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Pornography

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Pornography. That which excites, whether from approval or disapproval. —Leonard Rossiter

Pornography is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purpose of sexual arousal.

CONTENT : A - F , G - L , M - R , S - Z , See also , External links

Quotes

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Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author

A - F

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I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in Braille. I used to rub the dirty parts. - Woody Allen
  • In discussions on pornography, a lot depends on the very definition of what is considered to be “pornographic” material. Pornography may be defined as (a) a moral wrong, (b) a moral good or (c) a non-moral issue. Thus, “the right to pornography” (as a “liberty”, not as a “claim-right”) may either be argued “because” it is amoral or non-moral good, or “although” it is a moral wrong. But whether one relates the notion of pornography intrinsically to (the showing/describing of) sexual acts, considered to be morally reprehensible, or uses a morally neutral or positive definition, one cannot escape the task of arguing what exactly makes (some or all) pornography a moral wrong or good.
  • I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in Braille. I used to rub the dirty parts.
  • Pornographic sex is a kind of sex that can be described. Which told you something, he felt, about pornography, and about sex. During Keith's time, sex divorced itself from feeling. Pornography was the industrialization of that rift.
  • In this connection we may refer to fornicatory acts effected with artificial imitations of the human body, or of individual parts of that body. There exist true Vaucansons in this province of pornographic technology, clever mechanics who, from rubber and other plastic materials, prepare entire male or female bodies, which, as hommes or dames de voyage, subserve fornicatory purposes. More especially are the genital organs represented in a manner true to nature. Even the secretion of Bartholin's glans is imitated, by means of a "pneumatic tube" filled with oil. Similarly, by means of fluid and suitable apparatus, the ejaculation of the semen is imitated. Such artificial human beings are actually offered for sale in the catalogue of certain manufacturers of "Parisian rubber articles."
    • Iwan, Bloch (2015) [1910]. The Sexual Life of Our Time in its Relations to Modern Civilization, p. 660
  • Sexual drives are core aspects of human functioning, but the quantity and quality of sexual behaviors show high variability across individuals. Pornography use has become a normative behavior among adults, and individuals show differences in quantity/frequency measures of consumption. Considering the broad spectrum of “normal” sexual behaviors and the finding that the number of people with NPHFU is 3–6 times larger than the number with PHFU, pornography use may be linked to adverse health measures in a minority of adults.
Pornography has been so thickly glossed over with the patina of chic these days in the name of verbal freedom and sophisication… Part of the problem is that those who traditionally have been the most vigorous opponents of porn are often those same people who shudder at the explicit mention of any sexual subject… There can be no equality in porn, no female equivalent, no turning of the tables in the name of bawdy fun. Pornography, like rape, is a male invention, desgined to dehumanize women… Pornography is the undiluted essence of anti-female propoganda. ~ Susan Brownmiller
  • Pornography has been so thickly glossed over with the patina of chic these days in the name of verbal freedom and sophisication… Part of the problem is that those who traditionally have been the most vigorous opponents of porn are often those same people who shudder at the explicit mention of any sexual subject… There can be no equality in porn, no female equivalent, no turning of the tables in the name of bawdy fun. Pornography, like rape, is a male invention, desgined to dehumanize women… Pornography is the undiluted essence of anti-female propaganda.
  • Listen, I'm no social scientist and haven't done a survey. I don't pretend to know what John Q citizen thinks about this. But I've lived in prison for a long time now and I've met a lot of men who were motived to commit violence just like me. And without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography. Without question, without exception. Deeply influenced and consumed by an addiction to pornography.
