carroll et al,
2008).
The fastest growing demand in commercial websites for child abuse is for
images depicting the worst type of abuse, including penetrative sexual
activity involving children and adults and sadism or penetration by an
animal (Internet Watch Foundation. Annual Report, 2008).
In a study of arrested child pornography possessors, 40 percent had both
sexually victimized children and were in possession of child
pornography.
Child pornography has become a $3 billion annual industry (Top Ten Reviews, 2005).
69% of all victims in child abuse images are between the ages of 0 and 10 years old. (IWF, 2008)
A New Zealand Internal Affairs study suggests that there is an
association between viewing child pornography and committing child
sexual abuse (New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs. Internet
Traders of Child Pornography: Profiling Research. By Caroline Sullivan.
October 2005. January 10, 2006).
Approximately 55% of street girls engage in formal prostitution
(Department of Justice, Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.
Accessed October 31, 2007).
Child prostitutes serve between two and thirty clients per week, leading
to a shocking estimated base of anywhere between 100 to 1500 clients
per year, per child. Younger children, many below the age of 10, have
been increasingly drawn into serving tourists (Department of Justice,
Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section. Accessed October 31, 2007).
Youth
who look at violent x-rated material are six times more likely to
report forcing someone to do something sexual online or in-person versus
youth not exposed to x-rated material.
Internet pornography was blamed for a 20 percent increase in sexual attacks by children over three years.
Nearly
80 percent of unwanted exposure to pornography is taking place in the
home (79 percent occurs in the home; 9 percent occurs at school; 7
percent other/unknown; 5 percent at a friend’s home).
Kids experience unwanted exposure to sexual material via:
- A link came up as a result of an innocent word search (40 %)
- Clicking on a link in another site (17 %)
- A pop-up (14 %)
- Other (13 %)
- Misspelled web address (12 %)
- Don’t know (4 %)
- Pictures involving animals or other strange things (10 %)
American children begin consuming hardcore pronography at an average age of 11
Four out of five 16 year-olds regularly access pornography online
In 2008, more than 560 college student responded to an online survey:
- 93% of boys and 62% of girls were exposed to pornography before 18
- 14% of boys and 9% of girls were exposed to pornography before 13
- 69% of boys and 23% of girls have spent at least 30 consecutive minutes viewing Internet pornography on at least one occasion
- 63% of boys have done so more than once, and 35% of boys have done so on more than 10 occasions.
- 83% of boys and 57% of girls have seen group sex online
- 69% of boys and 55% of girls have seen same-sex intercourse online
- 39% of boys and 23% of girls have seen sexual bondage online
- 32% of boys and 18% of girls have seen bestiality online
- 18% of boys and 10% of girls have seen rape or sexual violence online
- 15% of boys and 9% of girls have seen child pornography
When a child or adolescent is directly exposed to pornography the following effects have been documented:
- Lasting negative or traumatic emotional responses.
-
The belief that superior sexual satisfaction is attainable without
having affection for one’s partner, thereby reinforcing the
commoditization of sex and the objectification of humans.
- The belief that being married or having a family are unattractive prospects.
- Increased risk for developing sexual compulsions and addictive behavior.
- Increased risk of exposure to incorrect
information about human sexuality long before a minor is able to
contextualize this information in ways an adult brain could.
- Overestimating the prevalence of less common practices (e.g., group sex, bestiality, or sadomasochistic activity)
Porn and its Psychological Effects
In
1982 and 1984, Dr. Dolf Zillmann and Dr. Jennings Bryant conducted an
experiment with 80 male and 80 female college-age participants.101 These
were divided into three subgroups, and each group was shown 4 hours and
48 minutes of media over a six-week period: (1) the “Massive Exposure
Group” was shown 36 non-violent pornographic film clips; (2) the
“Intermediate Exposure Group” was exposed to 18 pornographic film clips
and 18 regular films; and (3) the “No Exposure” control group was shown
36 non-pornographic film clips.
- A direct correlation was
noticed between the amount of pornography one viewed and one’s overall
sexual satisfaction. Participants from the Massive Exposure Group
reported less satisfaction with their intimate partner, such as their
partner’s physical appearance, affection, and sexual performance. Researchers concluded, “consumers eventually compare appearance and performance of pornographic models with that of their intimate partners, and this comparison rarely favors their intimate partners.”
- Those exposed to more pornography attached more value to casual sex (i.e. sex without emotional involvement).
-
When asked if minors should be protecting from seeing pornography, 84%
of the No Exposure Group, 54% of the Intermediate Exposure Group, and
37% of the Massive Exposure Group said yes.
- Porn seemed to condition participants to trivialize rape.
Participants were asked to read about a legal case where a man raped a
female hitchhiker and then recommend a length for the rapist’s prison
sentence. Males in the No Exposure Group said 94 months; the Massive
Exposure Group said 50 months (nearly half that of the No Exposure
Group).
- Participants were asked to rate their overall support for women’s rights. Both men and women who were in the Massive Exposure Group showed significant drops in support
compared to the No Exposure Group. There was 71% male support in the No
Exposure Group compared to 25% in the Massive Exposure Group and 82%
female support in the No Exposure Group compared to 52% in the Massive
Exposure Group.
- When asked how common or popular certain sexual activities were in the general population — activities like anal sex, group sex, sadomasochism, and bestiality — the percentages given by the Massive Exposure Group were two to three times higher than the No Exposure Group.
