Do those of you that hate(!) porn have "any" desire at all to view it?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve often wondered about this question because one often sees people being very vocal and emotional about their opposition to porn films (to be specific), making it seem that their morality is so great that there’s virtually no room at all in their hearts to have any desire whatsoever to watch the stuff.

Or is it more of the case in which some, many, or most of such opponents of porn have every bit as much desire to watch it as those that aren’t oppossed to it and do watch it, but are somehow able to fight the desire and thus are not only able to avoid it but can also speak out strongly against it?

I’m sorry about not being able to frame this question very well. But just let me ask it this way to see if it makes more sense: For those of you that truly and seriously hate porn, is there any conflict within yourselves regarding it? (Because to me it doesn’t seem fair if one person is wired in such a way to like it, thus making him/her a perv; while the “moral” one has no need/use for it because he/she is wired differently, see?)

2

Seems to me that the best place to post your OP would be on another board, one where people have expressed a desre to get ride of porn.

On this board, a few people supported Bush’s desire to get rid of extreme porn, but there isn’t much of a case there.

3

I told my aunt and uncle that I liked to view good porn. They asked me what “good porn” is. I said, “Well, it’s like dancing. Nearly everybody can dance. You probably know somebody who can dance so well that it’s entertaining to watch them dance. There are even a few people who are good enough that you’d pay to watch them dance. It’s the same with porn.”

4

I don’t like porn, but won’t get in the way of anyone wanting to watch it. Just don’t include me. This is difficult?
I don’t claim any moral superiority to my disdain of porn. I also don’t see it as a character flaw of mine–it’s a personal taste issue.

I don’t see the need for it. I don’t need it for arousal or climax. It’s irrelevant to me, morally–as long as it’s with consenting adults, but you didn’t delve into kid porn.

I don’t know if I have answered your questions or not.

5

I think the OP is asking about people who come and say (loudly) “We should get rid of this filthry vile stuff!” and whether or not they have any desire to actually look at it.

6

Doesn’t sound to me like you “hate(!)” porn or want to ban it, so I’m guessing you’re not who the OP is talking about.

7

I suspect that, among the subset of people who think porn should be banned or whatever, the desire to watch it is just as rampant as it is in more porn-accepting circles. Sanctimonious people are just that. They’re still people. Even if they don’t watch it (I’m sure plenty do), as a group, they want to just as much as we do.

Slight hijack - I also think that abortion is just as prevalent among anti-abortionists as pro-choicers. I’s one thing to say you think it should be outlawed for everyone, another when you’re staring down the barrel yourself.

Sanctimonious people are people just like the rest of us; in the macro sense, we’re all wired the same.

8

This thread is better suited for In My Humble Opinion.

I’ll move it for you.

Cajun Man
for the SDMB

9

I don’t hate porn, I just don’t like watching it. I get absolutely nothing out of watching people perform sex on each other, be it male-female, female-female, male-male, or other.

I also hate watching sports, including sports I like to participate in.

I don’t mind watching naked women onscreen – that’s something different altogether, like a moving Playboy pictorial. And I don’t mind if the focus is elsewhere. I own a copy of Flesh Gordon, because OI love the parody and the effects, but the outright sex scenes seem an intrusion.
Other people can watch sex videos if they want to – I have no motral objections, but they simply do nothing for me personally.

10

I think this is a good question. Porn, the final product, may not be objectionable to many people, but much of porn is the product of a terribly predatory landscape of sexually abused runaways and those willing to capitalize on such vulnerability. And don’t kid yourself about the age of these kids getting started – you think if a seventeen year old can fake 21 to buy beer, she can fake 18 to “perform.” All that being said, it is hard to deny the erotic appeal of some porn.

11

Not a fair comment - they’re selling the product, not buying it. In other words, about as easy as faking your age in order to sell beer.

12

Ditto

13

But wait. There are probably a LOT of people who hate some porn and abide other porn. Like, I hate some porn and like other porn. I am really against some porn. The only people I can think of who hate all porn are people who don’t make any distinction between hardcore and a romance novel where the characters have sex scenes. For everyone else on the planet there are shades of grey to it. Lots of people hate hardcore but are okay with softcore or “erotica.” So they would want to look at some porn just not the things that offend them. And they might not even classify the things they like as porn. But since one man’s erotica is another man’s porn, it’s safe to say that lots of people who hate porn are looking at something someone else would call porn.

I would expect that most people who object to all porn wouldn’t even like this board since there is a lot of explicit talk that would be hard to avoid.

14

You made good points. Thanks.

15

Yup, that’s what I met. :cool:

16

On this message board, I might be the closest thing you’re gonna get to a true ideological porn-hater. And I’m not all that close.

Frankly, I wish I might encounter some that I might appreciate in the way that AskNott describes. Most of it just doesn’t do it for me.

