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RSSPorn never did me any harm
Parents and educators alike know they can do everything in their power to stop kids from being exposed to stuff that isn't 'age appropriate', but they'll find it sooner or later, whether we like it or not. Should we worry?
By Steve Baxter Published 09 August 2012 16:13
There it was, half buried in the snow. We knew what it was almost as soon as we saw it: Our very first sight of a grumble mag.
We'd been sent home from school early due to the freezing weather, and because we didn't have far to go, we were making our way back along the crunching white pavements as a gang of three tiny figures dressed in parkas and scarves and school uniforms.
It was around Matlock Crescent, I think, that we found it, poking out of the snow, its garish colours and abundance of pink, voluptuous flesh. This was PORN. And we were going to see it, at last.
I don't mean to make this sound like Stand By Me but with a copy of Razzle, but here it is: you remember these little incidents from your childhood, whether you want to or not. We must have been about eight years old, maybe a little older, and we were about to enter the adult world - the world beyond having a crafty leaf through your mate's dad's Pirelli calendar in the garage. That world of filth and smut and depravity.
It wasn't me who reached a rapidly de-mittened hand down to the snowfall's erotic booty, but one of my friends. Quickly, a struggle erupted to see who had control of the contraband treasure: the first possessor found himself having to fight the other two of us off, as a carnivore might battle other predators at a freshly-killed carcass.
Then, we settled down. Our hearts were thumping as our breaths rose in the freezing winter air, and the front cover was turned. This was it. This was what we weren't old enough to reach on the newsagents' shelves. This was porn.
What happened next? Well, we stood there, giggling. Giggling and shouting at what we were looking at. What was that?! What was she doing?! What was going on there?! We didn't have the answers, we just had questions, and the nervous laughter masked the bizarreness of what we were seeing. There was... pubic hair. There was... a vulva (though we had no idea what a vulva was, or might be for). There was... oh JESUS CHRIST. There was a page of MEN.
Look, we were young boys. We didn't know any different. But we weren't meant to see what we'd just seen: it should have been kept from us, until such time as we reached the maturity to see it; our plastic minds could have been damaged by what we saw, and read (though we certainly did learn some new vocabulary that day from the letters pages).
But we weren't damaged. Not by one exposure to something like that. Just as we wouldn't have been damaged if, for example, the worldwide web had been available in those days, with all the stuff we now take for granted as being a mouseclick away.
Sure, it was just a mucky mag, but I think this story tells me a couple of things about pornography and the relationship some of us have with it. First, you're never going to keep it away from children, no matter how hard you try: the "discovery in the bushes" of yesteryear is the "happened on a porn site by mistake" of today.
Parents and educators alike know they can do everything in their power to stop kids from being exposed to stuff that isn't 'age appropriate', but they'll find it sooner or later, whether we like it or not. However, what is different is the degree and intensity of what you can find online; much stronger, in places, than what you might have discovered in a newsagent (or elsewhere) back in the day.
I think the key to the whole experience is that we three kids on that day all those years ago saw the mucky magazine as something strange, something unusual, something that belonged to another world - an adult world. I think that was probably what defined that experience - it was a first glimpse, albeit mediated through shiny paper, and ink, and torn around the edges.
It didn't change us, or affect us, precisely because we saw it as something alien, something that wasn't appropriate, that we knew wasn't part of our world and our lives at that age. For me, that's what makes the difference. It wasn't a normal thing to happen. And I'm glad it wasn't; it shouldn't have been, I think.
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72 comments
One can hardly condemn Steve Baxter for failing to keep up with more recent fashions in pornography, but he should have looked into it before writing on the subject. There is nothing dangerous in a boy's looking at pictures of naked women (unless he becomes convinced that all women are supposed to look like the ones appearing in magazines). However, today's pornography does not consist of nude photographs of desirable women, nor does it represent what most emotionally stable adults are up to behind closed doors.