  • Those of us who are, who have been so much influenced by violence in the media, in particular pornographic violence, are not some kinds of inherent monsters. We are your sons and we are your husbands. And we grew up in regular families. And pornography can reach out and snatch a kid out of any house today. It snatched me out of my home twenty, thirty years ago.
  • ...well meaning decent people will condemn [the] behavior of a Ted Bundy while they're walking past a magazine rack full of the very kinds of things that send young kids down the road to be Ted Bundys.
  • Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.
It was Raimondi who created the images for the first work of printed pornography, a book called "I Modi" (“The Positions” or “The Ways”), also known as "The Sixteen Pleasures" (or, if you’re into Latin, "De omnibus Veneris Schematibus"). As per the title, the book was built around engravings of 16 sexual positions, based on a lost series of paintings by Giulio Romano, Raphael’s pupil, which he had painted for Federico II Gonzaga, to decorate and provide inspiration at his Palazzo Te in Mantua (destroyed in 1630, during the War of Mantuan Succession). ~ Noah Charney
Horror and pornography are the only two genres specifically devoted to the arousal of bodily sensation. They exist solely to horrify and stimulate, not always respectively, and their ability to do so is the sole measure of their success: they 'prove themselves upon our pulses. ~ Carol J. Clover
  • Horror and pornography are the only two genres specifically devoted to the arousal of bodily sensation. They exist solely to horrify and stimulate, not always respectively, and their ability to do so is the sole measure of their success: they 'prove themselves upon our pulses"
    • Carol J. Clover (Fall 1987). "Her Body, Himself; Gender in the Slasher Film". University of California Press. Representations 20 (Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy): 187–228. doi:10.2307/2928507
  • It was Raimondi who created the images for the first work of printed pornography, a book called "I Modi" (“The Positions” or “The Ways”), also known as "The Sixteen Pleasures" (or, if you’re into Latin, "De omnibus Veneris Schematibus"). As per the title, the book was built around engravings of 16 sexual positions, based on a lost series of paintings by Giulio Romano, Raphael’s pupil, which he had painted for Federico II Gonzaga, to decorate and provide inspiration at his Palazzo Te in Mantua (destroyed in 1630, during the War of Mantuan Succession).
  • [I]n the male sexual lexicon, which is the vocabulary of power, erotica is simply high-class pornography: better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer. As with the call girl and the streetwalker, one is turned out better but both are produced by the same system of sexual values and both perform the same sexual service.
  • Pornography is used in rape - to plan it, to execute it, to choreograph it, to engender the excitement to commit the act.
    • Andrea Dworkin, testimony before the New York Attorney General's Commission on Pornography in 1986
  • The pornographers actually use our bodies as their language. We are their speech. . . . Protecting what they 'say' means protecting what they do to us, how they do it. It means protecting their sadism on our bodies, because that is how they write: not like a writer at all; like a torturer.
  • Men characterize pornography as something mental because their minds, their thoughts, their dreams, their fantasies, are more real to them than women's bodies or lives; in fact, men have used their social power to characterize a $10-billion-a-year trade in women as fantasy.
  • Pornography is the essential sexuality of male power: of hate, of ownership, of hierarchy; of sadism, of dominance."
Pornography incarnates male supremacy. It is the DNA of male dominance. Every rule of sexual abuse, every nuance of sexual sadism, every highway and byway of sexual exploitation, is encoded in it. ~ Andrea Dworkin
  • Pornography incarnates male supremacy. It is the DNA of male dominance. Every rule of sexual abuse, every nuance of sexual sadism, every highway and byway of sexual exploitation, is encoded in it.
  • Everyone knows that child pornography is bad because it's been demonstrated over and over that people who look at that stuff end up acting it out—and really destroy people's lives. That's beyond the unconscionably cruel exploitation of the children involved.
    Other forms of pornography are harmful for a similarly oft-repeated reason: Pornography makes women into objects of desire rather than real people. We want to have relationships between person and person, not person-to-object.