OK, OK, onto topic. Andrea Dworkin and her comrades aren’t entirely right by any means but they aren’t entirely wrong. There are two problems:

a) The entirety of what which is depicted along with erogenous material becomes eroticized. While not all porn reflects male domination of women, or contempt towards women, some certainly does. Such porn does therefore (to the extent that it “works” for anyone) eroticize male dominance and contempt for women. C’mon, you’ve seen some of it, and as long as we both understand I’m not saying all porn does so, you can acknowledge that some of it does.

b) If we can all agree that we do live in a world where women are, to a meaningful and substantial extent, more sought after for directly sexual purposes by men than vice versa – a world oriented more towards male appetite and female sex objects than the other way around – the erotically consumable imagery of women pours extra lighter fluid on that disequilibrium, advertising the sexual availability of women that may not exist (at least not to the extent advertised and to the extent the advertisements are consumed). If I may be so bold as to make a theoretical claim without immediate solid empirical evidence to back it up: lots of males exposed to such promises blame women in general for not making good on those promises, or not making good on them often enough, etc.
Now, having said that much, I will now diverge from the feminist anti-porn contingent to make the following counterpoints / elaborations:

c) The subject matter of that which is eroticized within pornography is, IMHO, most often a reflection of what people already find sexy, rather than a body of erotic propaganda against women. There is a certain degree of “vicious circling”, I’m sure, but honestly I don’t think the nature of porn is going to change except as a function of changes in how women, and sex with women, are perceived outside of porn. Or, to put it differently, I think this is more of a dependent variable than an independent variable. And trying to address anti-woman trends in porn is at best a good feminist trend among consumers of porn (of which Dworkin was not) and at worst a confusion of symptom and problem, one that diverts feminist energies from the bigger picture.

d) With regards to the problems stemming from the depiction of women as consumables, it’s not confined to porn. Girlie calendars selling paint or fiberglas resin, shots of bikini-clad women used in resort ads, and eroticized displays of actresses and pop stars all accomplish the same thing, and it’s a much bigger can of worms than pointing fingers at the much smaller collection of media that can be called “porn”. Ultimately I think the cat is way too far out of the bag until and unless the (conventionally: male) consumers of these images find the situation annoying. Feminist women can do consciousness-raising to get more guys to realize it isn’t real flesh-and-blood women who have done all of the promising of female availability, and that guys are being manipulated by images in an attempt to get them to buy things. Get more guys to realize it’s advertisers, not women themselves, dangling it in front of them.

17

At the risk of swerving offtopic, I think porn is one of those ‘things nobody does’ but everybody likes to talk about.

If there were a single pat statement, it’s that women and men are wired differently, and don’t see the things they like as being as bad as the stuff they don’t. By that I mean: ‘a world oriented more towards male appetite and female sex objects than the other way around’ caters to a male’s genetic desire to be fruitful and multiply just as much as the best selling pulp novels cater to more feminie desires.

Face it, billions and billions of dollars are spent on something most people wouldn’t admit at the church pulpit.

I don’t think the majority of men watching most mainstream porn think of women as sex objects…I think another issue is the manufacture of a certain type of woman as desireable. Face it, you can’t turn around without seeing dozens (and dozens and dozens) of better looking airbrushed, glowing sex appeal…but look at a representative crowd of real people and notice what percentage of them fit that mold. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t make a pretty good fantasy…that’s what fantasy is all about.

I’m not as taken with it as I once was. I think after you see 30 new faces every day getting it more than you, it gets depressing. A week of 30 new faces every single day is 200 folks all goin’ thru the same motions.

Like anything else, it’s not too bad in moderation, and like other things, it can really F*ck up the impressionable. (But so too can cars, guns, cigarettes, alcohol, adrenaline, food, religion, politics, etc. etc. etc.)

18

I am morally opposed to pornography involving profit from the physical body of people. (My opposition doesn’t extend to erotic writing that comes from the author’s imagination or voluntary non-profit nudity.)

To me, such pornography is a moral wrong. The closest correlate I can see is slavery. There probably is some type of porn that would provide me some type of pleasant stimulation. It’s a physical response, after all. But it’s just off the table for me because I believe some things shouldn’t be bought or sold. In some sense I could enjoy owning a slave, I suppose, but it’s obviously not something I would do since it is morally wrong.

Neither of these conflicts play much of a role in my day to day life. I have a feeling porn is like smoking, something of a continuum of habit and addiction. To me, they’re both things I just don’t do, and my life is filled with other things.

19

I agree, but would say that MOST porn involves dominance and at least mild contempt. It’s a male fantasty driven industry–I bought and watched In the Garden of Shadows because I heard that it was porn for women…and it is NOT porn for me. It still has the guy pulling the girl by the hair, yelling at her to suck his cock etc. It still features cum shots, the timing and rythm are all male-- I found it demeaning and abusive. So much for porn for women. I give up(yay).

I can back this with anecdotal evidence of my own. IMO, porn reinforces unrealistic expectations for SOME males. And I think that too much porn feeds an unhealthy dynamic for a relationship. IOW, porn will never let you down–porn never has a head cold or doesn’t orgasm, porn is always in the mood. Very unrealistic. Another reason I don’t like porn–it can interfere with intimacy in a relationship.

I can watch porn and indeed can become physically aroused by it–but I am not feeling turned on. I contend that the largest sex organ is the one between my ears–and if my brain isn’t saying, oh, baby let’s go (or whatever my brain would say)–it (orgasm) ain’t happening for me. So, porn doesn’t do it for me. YMMV.

I also agree that those who condemn porn the most stridently are those who are most likely secret consumers of it–afterall, one must continually check out the material to ensure that the level of outrage is warranted… :smiley:

20

I don’t “hate” porn per se. I don’t feel that porn should be banned by the government. I do find porn disgusting, I think people that use porn regularly are doing nothing but causing mental and spiritual harm to themselves.

Do I have any desire to view porn? No, not at all. So many people that are “into” porn think desire to view porn is synonymous with sexual desire. It is not so. Barring some sort of medical problem everyone has a sex drive, it is part of being human. I do desire sex from time to time as I believe 99% of the people in the world do. But I don’t desire to see or view porn. I have seen porn, and I honestly found it disgusting and it makes me uncomfortable.