- The Massive Exposure Group was far more likely to believe women fit the stereotype of the women they see in pornographic films — that is, “socially
non-discriminating, as hysterically euphoric in response to just about
any sexual or pseudosexual stimulation,and as eager to accommodate
seemingly any and every sexual request.”
- Additionally, two
weeks after they stopped seeing videos, all participants were given an
assortment of pornographic and non-pornographic films to watch in
private. Those who were exposed to more pornography were significantly
more likely to want to watch hardcore porn.
In a 2002
study, 71 male undergraduate students were divided into 3 groups. Each
group watched 10-11-minute video segments: a sexually-explicit and
degrading film, a sexually-explicit educational film, and a non-sexual
film. Later the men were placed side-by-side with a woman in a seemingly
unrelated social experiment.
- Viewers of the sexually-explicit
film displayed more dominance and anxiety, ignored contributions of
their partner more often, touched their partner for longer periods of
time, and averted their partner’s gaze more compared to viewers of the
non-sexual film.
- Viewers of the sexually-explicit and degrading
film spent longer periods of time averting their partner’s touch and
gazing at their partner’s face, interrupted their partner more, advanced
to touch their partner more, and made more sexual references compared
to viewers of the sexually-explicit film.
In 2005, a study of youth between the ages of 10 and 17 concluded that there is a significant relationship between frequent porn use and feelings of loneliness and major depression.
Gary
R. Brooks, Ph.D., describes what he observes as a “pervasive disorder”
linked to the consumption of soft- core pornography like Playboy. He
mentions five main symptoms of this:
Voyeurism: An
obsession with looking at women rather than interacting with them. This
can apply to far more than pornography, including any consumption of the
“sexuality-on-tap” culture in which we live; media glorifies and
objectifies women’s bodies, thus promoting unreal images of women,
feeding male obsession with visual stimulation and trivializing other
mature features of a healthy sexual relationship.
Objectification:
An attitude in which women are objects rated by size, shape and harmony
of body parts. Sexual fantasy leads to emotional unavailability and
dissatisfaction.
Validation: The need to validate
masculinity through beautiful women. Women who meet centerfold standards
only retain their power as long as they maintain “perfect” bodies and
the lure of unavailability; it is very common for a man’s fantasy sexual
encounter to include a feeling of manly validation; it is also common
for men to feel invalidated by their wives if they have trained their
minds and bodies to respond only to the fantasy advances of their dream
girl.
Trophyism: The idea that beautiful women are
collectibles who show the world who a man is. Pornography reinforces the
women’s-bodies-as-trophies mentality.
Fear of True Intimacy:
Inability to relate to women in an honest and intimate way despite deep
loneliness. Pornography exalts a man’s sexual needs over his need for
sensuality and intimacy; some men develop a preoccupation with
sexuality, which powerfully handicaps their capacity for emotionally
intimate relationships.
“Prolonged exposure to pornography, it must be remembered, results in
both a loss of respect for female sexual autonomy and the disinhibition
of men in the expression of aggression against women.” - Dr. James B. Weaver.
Porn and Addiction
10% of adults admit to having an addiction to online pornography (IFR, 2006).
In a survey of 63 wives of self-identified sex addicts:
- 70% met most criteria for a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
- 75%
discovered evidence of compulsive or addictive sexual behaviors
themselves (as opposed to a planned disclosure on the part of a
husband).
- 71% demonstrated a severe level of functional impairment in major areas of their lives.
- Length
of marriage at disclosure and number of prior traumatic event exposures
were the best predictors increased trauma symptoms.
“[M]odern
science allows us to understand that the underlying nature of an
addiction to pornography is chemically nearly identical to a heroin
addiction.” - Dr. Jeffrey Satinovet
“Pornography triggers a myriad
of endogenous, internal, natural drugs that mimic the ‘high’ from a
street drug. Addiction to pornography is addiction to what I dub
erototoxins—mind altering drugs produced by the viewer’s own brain.” -
Dr. Judith Reisman
Porn, Violence and Rape
88.2% of top rated porn scenes contain aggressive acts principally spanking, gagging, and slapping, while 48.7% of scenes
contained verbal aggression, primarily name-calling.
- In 70% of occurrences, a man is perpetrator of the aggression; 94% of the time the act is directed towards a woman.
- Only 9.9% of the top selling scenes analyzed contained behaviors such as kissing, laughing, caressing, or verbal compliments.
- Open-hand slapping occurs in 41.1% of scenes.
- Sex depicted in porn movies generally focuses on men’s sexual
pleasure and orgasm, rather than equally that of women’s (Bridges and
Wosnitzer, 2007)
Porn scenes have sexist and racist themes through out. Websites
often contain menus where users can select genres of women’s
ethnicities, body types, and ages. There are also choices such as
“amateur,” “interracial”, and the ever popular “teen” category. Men and
women who are anything other than white are represented in stereotypical
and demeaning ways.
Studies show that after viewing pornography men are more likely to:
- report decreased empathy for rape victims
- have increasingly aggressive behavioral tendencies
- report believing that a woman who dresses provocatively deserves to be raped
- report anger at women who flirt but then refuse to have sex
- report decreased sexual interest in their girlfriends or wives
- report increased interest in coercing partners into unwanted sex acts (Bridges, 2006) (Yang, Gahyun, 2012).
In
a meta-analysis of 46 studies published from 1962 to 1995, comprising a
total sample of 12,323 people, researchers concluded pornographic
material puts one at increased risk of:
- developing sexually deviant tendencies (31% increase in risk)
- committing sexual offenses (22% increase in risk)
- accepting rape myths (31% increase in risk)
Among
perpetrators of sex crimes, adolescent exposure to pornography is a
significant predictor of elevated violence and victim humiliation.