G - L

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  • Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. (What are the two?) There is addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people... and there is addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata (the Perfect One) has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana.
  • In the United States, Internet pornography use is a common behavior that has risen in popularity in recent years. The present study sought to examine potential relationships between pornography use and well-being, with a particular focus on individual perceptions of pornography use and feelings of addiction. Using a large cross-sectional sample of adults (N = 713), perceived addiction to Internet pornography predicted psychological distress above and beyond pornography use itself and other relevant variables (e.g., socially desirable responding, neuroticism). This model was replicated using a large cross-sectional sample of undergraduates (N = 1,215). Furthermore, a 1-year, longitudinal follow-up with a subset of this sample (N = 106) revealed a relationship between perceived addiction to Internet pornography and psychological distress over time, even when controlling for baseline psychological distress and pornography use. Collectively, these findings suggest that perceived addiction to Internet pornography, but not pornography use itself, is uniquely related to the experience of psychological distress.
  • In 2019, my colleagues and I published a review of over 130 scientific studies of pornography use and motivation. We found that the most common reason people report for why they view pornography is sexual arousal. Research is abundantly clear that the majority of time that pornography is used, it is used as a part of masturbation.
  • Despite the fact that, prior to COVID-19, 17 states introduced or passed legislation calling pornography use a public health crisis, public health professionals have argued that it really is not one, and I tend to agree. COVID-19, on the other hand, certainly is a public health crisis.
  • Using an online sample of participants in committed relationships, support was found for a moderated mediation model in which depression mediated the relationship between pornography use and relationship satisfaction, and this indirect effect was moderated by level of moral disapproval. Results indicate that, among consumers of pornography, their level of moral disapproval exacerbates adverse intra- and interpersonal outcomes such as distress and decreased relationship satisfaction. These results extend the empirical literature that examines the conditional effects of moral disapproval of pornography use to relational outcomes.
  • Pornography, it seems to me, is no different from war films or propaganda films in that it tries to make the visceral, horrific, or transgressive elements of life consumable. Propaganda is far more pornographic than a home video of two people fucking.
  • Though watching porn may seem degrading to some women, the fact is that it's one of the few jobs for women where you can get to a certain level, look around, and feel so powerful, not just in the work environment but as a sexual being. So, fuck Gloria Steinem.
    • Jenna Jameson, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale
  • To this day, I can't watch my own sex scenes.
    • Jenna Jameson, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale
  • In this study, we examined the unique contribution of pornography consumption to the longitudinal prediction of criminal recidivism in a sample of 341 child molesters. We specifically tested the hypothesis, based on predictions informed by the confluence model of sexual aggression that pornography will be a risk factor for recidivism only for those individuals classified as relatively high risk for re-offending. Pornography use (frequency and type) was assessed through self-report and recidivism was measured using data from a national database from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Indices of recidivism, which were assessed up to 15 years after release, included an overall criminal recidivism index, as well as subcategories focusing on violent (including sexual) recidivism and sexual recidivism alone. Results for both frequency and type of pornography use were generally consistent with our predictions. Most importantly, after controlling for general and specific risk factors for sexual aggression, pornography added significantly to the prediction of recidivism. Statistical interactions indicated that frequency of pornography use was primarily a risk factor for higher-risk offenders, when compared with lower-risk offenders, and that content of pornography (i.e., pornography containing deviant content) was a risk factor for all groups. The importance of conceptualizing particular risk factors (e.g., pornography), within the context of other individual characteristics is discussed.
  • The current study adopted a participant-informed, “bottom-up,” qualitative approach to identifying perceived effects of pornography on the couple relationship. A large sample (N = 430) of men and women in heterosexual relationships in which pornography was used by at least one partner was recruited through online (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and offline (e.g., newspapers, radio, etc.) sources. Participants responded to open-ended questions regarding perceived consequences of pornography use for each couple member and for their relationship in the context of an online survey. In the current sample of respondents, “no negative effects” was the most commonly reported impact of pornography use. Among remaining responses, positive perceived effects of pornography use on couple members and their relationship (e.g., improved sexual communication, more sexual experimentation, enhanced sexual comfort) were reported frequently; negative perceived effects of pornography (e.g., unrealistic expectations, decreased sexual interest in partner, increased insecurity) were also reported, albeit with considerably less frequency. The results of this work suggest new research directions that require more systematic attention.
  • But the most obscene American phenomenon of all is the growth of commercialized sex and hard- and soft-core pornography. In the last decade, hardcore film and print porn, which features perversion, sadism, and masochism, has become a billion dollar business. It is a business which is not only tolerated, but defended by the press in the sacred name of “freedom of the press.” One would find it easier to believe in this noble reason for defending the filth that is flooding the nation if the newspapers did not reap such handsome profits from advertising and reviewing porn. In my view, newspaper publishers who carry X-rated ads are no better than pimps for the porn merchants. Billy Graham may have been exaggerating when he said “America has a greater obsession with sex than Rome ever had.” But he was not exaggerating very much.