You must be realistic about human sexuality. When I was at school in the very early 1960s there was no pornography - unless you were an adult and could visit the sleazy bookshops around Soho. I remember at the age of 13 my friends and I, in idle moments of which there were many, rummaging through our parent's encyclopaedias in search of photos of statues of Greek goddesses and voluptuous pictures by the unfortunately named artist Botticelli. Please refer to P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang for insight into those times, and Michael Schofield's 'The Sexual Behaviour of Young People' for the stats
Sexual curiosity is normal in humans and it is time that the ideologically blinkered and the sexually hung-up 'concerned' got real about young people and their emergent feelings.
"A Home Office report in 2010 suggests that online pornography is increasingly dominated by themes of aggression and control and that exposure to pornography is related to male sexual aggression against women and a tendency to view them as objects. Young people not only have warped expectations of sex but are replicating what they have seen, including sexual violence. Is it really surprising therefore that teenage girls between 16 and 19 are now the group most at risk of domestic violence, closely followed by girls aged 20-24? "
Sara Khan
Internet porn and magazines are completely different. It's like comparing lager shandy and vodka. The internet creates super-fast gratification and endless novelty. Look at the growing evidence of how porn affects the brain. Novelty is the key. The result is desensitisation and addiction. This isn't a joke, it's a serious business.
Snuff movies never did me any harm.
Dwarf Throwing Competitions never did me any harm.
Bum Wars never did me any harm.
Outsourcing my pregnancies to surrogates never did me any harm.
Buying organs never did me any harm.
Buying gollywogs never did me any harm.
Watching rascist sitcoms never did me any harm.
Watching freak shows never did me any harm.
Trouble is most porn stars die of sexual contact diseases.
But their career is just a little shorter than their life.
I often catch my newsagent to putting porn on the shelves, I wish I could speak his language, as could then tell him dirty thumbprints of all his enhancing staff - could kill him.
By viewing and or purchasing porn, viewers are supporting the porn industry and facilitating its growth. By viewing porn, the viewer is also contributing to the sexual exploitation of whomever or whatever is in the images he or she is viewing.
Utter tosh....how come where internet porn is more widely available rape cases actually go down?
Explain that one. Porn makers are sex workers. Most of these stupid responses are from dumb prudish women who don't like not being in control, probably cos they are hardcore feminists
Would love to see your evidence for porn reducing rape reports.
Out of interest where isn't porn widely available? And does this place of no media and internet also have a reliable police force and national statistics office, not to mention condicive atmosphere for rape reporting? No. Thought not. So what's your motive for making up crap like that, hmm?
Nice try with the tired old irrational accusation of prudery. You know, just because there are people out there with low self esteem who will do anything for money, doesn't make it ethical to exploit the fact. Have some integrity mate, your orgasm isn't the most important thing in the world.
The number of rapes and the amount of available porn may indicate a correlation just like the amount of ice cream and the crime rate are correlated, but you have done absolutely nothing to show any causation. In freer countries where women are treated with more equality, there tends to be less rape. Freer countries also have more freedom in general which means more porn.
And no, it doesn't take a prude to think that the vast majority of porn is inartistic and objectifying. If it were any different, then many people would probably not look at porn stars and immediately assume something went wrong in their lives. Well, there is a reason for that and it isn't just "prudish feminazis" who think so.
The country with the highest porn consumption is Pakistan. You know, that country where women are treated like total shit.
So a pornography user is an expert on whether or not pornography is harmful, whereas actual pornographic actors and ex-pornographic actors are not. And pedophiles are obviously experts in whether or not pedophilia is harmful. Don't listen to the victims of the abuse, after all they are just kids?
You wanted data. There's plenty of it available. Unfortunately I am unable to paste links, but Ana Bridges at the University of Arkansas has written a lot about the effect of pornography on relationships, as has a woman at the University of Florida. The latter discovered that women felt very uncomfortable at sexual acts they were asked to perform as a result of their boyfriends watching porn.