In
a study of 30 college fraternity members on a small liberal arts
campus, the displayed images of women (in posters, screensavers,
calendars, pin-ups, and advertisements) were analyzed for their
frequency and degrading nature. There was a significant association
between the average degradation ratings of the images and the student’s
rape-supportive attitude scale (RSA)
In a study of 187 female university students, researchers concluded early exposure to pornography was related to subsequent “rape fantasies”
and attitudes supportive of sexual violence against women. Researchers
believe pornography consumed at a young age contributes to women being socialized to accept sexual aggression as a sexual/romantic event.
In 2004 data was collected from interviews with 271 women participating in a battered women’s program. Pornography use by their partner significantly increased the odds of women being sexually abused by their abusers. When their abuser used both alcohol and pornography, the odds of sexual abuse increase by a factor of 3.2.
Arrested
prostitution clients are twice as likely to report having watched
pornographic movies over the past year than a national sample.
Japanese
males were divided into three groups and each exposed to different
types of home video pornography: a positive rape film (where the female
expressed pleasure), a negative rape film (where the female expressed
pain), or a consenting sex film. Those who viewed the positive rape film were significantly more likely to state that women could enjoy rape and higher percentages of rape cases are invented by victims.
In
a study of 804 Italian adolescents, ages 14 to 19 years old, viewing
pornography was correlated to both active and passive sexual violence
and unwanted sex.
“Women are represented as passive and as slavishly dependent upon men.
The role of female characters is limited to the provision of sexual
services to men. To the extent that women’s sexual pleasure is
represented at all, it is subordinated to that of men and is never an
end in itself as is the sexual pleasure of men. What pleases women is
the use of their bodies to satisfy male desires. While the sexual
objectification of women is common to all pornography, women are the
recipients of even worse treatment in violent pornography, in which
women characters are killed, tortured, gang-raped, mutilated, bound, and
otherwise abused, as a means of providing sexual stimulation or
pleasure to the male characters.” - Helen Longino
Research indicates that 25% to 30% of male college students in the
United States and Canada admit that there is some likelihood they would
rape a woman if they could get away with it. (Briere and Malamuth, 1983)
In a study of high school males, 50% of those interviewed believed it
acceptable “for a guy to hold a girl down and force her to have sexual
intercourse in instances such as when ‘she gets him sexually excited’ or
‘she says she’s going to have sex with him and then changes her mind’”
(Goodchilds and Zellman, 1984)
“I went to a porno bookstore, put a quarter in a slot, and saw this porn
movie. It was just a guy coming up from behind a girl and attacking her
and raping her. That’s when I started having rape fantasies. When I saw
that movie, it was like somebody lit a fuse from my childhood on up… I
just went for it, went out and raped.” Rapist interviewed by Beneke,
1982
The following statements were made by women testifying at the Hearings
on Pornography in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1993 (Russell, 1993a).
- Ms.
M testified that, “I agree to act out in private a lot of the scenarios that my husband
read to me. These depicted bondage and different sexual acts that I
found humiliating to do…He read the pornography like a textbook, like a
journal. When he finally convinced me to be bound, he read in the
magazine how to tie the knots and bind me in a way that I couldn’t
escape. Most of the scenes where I had to dress up or go through
different fantasies were the exact same scenes that he has read in the
magazines.”
- Ms. O described a case in which a man ‘brought pornographic magazines, books, and paraphernalia into the
bedroom with him and told her that if she did not perform the sexual
acts in the “dirty” books and magazines, he would beat her and kill her’
- Ms. S testified about the experience of a group of women prostitutes who, she said, ‘were forced constantly to enact specific scenes that men had witnessed
in pornography…These men… would set up scenarios, usually with more
than one woman, to copy scenes that they had seen portrayed in magazines
and books. [For example, Ms. S quoted a woman in her group as saying:]
“He held up a porn magazine with a picture of a beaten woman and said,
‘I want you to look like that. I want you to hurt.’ He then began
beating me. When I did not cry fast enough, he lit a cigarette and held
it right above my breast for a long time before he burned me.”
- Ms. S. also described what three men did to a nude woman prostitute whom they had tied up while she was seated on a chair: “They burned her with cigarettes and attached nipple clips to her
breasts. They had many S and M magazines with them and showed her many
pictures of women appearing to consent, enjoy, and encourage this abuse.
She was held for twelve hours while she was continuously raped and
beaten.”
- Another example cited by Ms. S: “They (several Johns) forced the women to act simultaneously with the
movie. In the movie at this point, a group of men were urinating on a
naked woman. All the men in the room were able to perform this task, so
they all started urinating on the woman who was now naked.”
Non-violent
heterosexual porn often becomes ‘too boring’ and leads (commonly) men
to seek out more ‘interesting’ and ‘exciting’ types of pornography:
often including abuse and rape. (Zillman and Bryant) (Briere and
Malamuth)
Porn and Relationships
[At] a gathering of the nation’s divorce
lawyers, attendees revealed that 58% of their divorces were a result of a
spouse looking at excessive amounts of pornography online.