M - R

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You mentioned in an interview that the NSA is passing around naked photos of people. ~ John Oliver
Shunga could be sensuous and comic, but it was rarely violent or exploitative. Most shunga depicts vigorous heterosexual couples in mutual bliss – and these prints were likely cherished by men and women, both young and old, from different strata of society, including samurai lords as well as prosperous merchants and commoners. “The division between art and obscene pornography is a Western conception,” says Clark. “There was no sense in Japan that sex or sexual pleasure was sinful.” ~ Alastair Sooke
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of [hard-core pornography] material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. ~ Potter Stewart
Erotica: The depiction of naked men. Depictions of naked women are far less innocent and are known as "pornography". - Richard Summerbell
  • Men may buy pornography but women pay for it – in terms of exploitation, rape, violence, and a society that sees them as disposable sexual objects.
    • Rosalie Maggio The Dictionary of Bias-Free Usage (1991)
  • Before the advent of the internet and sexual videos, preadolescent and adolescent boys plotted a secret acquisition of Playboy magazines. They snuck peeks while adults weret watching and hid magazines under beds, in tree forts, and buried them in closets. Adolescent boys have always been fascinated with sex and nudity because curiosity is a part of their emerging sexuality. Such behavior is understandable, if not to be encouraged. But what might have titillated teenage boys when we were young is tame compared to what is available to them now. Women in Playboy magazines twenty or thirty years ago were alone. While they stared seductively at the viewer, they were not engaged in a sexual act. But Playboy over the last few decades has been nudged aside by more graphic magazines and other media. In 1985, 92 percent of adult males had a Playboy magazine by age fifteen. Today the average age of a boy's first exposure to pornography is eleven, and where he might once have seen only a naked woman, now he is much more likely to view sex acts between partners. Nearly half of boys between the third and eighth grades have visited Internet sites with "adult content." The more graphic the content, the more severe the trauma it inflicts on our boys. And we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that it is not traumatic. Pornography warps the natural development of sexuality in boys. It can lead them down paths of perversity that, in their normal development, they would never have otherwise considered. Young boys who view pornography are having their morality, their sense of what is acceptable, shaped by it. And the Internet is full of seducers ready to prey on them, including sexual predators. The problem isn't that many young boys seek pornography out of curiosity, but that pornography pops up at them unawares and drags them in.
    • Meg Meeker, Boys Should Be Boys (2008), 2009 Ballentine Books paperback edition. New York: Ballentine Books, p. 65-66
  • Research has shown that viewing pornography can be quite disturbing to boys and that viewing explicit sex changes the way boys behave sexually. For example, viewing sexual material (not just pornography) has been shown to make college students significantly more accepting of the use of aggression against women, both in a sexual and nonsexual manner. And contrary to what one might think, studies have shown that when college students recall memories of sexual media their memories are overwhelmingly negative. Their responses include (from most common to least common): disgust, shock, embarrassment, anger, fear, and sadness. Interestingly, sexual response to those viewings was very low.
    • Meg Meeker, Boys Should Be Boys (2008), 2009 Ballentine Books paperback edition. New York: Ballentine Books, p. 66-67
