# Is porn degrading the woman's image? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 27, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187 "2012-04-27T22:32:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/81 "2012-04-30T08:24:19Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > It’s worth nothing the liberal democracies have lots of porn and women’s rights, while (for example) the Islamic theocracies have neither, so I’d say social concerns about the effects of porn are a waste of time. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/82 "2012-04-30T12:19:20Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Porn also lets real people know just what other real people are trying and enjoying. Porn isn’t real. This is like arguing that people are learning how to survive a shipwreck by watching _Gilligan’s Island_. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Bloodless\_Turnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@Bloodless\_Turnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bloodless_Turnip)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/83 "2012-04-30T12:35:58Z")
> [@Green\_Cymbeline](#): > > One of the issues I am most concerned about when it comes to the issue of whether porn degrades woman is the trend of a preference for hairless genitals. For the past couple of decades, porn has increasingly featured actresses with shaven or waxed genitals. Men who grew up watching this became conditioned to be attracted to bald vaginas, thus exerting pressure on women to alter the natural state of their private area to be attractive to their mates. I resent this pressure. As a 30-something woman, men my age grew up at the beginning of this trend. I have encountered many anecdotes of men saying they preferred “shaven.” Luckily my last couple of boyfriends were OK with, even had a “fetish” for, my natural state of being, but I assure you this is the exception, not the rule, amongst people of my generation and younger. I think it’s damaging both for the young men who are wired to this preference from watching porn, and for the young women who feel they have to do this to please men. > > From [Wiring Sexual Tastes to Hairless Genitals…Oops!](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned-arrow/201201/wiring-sexual-tastes-hairless-genitalsoops) I have found this to be true. I’d say a good 80% of men I know prefer or expect their female partners to keep it bare. They appear to be turned off by pubic hair. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/84 "2012-04-30T12:47:26Z")
> [@Green\_Cymbeline](#): > > I have encountered many anecdotes of men saying they preferred “shaven.” Luckily my last couple of boyfriends were OK with, even had a “fetish” for, my natural state of being, but I assure you this is the exception, not the rule, amongst people of my generation and younger. I think it’s damaging both for the young men who are wired to this preference from watching porn, and for the young women who feel they have to do this to please men. I fail to see why that’s any more “damaging” than any other fashion like long hair. And women who want to attract men are _always_ going to have to think in terms of “pleasing men”, just as the men have to think in terms of pleasing women if they want to attract some. _“Women do ‘X’ to please men, therefore ‘X’ is bad”_ is not an argument that holds up. It may or may not be bad for other reasons, but not because they are doing it to please men, any more than it’s bad for a man to shave his beard because a woman likes clean shaven men. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/85 "2012-04-30T12:55:18Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I fail to see why that’s any more “damaging” than any other fashion like long hair. And women who want to attract men are _always_ going to have to think in terms of “pleasing men”, just as the men have to think in terms of pleasing women if they want to attract some. _“Women do ‘X’ to please men, therefore ‘X’ is bad”_ is not an argument that holds up. It may or may not be bad for other reasons, but not because they are doing it to please men, any more than it’s bad for a man to shave his beard because a woman likes clean shaven men. Agreed, but this ties into the thread about how porn “fantasies” become male expectations. Men would not desire this were it not for porn showing them that this is how it “should” be. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/86 "2012-04-30T13:02:01Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Agreed, but this ties into the thread about how porn “fantasies” become male expectations. Men would not desire this were it not for porn showing them that this is how it “should” be. Or maybe it’s just a matter of cunnilingus becoming more acceptable/popular over the years; in the occasional discussions I see on the matter, “he doesn’t like getting hair in his teeth” is one of the common reasons I see given. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/87 "2012-04-30T13:06:22Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Its not just women that they have warped ideas of though, themselves too they think a 12 inch penis is normal and anything less is pathetic, they are dissapointed in real sex because of the screaming squirting nonsense on the screen. I hate this as well. I don’t want to fold it in half for anyone. \*rimshot. Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Try the lamb and tip your servers! ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/88 "2012-04-30T13:26:38Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Or maybe it’s just a matter of cunnilingus becoming more acceptable/popular over the years; in the occasional discussions I see on the matter, “he doesn’t like getting hair in his teeth” is one of the common reasons I see given. I’ve never understood this complaint, if you are getting pubes in your teeth you are doing it wrong. The pertinent areas are hair free. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/89 "2012-04-30T13:34:09Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Porn isn’t real. > > This is like arguing that people are learning how to survive a shipwreck by watching _Gilligan’s Island_. > > Regards, > Shodan Lots of porn is very, very real. Lots of it these days is made in everyday couples bedrooms (and living rooms, and decks) with home video and cellphones and loaded onto the net, showing what real folks are doing these days. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/90 "2012-04-30T13:53:00Z")