According to the Journal of Adolescent Health, prolonged exposure to pornography leads to:
- An exaggerated perception of sexual activity in society
- Diminished trust between intimate couples
- The abandonment of the hope of sexual monogamy
- Belief that promiscuity is the natural state
- Belief that abstinence and sexual inactivity are unhealthy
- Cynicism about love or the need for affection between sexual partners
- Belief that marriage is sexually confining
- Lack of attraction to family and child-raising
According
to sociologist Jill Manning, the research indicates pornography
consumption is associated with the following six trends, among others:
1. Increased marital distress, and risk of separation and divorce
2. Decreased marital intimacy and sexual satisfaction
3. Infidelity
4. Increased appetite for more graphic types of pornography and sexual activity associated with abusive, illegal or unsafe practices
5. Devaluation of monogamy, marriage and child rearing
6. An increasing number of people struggling with compulsive and addictive sexual behavior
In a survey of women (and some men) who experienced serious adverse consequences from their partner’s cybersex involvement:
- In 68% of the couples, one or both lost interest in relational sex: 52% of showed a decreased interest, as did 34% of partners.
- Partners commonly reported feeling hurt, betrayed, rejected, abandoned, lonely, isolated, humiliated, jealous, and angry.
- Partners often compared themselves unfavorably to online images.
- Partners overwhelmingly felt that cyber affairs were as emotionally painful as offline affairs.
Porn and Sexual Dysfunction
“I have also seen in my clinical experience that pornography damages the sexual performance of the viewers. Pornography viewers tend to have problems with premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction. Having
spent so much time in unnatural sexual experiences with paper,
celluloid and cyberspace, they seem to find it difficult to have sex
with a real human being. Pornography is raising their expectation and
demand for types and amounts of sexual experiences; at the same time it
is reducing their ability to experience sex.” – Dr. MaryAnne Layden
Porn and Sex Trafficking / Sexual Slavery
There are [an estimated] 12.3 million people in forced labor, bonded labor, forced
child labor, and sexual servitude at any given time; other estimates
range from 4 million to 27 million (Trafficking in Persons Report.
Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2006).
Each year sexual traffickers lure, coerce, trick, drug, kidnap, and sell
millions of vulnerable women and children into the multi-billion dollar
sex trade. In their daily lives victims of sexual trafficking endure
unspeakable acts of physical brutality, violence and degradation
including rape by so-called customers and pimps; undergo forced
abortions; acquire drug and alcohol dependencies; live in fear of their
lives and in fear for the lives of their family and friends; suffer
acute psychological reactions as a result of their extreme physical and
emotional trauma; and contract sexually transmitted diseases which all
too often bring life-long illness or hasten death. If they survive, the
physical, psychological and spiritual impacts of these experiences on
victims are devastating and enduring (Initiative Against Sexual
Trafficking, Accessed October 31, 2007).
UNICEF reports that across the world, there are over one million
children entering the sex trade every year and that approximately 30
million children have lost their childhood through sexual exploitation
over the past 30 years (Commercial sexual exploitation position
statement. UNICEF UK. 2004, January 28)
From fiscal year 2001 through fiscal year 2005, the Civil Rights
Division and United States Attorney’s Offices filed 91 trafficking
cases, a 405% increase over the number of trafficking cases filed from
fiscal years 1996 through 2000. (U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. 2006, February).
$19 Billion generated annually on the street from human trafficking
(Christine Dolan, The Global Coalition to End Human Trafficking NOW).
Porn, Prostitution and Health Risks
Foremost among the health risks of prostitution is premature death… by far the most common causes of death were homicide, suicide, drug and
alcohol related problems, HIV infection and accidents - in that order. (Canadian Medical Association Journal. 2004, July 24).
The Average Life Expectancy of a Porn Star is 36.2 years
Chlamydia and Gonorrhea among performers is 10x greater than that of LA County 20-24 year olds.
66% - 99% porn stars have Herpes, a non-curable diseases
Porn performers experience higher rates of infection (20%) than general public (2.4%)
Only 17% of performers use condoms in heterosexual adult films.
In 2004, only two of 200 adult film companies required the use of condoms.
Porn Performers and Abuse
“[Porn
actresses] have high rates of substance abuse, typically alcohol and
cocaine… [many] have to be drunk, high or dissociated in order to go
to work.” – Dr. MaryAnne Layden
“ [Porn actresses] have high rates of… depression and borderline personality disorder.” – Dr. MaryAnne Layden
“The drugs we binged on were Ecstasy, Cocaine, Marijuana, Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and alcohol.” - Porn actress Erin Moore
“Guys are punching you in the face. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you.
It’s never ending. You’re viewed as an object — not as a human with a
spirit. People do drugs because they can’t deal with the way they’re
being treated.” - Tanya Burleson, formerly known as Jersey Jaxin,
“(
In pornography) our bodies are being stripped, exposed, and contorted
for the purpose of ridicule to bolster that “masculine esteem” which
gets its kick and sense of power from viewing females as anonymous,
panting playthings, adult toys, dehumanized objects to be used, abused,
broken and discarded.” - Susan Brownmiller, 1975
“In one case, a man who said he had participated in over a hundred pornographic movies testified at the Commission hearings
in Los Angeles as follows: “I, myself, have been on a couple of sets
where the young ladies have been forced to do even anal sex scenes with a
guy which [sic] is rather large and I have seen them crying in pain” (Diana Russel, ‘Pornography as a Cause of Rape’)
“Women and young girls were tortured and suffered permanent physical
injuries to answer publisher demands for photographs depicting
sadomasochistic abuse. When the torturer/photographer inquired of the
publisher as to the types of depictions that would sell, the
torturer/photographer was instructed to get similar existing
publications and use the depictions therein for instruction. The
torturer/photographer followed the publisher’s instructions, tortured
women and girls accordingly, and then sold the photographs to the
publisher. The photographs were included in magazines sold nationally in
pornographic outlets” (Diana Russel, ‘Pornography as a Cause of Rape’)
“This industry is full of people that hate - literally HATE women.” - Julie Meadows, former porn star
“I got the shit kicked out of me. I was told before the video - and they
said this very proudly, mind you - that in this line most of the girls
start crying because they’re hurting so bad … I couldn’t breathe. I was
being hit and choked.