  • An overwhelming majority of parents I encounter shake their heads and smirk when discussing boys and sexual media. "Come on," they quip, "it's just sex after all. They're all interested; they're all going to try it." Such comments I'm afraid, reveal a profound ignorance about sex and boys. If we were truly interested in letting boys be boys, we would let them be just that- boys, not voyeurs lured into a dark underworld of pornography. If pornography did not exist, boys would not be out there creating it. It is adults who thrust it upon them. Sex is a big deal for boys. They are not naturally emotionally dull human beings, Boys are feeling, thinking, and spiritual beings, and a healthy sexuality is one that grows within that well-rounded framework. A healthy sexuality is not exercised too young, it is not artificially aroused and diverted, and it is not promiscuous. And deep down our boys know this, but we allow them to be pressured by the pornographers of pop culture. We shouldn't.
    • Meg Meeker, Boys Should Be Boys (2008), 2009 Ballentine Books paperback edition. New York: Ballentine Books, p. 67
  • I saw no reason why you couldn't create a work of pornography that adhered to all the same standards as the best art or literature. The big difference between art and pornography is that art, at its best, makes you feel less alone. You see a painting or read a piece of writing that expresses a thought that you had but didn't express, and you suddenly feel less alone. Pornography, on the other hand, tends to engender feelings of self-disgust, isolation and wretchedness. I wanted to change that.
  • Pornography is the theory, and rape is the practice.
    • Robin Morgan "Theory and Practice: Pornography and Rape", 1974 in Going Too Far: The Personal Chronicle of a Feminist (1977)
  • Pornography does not directly or imminently lead to death, infectious disease morbidity, property destruction, or population displacement. Research suggests that there may be adverse health consequences of pornography use for some, no substantial consequences for the majority, and positive effects for others. For example, for the minority predisposed to perpetrate sexual violence, viewing violent pornography may exacerbate risk. Additionally, individuals who frequently view pornography portraying risk behaviors (e.g., condomless sex) may be more likely to engage in them. Research on how pornography affects the cohesion and fidelity of relationships and sexual satisfaction is mixed, but the majority of users do not experience substantial problems. Importantly, death, infection, property destruction, and population displacement are not resulting from pornography use. And for some, pornography use is associated with health-promoting behaviors, including increased intimacy, “safer” sexual behaviors (e.g., solo masturbation), and feelings of acceptance.
  • Calling something a “public health crisis” when it is not demonstrably so may result in unwarranted policy or funding shifts. For example, government agencies may spend money to convene experts for high-level meetings or require businesses and individuals to comply with unwarranted regulations. Moreover, pathologizing any form of sexual behavior, including pornography use, has the potential to restrict sexual freedom and to stigmatize, which is antithetical to public health. If the public health workforce wants to save its power to mobilize people when an acute threat is imminent, reserving the phrase “public health crisis” for strategic, select times is advisable.
  • The story begins in the 1920s, when the Bolsheviks turned what was once the Rumyantsev arts museum into the country’s national library. As the newly named Lenin Library began amassing new literature, it also opened a rare book department to house compromising materials acquired primarily from confiscated noble libraries.
    One of the most stunning items seized from an unknown owner is The Seven Deadly Sins, an oversized book of engravings self-published in 1918 by Vasily Masyutin, who also illustrated classics by Pushkin and Chekhov. Among its depictions of gluttony is a large woman masturbating with a ghoulish smile.
    Before the revolution, it was fashionable among the upper classes to assemble so-called knigi dlya dam (Ladies’ Books) – a kind of bawdy scrapbook. An ostentatious leather-bound album with Kniga Dlya Dam embossed in gold on the cover opens to reveal a Chinese silk drawing of an entwined couple. Further on, dozens of engravings show aristocratic duos fornicating in sumptuously upholstered settings. Erotica was also consumed by Russia’s masses, as evidenced by a set of pamphlets from the 1910s. A pamphlet labeled Pikantnaya Biblioteka (Naughty Library), containing a tale from the 14th century Italian classic Decameron and a story titled A Consultation, sold for 50 kopeks. On the cover, a satanic figure grips a silky-tressed damsel in distress.