This article displays a lack of understanding about the difference between internet porn and magazines. When we found our then 12 year old had been looking at internet porn while we were both at work, we offered to buy some magazines for him. Internet porn can be extremely violent, masogynistic and very disturbing for a younger child. I agree that looking at pictures in magazines is not going to do much damage, especially if children are brought up in an environment where they are taught not to objectify women and to engage in respectful relationships. People have created and looked at pornographic images since they painted rock paintings. Internet porn is different, and very damaging.
Artie Shaw one-time top swing band leader was told by a dance-hall proprietor that if he got in the crowds by defecating it was all right with Mr Free Enterprise.
It's all about money. There's nothing accidental about it.
Dollar Signs
m very happy to see your article. Thanks so much and i am taking a look forward to contact you. Will you kindly drop me a mail?
バイナリーオプション 追い上げ Mix of sexy images and text, like a comic in porn form. I like the distinction that we'd into it all about them. バイナリーオプション ブレイク Foot-fetishist, he's not into pain (shame). バイナリーオプション 比較 http://XN--2012-UK4CKB5F4G2B2D7I6A7I7E.COM - バイナリーオプション 必勝法 -TEA.
Unless your mate's dad was among the few VIPs or executives who got to get Pirelli calendars every year, you are probably referring to some generic automotive calendar featuring bikini-clad women. Now, that is not a crucial point in your argument but it certainly didn't do much to convince me about your seriousness as a writer or about your expertise in the subject-matter at hand.
Oh dear...
First how do you know it "never did you any harm" .
But fine, I had a similar experience of "dirty mags" as a kid. I was a bit older but I'd like to think that my wide eyed scanning of ladies (well, you know what I mean) naughty bits didn't particularly hurt me either. And, yes one of he things about that sort of porn was that we knew it wasn't "for us". Perhaps that made it all the more thrilling.
But I'm sorry, if you really are claiming that this is the same as what is happening today, then I'm afraid that it's likely that the porn has addled your brain after all.
First, it is no longer being seen as "naughty" but normal,at least by men. There is also the frightening figures of the number of women forced to watch it by their "boyfriends" and forced to engage in sex acts that they arent comfotable with because the man has viewed it on the web. "it's perfectly normal love, look at them doing it."
Add to that the contrast between the difficulty in obtaining a porn mag or (later)video a few years back with the availability on the Internet. Putting aside the need to have been old enough for the shop to sell it to us, I certainly didn't have the nerve to actually ask the shop assistant for a copy of...well whatever...
Chalk and cheese, mate...
Everyone seems to fail to take into account the fact that more and more women-on their own, by themselves-are enjoying, getting into and even producing/directing porn, and it's not because of the guys. There are a lot of women who-shockingly!-ACTUALLY ENJOY PORN JUST AS MUCH AS GUYS DO!
I think claiming that all 'women' only watch porn because their 'boyfriends make them watch it' is sexist as well as misogynistic. Sure, it's harmful to some but stating that it's harmful to everyone, no matter what the situation or the person, is ignorant. There are studies that claim it's harmful and there are just as many that says it isn't which tells me that it's not a black and white issue and that-maybe-it's different for everyone.
The number and diversity of people engaging in an activity doesn't really mean anything except that the activity is normalized in our society- it has nothing to say about anything else including one's morality (subjective as that is). There are women prostitutes who say that they don't feel objectified by their jobs and that they love their jobs, and this might be as genuine as anything, but we have to recognize that this sort of thing does not happen in a bubble. In a society that sexualizes a segment of its population and then makes such thing normal by supporting the idea that 'everyone does it and those who disapprove are prudes," it is not unreasonable to assume that the behavior will eventually spread to even the demo that is most adversely effected. I mean, women participated in their own oppression back in the day by shunning those who did not adhere to social traditions and expectations (still do to an extent). To me, this seems to mirror that phenom as much as anything.
that's *exactly* what he's arguing, numbnuts.
Hickey's Trauma Control Model clearly shows that the development of a serial killer is based on an early trauma followed by facilitators (porn, drugs, and alcohol) and disposition.
Actually, the trauma your average serial killer or serial rapist experiences after seeing porn is being punished for seeing it.