I was really upset, and they didn’t stop. They kept filming. You can
hear me say, ‘Turn the fucking camera off,’ and they kept going.” —Regan
Starr, on the filming of “Rough Sex 2.” Quoted in Martin Amis’ “A
Rough Trade”
“Over the course of my porn career I have been belittled and
treated like a piece of trash more than I could have ever imagined in a
lifetime I would. I wasn’t a woman in any of these directors eyes, I was
nothing to them. The male talent at times were nice, but sometimes,
they were horrible. I’ve had men choke me, slap me, thrust me so hard
until I couldn’t walk and this would happen even after I would tell them
to stop. They have no respect for women.” - Erin Moore
“My first scene was one of the worst experiences of my life. It
was very scary. It was a very rough scene. My agent didn’t let me know
ahead of time… I did it and I was crying and they didn’t stop. It was
really violent. He was hitting me.” - Sierra Sinn
“My pussy was so swollen, it was unbelievable. And the next day, I
was obligated to work for Cherry Boxxx. And that f—ed me up even more.
Working three scenes after having been so injured f—– me up. For a
good six months, I wasn’t normal. My pussy wasn’t normal until a couple
of months ago. It just sucks.“ - Eva Angelina
“I love the money, the glamor. I like being recognized. I like the
attention. What I don’t like is not being able to shit right. You are
constantly doing enemas and you’re fasting and you’re taking all these
different pills, ex lax, and it screws up your internal system.” - Kami Andrews
“It was torture for seven years. I was miserable, I was lonely. I
eventually turned to drugs and alcohol, and attempted suicide. I knew I
wanted out, but I didn’t know how to get out.” - Jenna Presley
“ I experienced rough sex scenes and have been hit by male talent
and told them to stop but they wouldn’t stop until I started to cry and
ruined the scene. During one specific scene called “Bukkake” I was
really high and the producers knew it and they told me to use a Douche
to pretend I was urinating on another performer but I had an accident
and instead I defecated on the performer. I was so humiliated and wanted
to die. They told me it was okay and not to worry that they weren’t
going to make a big deal about it and the next thing I know they blasted
the scene all over the web. I felt totally degraded.“ - Michelle Avanti
“Well, I grew up in a small town in Ohio , and when I was 10 years
old, I was raped by a high school boy that was about 16. And from
there, my mother had an older boyfriend that molested me, so my entire
childhood was really shaped by these really traumatic sexual
experiences, which ultimately led me to the streets of Hollywood and to
porn.” - Traci Lords
“After a year or so of that so-called “glamorous” life, I sadly
discovered that drugs and drinking were a part of the lifestyle. I began
to drink and party out of control! Cocaine, alcohol and ecstasy were my
favorites. Before long, I turned into a person I did not want to be.
After doing so many hardcore scenes I couldn’t do it anymore. I just
remember being in horrible situations and experiencing extreme
depression and being alone and sad.” - Andi Anderson
“I shot scenes where I had to pretend to be dead and let someone
rape my dead body. I came home bruised and sometimes a little bloody
from the rough scenes. I shot deep throat scenes where they slapped me
and spit on me and called me horrible things. I threw up, and had to
keep shooting.. I couldn’t breathe because of the vomit in my nose and
the genitals in my mouth.” - Emily Eve
“Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films – in which
they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and
penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her
name is Bitch. And these girls, some of whom have the potential to
become major stars in the industry, go home afterward and pledge never
to do it again because it was such a terrible experience.” - Jenna Jameson
”So what porn gave me was debt, diseases and people who think I’m a used up whore.“ - Anita Remby
“I like to hide — hide everything, you know?… And I’m not
happy… I don’t like myself at all… My whole entire body feels it
when I’m doing it and… I feel so — so gross.” - Belladonna
“When I arrived to the set I expected to do a vaginal girl boy
scene. But during the scene with a male porn star, he forced himself
anally into me and would not stop. I yelled at him to stop and screamed
‘No’ over and over but he would not stop. The pain became too much and I
was in shock and my body went limp.” - Corina Taylor
“My initiation into prostitution was a gang rape by five men,
arranged by Mr. Traynor. It was the turning point in my life. He
threatened to shoot me with the pistol if I didn’t go through with it. I
had never experienced anal sex before and it ripped me apart. They
treated me like an inflatable plastic doll, picking me up and moving me
here and there. They spread my legs this way and that, shoving their
things at me and into me, they were playing musical chairs with parts of
my body. I have never been so frightened and disgraced and humiliated
in my life. I felt like garbage. I engaged in sex acts for pornography
against my will to avoid being killed. The lives of my family were
threatened.” - Linda Lovelace
“I honestly felt that if I had to have another strange man in my
face, his hands (God knows where they’ve been all over me) him calling
me his baby and having to exude some sort of forged passion for the
world to see, I probably would have exploded. And what would have been
stuck to the walls would have probably been nothing, just pieces of
skin, bone, the brain of a robot, and what would have been left of what
would have existed once as a huge and warm heart.“ - Ashlyn Brooke
“A female porn star that’d been in the industry for a while had excessive
anal intercourse and a piece of her muscle from her anus fell out on
set while she was filming. Some females damaged their reproductive
systems which left them unable to have children. A male porn star broke
the muscle in his penis because he was having abnormal and outrageous
rough sex… Both male and female porn stars were
committing suicide. A lot of the porn stars were known to go overseas