    In the 1930s, increasing control over books led to hundreds of new additions. Items deemed inappropriate now extended to Soviet writings on sexuality from the previous decade, when abortion was legalised and Alexandra Kollontai, the most famous woman in the Bolshevik government, called for the destruction of the traditional family — a movement reversed under Stalin.
  • After Skorodumov’s death, the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, raided his collection. According to a letter sent by library director Vasily Olishev to the Council of Ministers, a post-mortem search of his apartment revealed a staggering 40,000 items, 1,763 of which were “books of an erotic nature” while 5,000 were “pornographic or vulgar” brochures and magazines. The Soviet state snapped up the collection from Skorodumov’s widow for 14,000 rubles, then a considerable sum. However, Olishev was careful to note that the money did not extend to the erotica.
    “The library did not deem it appropriate to pay citizen Burovaya [Skorodumov widow] for the erotic literature, broadsheets and magazines, as this literature presents neither scientific nor historical value to the library’s readers, and is an especially harmful vestige of bourgeois ideology,” he wrote.
    For just this reason, however, it was necessary to hang on to it: “The Lenin Library did not deem it appropriate to return literature of such a harmful nature to citizen Burovaya, as its possession in the home of a private citizen presents considerable danger.”
  • Gail Horalek, the mother of a 7th-grade child in Michigan in the US, has made international headlines by complaining that the unabridged version of Anne Frank's diary is pornographic and should not be taught at her daughter's school. At issue for Horalek is a section detailing Anne's exploration of her own genitalia, material originally omitted by Anne's father, Otto Frank, when he prepared the manuscript for publication in the late 40s.
  • Nevertheless, consistent findings have emerged linking adolescent use of pornography that depicts violence with increased degrees of sexually aggressive behavior.
    • Eri W. Owens, Richard J. Behun, Jill C. Manning, Robby C. Reid; "The Impact of Internet Pornography on Adolescents: A Review of the Research", Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 19:99–122, 2012
  • Traditional factors that once explained men’s sexual difficulties appear insufficient to account for the sharp rise in erectile dysfunction, delayed ejaculation, decreased sexual satisfaction, and diminished libido during partnered sex in men under 40. This review (1) considers data from multiple domains, e.g., clinical, biological (addiction/urology), psychological (sexual conditioning), sociological; and (2) presents a series of clinical reports, all with the aim of proposing a possible direction for future research of this phenomenon. Alterations to the brain's motivational system are explored as a possible etiology underlying pornography-related sexual dysfunctions. This review also considers evidence that Internet pornography’s unique properties (limitless novelty, potential for easy escalation to more extreme material, video format, etc.) may be potent enough to condition sexual arousal to aspects of Internet pornography use that do not readily transition to real-life partners, such that sex with desired partners may not register as meeting expectations and arousal declines. Clinical reports suggest that terminating Internet pornography use is sometimes sufficient to reverse negative effects, underscoring the need for extensive investigation using methodologies that have subjects remove the variable of Internet pornography use. In the interim, a simple diagnostic protocol for assessing patients with porn-induced sexual dysfunction is put forth.
  • Pornography. That which excites, whether from approval or disapproval.
    • Leonard Rossiter, English comic actor. ‘...To Rossiter’, The Devil’s Bedside Book, Hamlyn paperbacks (1980) p. 46