Serieal rapists usually see porn later, and less often, than normal boys. But punishment - sometimes quite severe - teaches them lessons that don't serve them, or us.
I can't comment - your profanity filter prevents me from having any kind of rational discussion here. Only to say a certain serial killer didn't have access to such material & instead educated his pallete with true crime mags.
If I looked like Steve Baxter, I suppose I'd have to resort to porn.
Well, watching porn is just so pathetic, isn't it? What are you going to do if you meet a real person-- 'Gee, Jake, where did you pick up your sexual technique?' Ehh, among the randy apes, darling. Why you ask?
Graphic violence is worse. Gamer material, TV & Hollyweird. Media focuses on "face-chewing' bath-salt stories & slice em up stories over and over. Proponents are more rabid than gun-control group...Zombie.
When it comes to internet porn, the 'internet' part is whats really significant, by focusing the idea of 'extreme content' people miss the real issue which is addiction, it was always assumed food and sex were regulated by natural satiety mechanisms that prevent addiction, internet porn is the different, the endless supply of 'new' content overrides those mechanisms (look up the 'Coolidge effect'), It's when addiction kicks in that people deviate towards extreme or weird interests to give themselves a bigger 'hit'.
For us group of over seventies, we remember our youth with amusement having had to look-up in the dictionary any word unknown to us but possibly having erotic connotations.
Of course we didn't have access to a 'slang' dictionary. Still it was fun.
Can't Cut The Mustard
For us group of over seventies, we remember our youth with amusement having had to look-up in the dictionary any word unknown to us but possibly having erotic connotations.
Of course we didn't have access to a 'slang' dictionary. Still it was fun.
Can't Cut The Mustard
Oh! My dearie !
The while argument above is so stupid. If women were offended by porn that mistreated their fellow females, 50 shades of grey would not have been so popular with its message of "so long as he is good looking and rich, he can do what he wants"
Porn caters to people's existing tastes, otherwise it wouldn't be successful. Some men like to control their women during sex, some women like that. Those who don't already enjoy the idea, won't enjoy the porn.
Let people have their private sex lives whatever it is they want to do with their consensual partner.
The popularity of 50 Shades of Grey amongst women can at least in part be explained by its aggressive marketing and the paucity of other options. And of course reading about fictionalised people, in what sounds like really non threatening situations is not the same as watching a real life crack addict getting treated as a f*** toy by frat boys.
The notion that the media merely responds to people's tastes is a) incorrect as the media drives popular tastes too, and b) fatuous unless you believe we should still put on public hangings, freak shows and have a YouTube suicide genre.
Paucity of other options? There are millions of other books covering every conceivable strain of fiction or non-fiction. And the "aggressive marketing" only kicked in *after* 50 Shades of Grey was a word-of-mouth success.
Call me a mad, deluded feminist if you like, but I believe women are perfectly capable of deciding what kind of fiction they want to read and acting accordingly. If a lot of them don't share your tastes (or mine, for that matter), that doesn't make their choices any less valid.
All porn is "about fictionalised people." The actresses upon whom you pour scorn elsewhere are apparently good enough to convince you that what's going on on film is actually real. I've not seen much porm myself, but I'd always been led to believe that the acting was sub-par. Who knew.
If you're so sure that these are genuine rapes, assaults, etc. Find just one news story that describes such a case brought to court. It ought to be pretty easy as the evidence is on film.
I think some of this discussion is a bit daft, of course, not all porn is harmful, at the same time, while 'harmful' may be up for debate, there's some really unpleasant, anti woman stuff out there, which I do believe could alter a young mind's opinion of women, in terms of basic respect etc.
I partly put it down to just there being quite so much out there that some people want to make 'extreme' content just to stand out, but sadly there does seem to be a market for videos depicting (fictionalised or not) verbal and physical abuse of people, and yes, mainly women.
I'm not one for censorship, and of course, who decides where to draw the line, you ask most politicians and they'd ban Razzle, just to get a few more votes by being all 'family values', but I personally believe that most porn is fine, what to actually do about the highly degrading stuff is tough tho.