and do bestiality in porn. (Sleeping with animals.) Shortly after that,
a numerous amount of people starting turning up with diseases, Herpes
to be exact. - Danielle Williams
“Donkey Punch was the most brutal, depressing, scary scene that I
have ever done. I have tried to block it out from my memory due to the
severe abuse I recieved during the filming. The guy, Steve French has a
natural hatred towards women in the sense that he has always been known
to be more brutal than EVER needed. I agreed to do the scene thinking it
was less beating, except the ‘punch’ in the head. If you noticed, steve
had worn his solid gold ring the entire time, and continued to punch me
with it. I actually stopped the scene while it was being filmed because
I was in too much pain.“ - Alex Devine
"I went through more heartbreaks and became suicidal. I was taken
to the hospital for panic attacks. I tried to overdose on xanax,
strangle myself, and cut my wrists but not nearly deep enough. I was too
scared of the pain. I prayed God would just take me away! I felt
helpless.“ - Crissy Moran
"I tried porn a year-and-a-half ago for three weeks. They [my
agent DK] booked me for everything I didn’t want to do. I was in the
hospital three times. Allergic to lube. Being pounded too hard. My
cervix closed up. My ass got torn up.“ - Tiana Lynn
"Being in the world of adult modeling I see A LOT of pain… A LOT
of heart break. SO many lost girls get into this business just for some
extra money… to help pay for school… to help support themselves or
even their children as single moms. "It’s just temporary”. They are only
going to do this for a while…just a few shoots. I too started out to
make some extra money to help me finish school. Almost ALL of the time
It doesn’t end where you think it will…..the path goes on… the
hole gets deeper… and the road gets darker. MOST of the time the girls
don’t even realize it. One day you see this bright beautiful girl
shooting tame nudes… the next they are signing on the dotted line of a
hard-core porn company. Lost. Broken. Alone.“ - Erica Campbell
”As I continued to make harder and grosser porn, I transformed from
victim into abuser. In my professional life, I began to act out like a
man and abuse women on camera. With a strapped on dildo, I did to women
exactly what men had done to me. I even knew how to selfishly stroke
myself like a man. All those years in prostitution watching male pigs
paid off. The men in porn were even worse pigs, ejaculating themselves
on any weak woman on any sacred place on her body. I acted out in
revenge the very thing I hated: a male pig.“ - Foxy Roxy
"Like most porn performers I perpetuated this lie. One of my
favorite things to say when asked if I liked doing a particular scene
was, "I only do what I like! I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t like it!” (I
would say this with a big fake smile and giggle.) What a total lie! I
did what I had to do to get “work” in porn. I did what I knew would help
me gain “fame” in the industry.“ - Alexa Cruz
"I did gonzo porn to start out and it was the most degrading,
embarrassing, horrible thing ever! I had to shoot an interactive DVD
which takes hours and hours of shooting time with a 104 degree fever! I
was crying and wanted to leave but my agent wouldn’t let me he said he
couldn’t let me flake on it. I also did a scene where I was put with
male talent that was on my no list. I wanted to please them so I did it.
He put his foot on my head and stepped on it while he was doing me from
behind. I freaked out and started balling; they stopped filming and
sent me home with reduced pay since they got some shot but not the whole
scene.” - Jessi Summers
“My worst day was when I was forced to use a sponge to do a scene
because it was already booked and my monthly came early I had never did
anything like this. The sponge was pushed so far and got stuck that I
had to be taken into the hospital because I had caught a infection and
they had to open me up to remove the sponge. I wasn’t able to work for a
few weeks and the agent stole two of my checks to replace the money he
didn’t get from me leaving me broke and without food.” - Mahlia Milian
“I didn’t want to feel the pain of penetration from an over
average sized man, being told to freeze in a position until the camera
man was happy with his shots was very painful. I had peoples body fluids
forced on my face or anywhere else the producer pleased and I had to
accept it or else no pay. Sometimes you would get to a gig and the
producer would change what the scene was supposed to be to something
more intense and again if you didn’t like it, too bad, you did it or no
pay.” - Elizabeth Rollings
“I had bodily fluids all over my face that had to stay on my face
for ten minutes. The abuse and degradation was rough. I sweated and was
in deep pain. On top of the horrifying experience, my whole body ached,
and I was irritable the whole day. The director didn’t really care how I
felt; he only wanted to finish the video.” - Genevieve
“My first movie I was treated very rough by 3 guys. They pounded on
me, gagged me with their penises, and tossed me around like I was a
ball! I was sore, hurting and could barely walk. My insides burned and
hurt so badly. I could barely pee and to try to have a bowel movement
was out of the question. I was hurting so bad from the physical abuse
from these 3 male porn stars!” - Alexa Milano
“I was sexually abused the first time by my step grandfather on my
dad’s side and the second time by my actual stepdad so my sexuality was
messed up from the beginning. I created another personality that was in
complete control and didn’t have those things happen and didn’t have to
deal with the pain. The industry is not a real accomplishment. It’s
just a false sense of accomplishment. It covers everything up for what
it is.” - Stephanie Swift
“People in the porn industry are numb to real life and are like
zombies walking around. The abuse that goes on in this industry is
completely ridiculous. The way these young ladies are treated is totally
sick and brainwashing. I left due to the trauma I experienced even
though I was there only a short time.” - Jessie Jewels
“I hung out with a lot of people in the Adult industry, everybody
from contract girls to gonzo actresses. Everybody has the same problems.