S - Z

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Watching pornography [..] is like going to a Wikipedia page. You search for a specific thing, a specific feeling, a specific result, and that’s exactly what you find. —Meg Wolitzer
Pornography is not a monolith, either of apolitical pleasure or of unpleasurable power. —Linda Williams
In practice, attempts to sort out good erotica from bad porn inevitably comes down to 'What turns me on is erotic; what turns you on is pornographic.' —Ellen Willis
I would never want to film hard-core pornography, because it always looks like open-heart surgery to me. —John Waters
I know it when I see it. —Potter Stewart
Not unlike urban gangs, police, carnival workers and certain other culturally marginalized guilds, the US porn industry is occluded and insular in a way that makes it seem like high school. —David Foster Wallace
  • Sure, pornography is full of anti-feminist imagery, and women are often exploited in the making of it (though there's a growing movement towards ethically produced pornography, as Jones notes).
    But that this does not translate to the behavior of its users can be seen in another study from 2015, published in the Journal of Sex research. The study found that users of pornography held more egalitarian attitudes than non-users when it came to women in positions of power, women working outside the home, and even abortion.
    The study also found that those who did and those who did not indulge in pornography “did not differ significantly in their attitudes toward the traditional family and in their self-identification as feminist.”
    • Batya Ungar Sargon, ", New York Daily News, (February 19, 2018).
  • When considering shunga, it is important to shed censorious attitudes towards sexuality that have been a fundamental part of western Christian culture for so long. Although printed shunga was officially illegal in Japan after 1722, it was widely tolerated – indeed, during the three centuries of its popularity many thousands of images were produced in a variety of formats: multi-volume books, bound albums sometimes exchanged as wedding gifts, painted handscrolls, and sets of small-format prints possibly sold in wrappers.
    Shunga could be sensuous and comic, but it was rarely violent or exploitative. Most shunga depicts vigorous heterosexual couples in mutual bliss – and these prints were likely cherished by men and women, both young and old, from different strata of society, including samurai lords as well as prosperous merchants and commoners. “The division between art and obscene pornography is a Western conception,” says Clark. “There was no sense in Japan that sex or sexual pleasure was sinful.”
  • Pornography is about dominance and often pain. Erotica is about mutuality and always pleasure.
    • Gloria Steinem "Erotica vs Pornography", in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983)
  • I can’t tell you how surrealistic it is to find myself and others called “puritanical”, “the new Victorians”, or “anti-sex” for the same views that got us condemned as “sexual libertarians” and “immoral women” until a few years ago. Women and men who oppose pornography for its normalization of violence will have to fight hard if we’re going to avoid the suffragists’ fate of being recorded in history as boring, asexual bluestockings... Depictions of mutual pleasure and the sexualization of equality are so rare that pornographers seem to have the franchise on sex. They can get away with claiming that to oppose pornography is to oppose sex… The answer to pornography lies not only in exposing it as an institution, but making sure that individuals who are drawn to it, but who are not hurting others, don’t feel condemned. It’s partly the feeling of being personally accused that has caused some women, including some feminists, to defend pornography.
    • Gloria Steinem, "Preface", Outrageous Acts and Everday Rebellions (2nd ed) (1995)
  • [I can't define what is pornography.] "But I know it when I see it."
  • I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of [hard-core pornography] material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
    • Justice Potter Stewart, in Hahn Guide To Unix & Linux, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, p. 14.
  • Erotica: The depiction of naked men. Depictions of naked women are far less innocent and are known as "pornography".
    • Richard Summerbell, Abnormally Happy: A Gay Dictionary, 1985
  • What do my science fiction stories have in common with pornography? Fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world, I'm told.
  • Not unlike urban gangs, police, carnival workers and certain other culturally marginalized guilds, the US porn industry is occluded and insular in a way that makes it seem like high school.
  • I would never want to film hard-core pornography, because it always looks like open-heart surgery to me.
    • John Waters, Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste, (1981)
  • In practice, attempts to sort out good erotica from bad porn inevitably comes down to 'What turns me on is erotic; what turns you on is pornographic.'
  • Pornography is not a monolith, either of apolitical pleasure or of unpleasurable power.
    • Linda Williams, Hard core: power, pleasure, and the "frenzy of the visible" (1989), p 170.
  • A classic question in the communication literature is whether pornography consumption affects consumers' satisfaction. The present paper represents the first attempt to address this question via meta-analysis. Fifty studies collectively including more than 50,000 participants from 10 countries were located across the interpersonal domains of sexual and relational satisfaction and the intrapersonal domains of body and self satisfaction. Pornography consumption was not related to the intrapersonal satisfaction outcomes that were studied. However, pornography consumption was associated with lower interpersonal satisfaction outcomes in cross-sectional surveys, longitudinal surveys, and experiments. Associations between pornography consumption and reduced interpersonal satisfaction outcomes were not moderated by their year of release or their publication status. But analyses by sex indicted significant results for men only.