After all, there's an entire genre of it based on men being kicked in the balls, porn that is, not just Jackass. There's spanking and heavier forms of BDSM, but I don't consider any of that as emotionally damaging to the viewer as when the female is shown to be just a sex toy for a group of men to use. BDSM videos generally come with a theme of the 'bottom' being entirely consensual, and of their being a bond between the participants, the nastier end of gonzo porn however, seems to place the woman as a receptacle and nothing more.
I find it amazing that people still assume all porn is Gonzo..... The violent stuff is just an aspect of porn. There are so many forms of porn, what about CFNM? That is clothed Female, Nude Male. What about the female dominatrix? There are many hundreds of different types of pornography and yet the only one in the public perception is Gonzo. I am not a fan of that type of Porn but to blanket everything because of a subset seems a rather stupid idea.
You're right, there is a lot of variety in the porn world. But I would argue that things like CFMN and female dominatrix stuff is aimed at a very specialist type of audience, away from the mainstream.
Gonzo stuff, including the 'brutal' porn I mentioned below is targetted at the mainstream user, which is why people have become concerned about it.
Internet porn can do you a lot of harm.
A few years ago I lost my job and had to move back into my parents' house - I was 25. I was incredibly lonely, somewhat inevitably, stared going online to look at porn.
I started off with things resembling the soft core stuff that was on Channel 5 when I was a teen. Gradually I started watching more and more extreme stuff before one day I clicked on some "brutal" porn and saw a girl (and I use the term in its purest sense) being forcibly sodomised to the extent that she was obviously in pain while someon shouted "take this you f***ing b**** at her" and I realised I had hit a nadir and needed to stop watching it.
Fortunately I was 24 and had been had several sexual relationships and had gone through the same experience I am absolutely sure it would have had a much more long-lasting effect on me.
Calls to control internet porn are not driven by prudishness but concern. Boys and men will always want to look at naked or scantily clad women, look at the success of beach volleyball at the Olympics. Ditto, women and girls will always want to look at attractive men with their clothes off, Gerard Butler doesn't get many parts because of his acting ability.
But is it a good idea to let people who are just discovering sex to have easy access to vids like I described above? I don't believe it is.
And it's going to be banned, is it?
Only the stuff that could be considered hate material likely to incite hatred, discrimination, violence and other crime. Unless you think that orgasms are a get out of jail free card?
It started with the lingerie section of Avon catalogues for me. Experiencing that throbbing sensation as I sat locked in the bathroom flicking through the pages, trying to find a see-through brazier. Then at school, primary school, I heard an older boy say the word masturbate. "What is masturbate" I asked. Things were never really the same again.
School attendance levels fell off a cliff as I started faking headaches so I could stay at home - fapping away. When we got dial up internet at the start of my last year of secondary school my attendance dropped to 50%. Weeks off at a time.
I failed my exams - didn't even bother turning up to a couple of them. I just sat at home endlessly bashing my way to the sublime, over and over again.
Later on in relationships with actual living women I would find myself frustrated. I'm not sure if desensitising your bell end is an actual medical condition but my marathon self love sessions had rendered me unable to find enjoyment in an unfamiliar place.
Perhaps this is not such a bad side effect. At age 18, the woman I lost my virginity to would not believe that I was in-fact a virgin. What's more she also commented that the love making was like something out of a porn film, which thankfully she enjoyed. But it is here that I think there is a possible problem. There is a difference between making love and having sex, especially porn-esque sex. It can be difficult for a young person who has been exposed to too much porn to differentiate between the two.
I still struggle with my porn addiction today.
In all the anxiety about pornography, people loose sight of the fact that interest in sex usually starts at the onset of puberty regardless of any idealised notion of ‘appropriate age’. I distinctly remember rummaging through all my parents encyclopaedias in search of the naked female form – Greek statues and Bottecelli paintings etc – when I was around 13 years old in the early 1960’s in the pre-porn era.