Everybody is on drugs. It’s an empty lifestyle trying to fill up a
void… I became horribly addicted to heroin and crack. I overdosed at least
3 times, had tricks pull knives on me, have been beaten half to death-
the only reason I am still here is God.” - Becca Brat
Disturbing Quotes by Pornographers
“Amateurs come across better on screen. Our customers feel that. Especially by women you can see it. They still feel strong pain.” – Carlo Scalisi, owner of 21 Sexury Video
"Where else but in porn can you see a guy who just met a girl that day
crack her around, choke her out.” - Brandon Iron
“I’m not here to apologize. I’m just here to say, ‘We make entertainment and let’s see how far we can take it.’” - Max Hardcore
“Degradation drives the business. … There are things going on right now that are way over the line.” - Khan Tusion
“Even the mildest pornography is shocking to the average person. I’m surprised it’s legal.” - Paul Thomas
“The girls get torn up like usual.” - Vince Vouyer
“I find myself not that much unlike the slaves and slave traders of some
400 years ago. I participate in the most heinous of ALL trades- THE
BUYING AND SELLING OF HUMAN FLESH. I trade my own flesh for monetary
compensation and I sell the flesh of others for the same.” - Lexington
Steele
“I was the first to shoot Rocco. Together we evolved toward rougher
stuff. He started to spit on girls. A strong male-dominant thing, with
women being pushed to their limit. It looks like violence but it’s not. I
mean, pleasure and pain are the same thing, right?” - John Stagliano
“I can like a rape scene if I really like the girl and it’s done well…I’m
all about the sex and pretty girls and appreciating them.”
—Pornographer John Stagliano, quoted in Robert Jensen’s Getting Off
“It’s like a dog marking its territory.
You know, why do dogs pee on fire hydrants and trees? I don’t know.
It’s just like a man will leave his mark on a woman. You see something
beautiful, you’ve got to let them know you were there.” –Pornographer
Brandon Iron, explaining why men like to ejaculate onto women’s faces
“Essentially, it comes from every man who’s unhappily married,
and he looks at his wife who just nagged at him about this or that or
whatnot, and he says, “I’d like to fuck you in the ass.” He’s angry at her, right? And he can’t, so he would rather watch some girl taking it up the ass and fantasize at that point he’s doing whatever girl happened to be mean to him that particular day, and that is the attraction, because when people watch anal, nobody wants to watch a girl enjoying anal” —Paul Hesky of Multimedia Pictures, as quoted by Robert Jensen in Getting Off.
“I’d like to really show what I believe the men want to see: violence against women. I firmly believe that we serve a purpose by showing that. The most violent we can get is the cum shot in the face.
Men
get off behind that, because they get even with the women they can’t
have. We try to inundate the world with orgasms in the face.” – Ex-porn
actor and Free Speech Coalition board member Bill Margold, quoted by
Stoller and Levine.
“My whole reason for being in this Industry is to satisfy the
desire of the men in the world who basically don’t much care for women
and want to see the men in my Industry getting even with the women they
couldn’t have when they were growing up. I strongly believe
this… so we come on a woman’s face or somewhat brutalize her sexually:
we’re getting even for their lost dreams. I believe this. I’ve
heard audiences cheer me when I do something foul on screen. When I’ve
strangled a person or sodomized a person, or brutalized a person, the
audience is cheering my action, and then when I’ve fulfilled my warped
desire, the audience applauds.” - Bill Margold, porn industry veteran and Free Speech Coalition board member.
“When I shot that trailer for Thanksgiving, I really
thought there was no problem with anything - it just shows you how
genuinely out of touch I am! I was like…a full frontal labial shot, to
camera, of a girl landing on a knife seemed like no problem to me. It’s
an exploitation movie. It’s my job to exploit. If I don’t exploit this girl, I have failed as a director.” -From an interview with Eli Roth found on filmjerk.com
“Every
whore gets the swirlies treatment. Fuck her, then flush her.”
—Promotional copy for Swirlies, a series where women’s heads are put
into toilets and flushed, by JM Productions
“There’s
nothing I love more than when a girl insists to me that she won’t take a
cock in her ass, because — oh yes she will!“ -Max Hardcore, interviewed
in Hustler (June 1995).
“Women are here to serve men.
Look at them, they got to squat to piss. Hell, that proves it.” — Larry
Flynt, Hustler’s publisher, quoted on The Anti-porn Resource Center
“T.T. reflects exactly what that sort of porno is about where you screw
the hell out of the woman and come all over her face. He throws girls
around. He pile-drives till they protest…He’s just aggression.”
In an interview in the April 1995 issue of Hustler Erotic Video Guide,
T.T. Boy had this to say: “I was a shy little kid when I started, and
now I’m just a guy who wants to fuck the shit out of all these girls. Just fuck ‘em to death.” — Bud Swope and T. T. Boy, quoted in Susan Faludi’s ‘Stiffed’.
“There
are those who say illogic is the native tongue of anything with
tits…(women) speak not from the heart but from the gash, and chances are
that at least once a month your chick will stop you dead in your tracks
with a masterpiece of cunt rhetoric…the one surefire way to stop
those feminine lips from driving you crazy is to put something between
them — like your cock, for instance.” — Hustler Magazine, quoted on The Anti-porn Resource Center (oneangrygirl.net/antiporn.html).