Real as in unpaid folks posting videos of their sex lives just for kicks? Not professional actors pretending to be amateurs acting out a script that somebody thought would draw an audience? If so, I sit corrected, but I have no idea how common that is. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/91 "2012-04-30T14:05:11Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Real as in unpaid folks posting videos of their sex lives just for kicks? Not professional actors pretending to be amateurs acting out a script that somebody thought would draw an audience? If so, I sit corrected, but I have no idea how common that is. Fairly common, but there is some overlap. If the “amateur” video includes a tiny superimposed logo for (let’s say) [www.shodansgloryhole.com](http://if_it_really_exists_I_dont_wanna_know), I assume they’re at least attempting to go pro. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/92 "2012-04-30T14:07:29Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I fail to see why that’s any more “damaging” than any other fashion like long hair. Nitpick: Genital depilation is, of course, somewhat more painful and carries a higher risk of follicle infection or other minor health problems than most hairstyle fashions. Sure, we’re not talking medieval Chinese footbinding here, but a “fashion” for totally smooth female pubes is arguably somewhat burdensome for women to maintain. This issue also casts an interesting sidelight on the vexed question of whether men’s personal preferences or dislikes for various physical characteristics in women are a sign of personal “shallowness”. It’s generally accepted (and rightly so, I think) that individuals on the whole can’t help what they like when it comes to sexual attraction. So if a guy doesn’t feel attracted to fat women, or small-breasted women, or tall women, or Asian women, or whatever, well, that may be his loss but there’s no call to judge him for that. Fair enough. But if men’s tastes in sexual attraction really can be significantly influenced by porn genre conventions—e.g., if as **grude** and **BT** and **GC** have noted, men these days are really developing a strong distaste or even revulsion for female pubic hair because it’s the current fashion in porn for women not to have any—then what becomes of the claim that sexual attraction is outside our control and we shouldn’t be judged for it? Maybe the guys who claim to be innately and inadvertently turned off by fat women, for example, just aren’t watching enough fat-chick porn. ---
**Author:** ![Bloodless\_Turnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@Bloodless\_Turnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bloodless_Turnip)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/93 "2012-04-30T16:32:21Z")
Maybe some of the older Dopers can chime in: Was anal sex the norm back in the day? In the 80’s I don’t recall any man asking or expecting that from me. Now it’s practically a given that they’ll at least ask at worse try without asking. Or so I hear, I’m not currently “active”. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/94 "2012-04-30T16:34:05Z")
Used to be asking for anal sex was like trying to get blood from a turnip. ---
**Author:** ![Bloodless\_Turnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@Bloodless\_Turnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bloodless_Turnip)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/95 "2012-04-30T16:40:02Z")
Very witty Jim. ;] ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/96 "2012-04-30T16:43:08Z")
> [@Bloodless\_Turnip](#): > > Maybe some of the older Dopers can chime in: Was anal sex the norm back in the day? > > In the 80’s I don’t recall any man asking or expecting that from me. Now it’s practically a given that they’ll at least ask at worse try without asking. Or so I hear, I’m not currently “active”. Early '80s were my experimental teen years, and yeah, there was some of that. Wasn’t so much a guy “asking that from me” as a favor or demand, though, more of a mutual “these are cool toys, wonder what else we can do with them”. I recall the general popular perception of anal sex as being “this is something some people like and some people think is really gross”, but it wasn’t automatically either unthinkable or mandatory. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/97 "2012-04-30T18:11:25Z")
> [@grude](#): > > More normal but hot women would help, porn in the 70s and 80s had plenty of hot but real women and the variety was fun. Now all the women have had surgery and anal bleaching and bad spray on tans, not a hair follicle on their body, that is weird and doesn’t even turn me on they look like aliens. > > Hell a return to the stunt cocks attached to normal dudes would help too, the men in modern porn look as strange as the women. Roid cases with no body hair. All the women? Look, I don’t know if you know this, but there are a wide variety of women in porn. There’s even, like, categories. I happen to have seen some porn on the internet fairly recently–as research before I commented on this thread. And it turns out that there’s a wide variety of material out there. If you don’t like a particular porn trope, it’s pretty easy to close that browser window and open a new one that features the stuff you do like. It isn’t like the old days, where you somehow got ahold of a VHS tape or magazine, and whatever was on the tape you were stuck with until you got a new one. Nowadays, there’s a magic box that contains all the porn you could ever want, and you never need to waste your time masturbating to images or words that are only mildly arousing. So I don’t get the complaint that porn nowadays isn’t as good as the porn when you were a kid. That porn is still there. You don’t have to masturbate to the first video on the first page of youporn, you can take 5 seconds to go to the “vintage” category if you want. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Cymbeline](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_cymbeline/32/9244_2.png) [@Green\_Cymbeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Cymbeline)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/98 "2012-04-30T19:53:49Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I don’t KNOW and you don’t either. My suspicion is that most young guys can figure out that there is a difference between the women in porn videos and the women they meet in real life. My suspicion is that the real key is how their parents interact. They may not want to believe that their parents have sex, but they do get their parents as a model for "this is how men and women interact in real life. I’m not sure that most young guys know there is a difference, not at first. Maybe many of them know, consciously and logically, there is a difference, but their unconscious mind, the part that tells them what should make them aroused becomes wired differently when they are exposed to nothing but images of hairless vaginas and anal sex in their formative years. Then that becomes what they are attracted to, what arouses them, and they don’t really know why. The same scenario can be seen with women’s attitudes towards men. Most men in porn are circumcised (well in US-made porn at least). And therefore the first penis a young woman usually sees (in porn - yes girls look at porn too) is circumcised. This results in a preference among women for circumcised penises. However, this is the unnatural state of a man’s genitalia (the equivalent to an unshaven pubic region on a woman). I have heard anecdotes, online and in real life, about women’s negative attitudes and bad reactions to uncircumcised penises. Neither situation is fair or healthy for either gender. ---
**Author:** ![Bloodless\_Turnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@Bloodless\_Turnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bloodless_Turnip)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/99 "2012-04-30T20:06:01Z")
> [@Green\_Cymbeline](#): > > I’m not sure that most young guys know there is a difference, not at first. Maybe many of them know, consciously and logically, there is a difference, but their unconscious mind, the part that tells them what should make them aroused becomes wired differently when they are exposed to nothing but images of hairless vaginas and anal sex in their formative years. Then that becomes what they are attracted to, what arouses them, and they don’t really know why. > > The same scenario can be seen with women’s attitudes towards men. Most men in porn are circumcised (well in US-made porn at least). And therefore the first penis a young woman usually sees (in porn - yes girls look at porn too) is circumcised. This results in a preference among women for circumcised penises. However, this is the unnatural state of a man’s genitalia (the equivalent to an unshaven pubic region on a woman). \*\*I have heard anecdotes, online and in real life, about women’s negative attitudes and bad reactions to uncircumcised penises. \*\*Neither situation is fair or healthy for either gender. I have observed this also. Speaking of unnatural - sex toys play a prominent role in porn also. It’s my opinion that the regular use of stimulation toys is detrimental to a healthy sex life (in normal healthy people I mean, yes I realize some need the added help). It’s not natural for a penis to vibrate, nor for a man to have two (or even three) appendages. Not on topic I know, just thought I’d throw that out there. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Cymbeline](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_cymbeline/32/9244_2.png) [@Green\_Cymbeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Cymbeline)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187/100 "2012-04-30T20:13:14Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > That doesn’t mean that it can’t affect the expectations or requirements of porn users about what actual sex should be like. > > E.g., the _Psychology Today_ article quoted by **Green Cymbeline** above notes that the prevalence of depilated vulvas in porn is inclining men to expect the same thing in real-life sex partners. > > Sure, even the most inexperienced porn user knows objectively that porn is a staged performance. But that doesn’t mean it automatically has no impact on their attitudes toward real sex. Exactly, see the following experiences: > [@grude](#): > > Some are terrified of female pubes, terrified! > [@Bloodless\_Turnip](#): > > I have found this to be true. I’d say a good 80% of men I know prefer or expect their female partners to keep it bare. They appear to be turned off by pubic hair. I’ve heard the same thing over and over, except with men above about 40 or so. I find this trend disturbing and directly related to modern porn viewing habits. I grew up right at the beginning of this trend. When I was in high school (early 90s), it was unheard of for a girl to shave or otherwise wax or trim her privates. Then once internet porn made its debut, many men insisted their partners shave. I have heard of guys who refuse, refuse! to have sex with an unshaven woman. That is how wired these guys’ brains get. Here’s why it is degrading to women: because it tells women that their natural state is somehow dirty or unclean, something about their natural body which has to be altered in order to be acceptable to men. (Same goes with circumcision, but that is a whole other debate.) And the thing about getting hair between your teeth is bullshit because, as **grude** said, if your getting hair in your teeth you’re doing it wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-porn-degrading-the-womans-image/620187.md?page=6)