"We do a series called ‘Cocktails’ — it’s pretty repugnant. Girls have
sex by a couple guys, and the guys and the girl, they have sex with her,
and she’s giving fellatio and she’s hacking up boogies in a
bowl. And they’re spitting in the bowl. And then she’ll think she’s
vomiting in the bowl, and at the end they come in the bowl. And then she
drinks it all down. That’s pretty repugnant. (Laughs)
Sometimes we do a fellatio line, where the girl’s giving fellatio, and
she’s gagging so much she vomits. … It’s repugnant. It is, Yes.
We’ve got tons of stuff they technically could arrest us for. And
when
this happened, I put on our website — I made a big speech: ‘I welcome
the LAPD to come on down.’ I said, ‘Come and get me,’ I said, “Because
we won’t go down without a fight. We will fight this. Regardless of the
cost, we will fight it. We will take it to the airwaves.” —Rob Black,
Extreme Associates (Source:
pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/interviews/black.html).
“Women were born with three holes for one purpose: To cram a
cock deep inside every cuddly cavity! Like true cock sockets, our whores
subject their beautiful bodies to the nastiest 4-way debauchery ever
lensed. We capture five starry-eyed sluts getting wild and
testing the limits of carnal cock-consumption. They redefine raunchy and
stretch the limits of ass, mouth, and pussy penetration.” — Promotional
copy for Zero Tolerance - No Holes Barred.
"Max fucks chicks he finds the way you like to — getting cute cunts on
his couch. Using their tight holes to pleasure his stiff cock. Max turns
ordinary teens and mother’s [sic] alike into piss and cum-splattered
sluts before your eyes… Max wastes no time, gagging girls on his
cock and pissing down their throats before he even learns their email
addresses! Max is the originator of rectal-boring action — gaping
assholes, and fisting cunts…
Max also uses speculums to pry-open their fuck-holes so you can look
deep inside. He’ll spray his cum and piss into the gaping tunnels, even
making them drink it out of their ass! Whether its [sic] naïve teen or
classy broad, Max delivers the same ruthless treatment.” — Excerpt of
“Max Hardcore Biography”, Max Hardcore official website (Source:
maxhardcore.com/whoismax/index.htm).
Porn Search Trends
A Google search for ‘bestiality’ generated 2.7 million returns.
A Google Trends analysis indicates that searches for “Teen Porn” have more than tripled between 2005-2013.
35
of the top searched sexual interests account for 90% of all erotic
searches—meaning that people’s search curiosities “are clustered
together into a relatively small set of common interests.”
Videos & Documentaries (Graphic TW Reminder)
Shelley Lubben: Porn as a driver for prostitution and sex trafficking
Porn Actress Exposes Industry: Trafficking in the Porn Industry
Cindy Gallop: Make love, not porn [adult content]
“They call it fantasy,“ - Andrea Dworkin
Dr. Gail Dines: porn culture and rape culture’s intersecting roles in patriarchy
Ran Gavrieli: Why I Stopped Watching Porn [ a man’s perspective ]
Dr. Gail Dine’s lectures on pornography on youtube (1, 2, 3, 4)
Debate: Porn Wars (Does Porn Have A Place in Modern Society?) featuring anti-porn activists and former sex workers
“Demand” - by anti-sex trafficking organization Shared Hope International (18+)
“Harcdcore” - by director Stephen Walker (18+)
“Porn Shutdown” - This high impact and extremely informative documentary addresses the 2004 HIV outbreak in the pornography industry. (18+)
“Diary of a Porn Virgin” - This disturbing documentary follows the journey of two women through their start in the British pornography industry. (18+)
“Death of a Porn Star” - The tragic story of porn star Lolo Ferrari. (18+)
“Does Snuff Exist?” - This very graphic documentary examines the phenomenon of snuff films. (18+)
“Me and My Slaves” - This film follows the journey of a man who has practiced sadomasochism for many years who is choosing to stop. (18+)
“The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexualities, and Relationships.”This is the best current documentary on pornography (according to antipornography.org) (18+)
Hardcore Profits Pt 1 (18+)
Hardcore Profits Pt 1 at Wisevid (18+)
Hardcore Profits Pt 2 (18+)
American Porn (18+)
“Sex: The Annabel Chong Story” (Pt 1) (18+)
“Sex: The Annabel Chong Story” (Pt 2) (18+)
“Adult Entertainment: Disrobing An American Idol”
SNUFF: A Documentary About Killing on Camera (18+)
The Perfect Vagina
- A documentary about how women are getting their labias altered with
surgery to more resemble the “ideal” labia that men have been trained to
desire by pornography.
Nefarious: Merchant of Souls (2011)
Hot Girls Wanted (2015)
Articles
Pornography As a Cause of Rape (Book excerpt from Against Pornography:The Evidence of Harm) - Diana Russel
Exposure to Pornography As a Cause of Child Sexual Victimization - Diana Russel
What is Ethical Porn? What Does it Achieve?
Yale Journal of Law and Feminism: Prostitution, Trafficking, and Cultural Amnesia (2006) written by Melissa Farley
Jenna Jameson’s 25 Good Reasons No One Would Ever Want to Become a Porn Star
Sources & Resources
Stop Porn Culture: Facts and Figures
Your Brain on Porn: Focusing on Addiction and Erectile Dysfunction caused by Porn
Porn Harms | Research
The Pink Cross
Live Internet Porn Statistics
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