  • Internet pornography consumption has been increasing due to the widespread use of the internet and become very common practice among people. Today, it has been considered that 46–74% of men and 16–41% of women are active pornography users in modern nations. These data are supported by one of the most popular porn website, PornHub, as reported over 39 billion searches and 42 billion visits during 2019, suggesting 115 million visits and 18,073 terabytes of data transferred per day.
    the coronavirus continues to spread globally, social distancing, self-isolation/quarantine, and national lockdowns have become the cores to control the pandemic. However, these measures may also lead to increases in social isolation, loneliness, and stress, which can alter the consumption of pornography habits.
  • Individual difference variables representing personality traits are emerged as motivators of pornography consumption. The elements of individual difference variables associated with pornography consumption are sensation seeking, dispositional sexual affect (erotophobia–erotophilia), and narcissistic traits (entitlement). In addition to individual difference variables of pornography consumption, self-reported reasons can also be considered as factors that drive individuals to use pornography. Studies reported that sexual arousal and sexual enhancement were the predominant motivations for pornography consumption among the self-reported reasons. Aside from the sexual arousal and enhancement, coping and boredom are linked with greater use of pornography as well. Studies showed that higher levels of psychological distress often end up with greater levels of pornography consumption. When people have negative feeling like stress or anxiety, viewing pornography could offer temporary relief from those feelings. Similarly, curiosity and information seeking were the other contributing domains for pornography consumption. However, these reasons are less endorsed reasons for pornography use than hedonic reasons.
  • Boredom is also considered a possible trigger of hypersexual behavior by Kafka. This notion is supported by a psychology research demonstrating that leisure boredom is a significant predictor of pornography use, suggesting that people consume porn more when they are bored. Rothman et al. define the use of pornography as a tool to relieve boredom. Similarly, a recent systemic review evaluating the association between boredom and hypersexuality identified a link between boredom and increased online sexual activity. The rationale behind this boredom effect may be due to the men’s novelty-seeking behaviors to reduce monotony and increase arousal.
    Another reason for increased porn consuming could be that some people are using sex as a surviving mechanism for coping with their loneliness, depressive symptoms, and even fear of death. In a study, Baltazar et al. reported that people are endorsing porn use to cope with negative affect. Again, in a study, pornography consumption is an important tool for mood management and stress relief. It should be noted that problematic pornography consumption is also considered to cope with negative emotions. As described by Lehmiller, the key idea behind Terror management theory is that “when we are reminded of our own mortality, we subconsciously alter our attitudes and behaviors to help us cope with the ‘terrifying’ prospect of our eventual death.” A research demonstrated that when we are faced with the prospect of our own mortality, this prompts sexual desire and behavior as a coping mechanism.
  • The modeling of perceiving consumption of Internet pornography as problematic has already received scientific attention (Grubbs et al., 2019). Gola, Lewczuk, and Skorko (2016) studied the predictors of help-seeking behavior relevant to problematic pornography use. They reported that the quality of symptoms explains a significantly higher proportion of variance than the quantity of consumption of Internet pornography, suggesting that the frequency of use should be less diagnostically weighted to better meet the complexity of patients’ presenting concerns. Although abstinence from pornography might be regarded as a feasible intervention to alleviate any negative symptoms, no experimental investigations (but a few clinical case reports) have been made to date (Fernandez, Tee, & Fernandez, 2017).

"What Teenagers Are Learning From Online Porn" (Feb. 7, 2018)

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Maggie Jones, "What Teenagers Are Learning From Online Porn", New York Times, (Feb. 7, 2018).

  • Of the roughly half who had seen pornography, 53 percent of boys and 39 percent of girls said it was “realistic.” And in the recent Indiana University national survey, only one in six boys and one in four girls believed that women in online porn were not actually experiencing pleasure: As one suburban high school senior boy told me recently, “I’ve never seen a girl in porn who doesn’t look like she’s having a good time.”
  • “There’s nowhere else to learn about sex,” the suburban boy told me. “And porn stars know what they are doing.” His words reflect a paradox about sex and pornography in this country. Even as smartphones have made it easier for teenagers to watch porn, sex education in the United States — where abstinence-based sex education remains the norm — is meager.
  • Daley went on to detail a 2010 study that coded incidents of aggression in best-selling 2004 and 2005 porn videos. She noted that 88 percent of scenes showed verbal or physical aggression, mostly spanking, slapping and gagging. (A more recent content analysis of more than 6,000 mainstream online heterosexual porn scenes by Bryant Paul and his colleagues defined aggression specifically as any purposeful action appearing to cause physical or psychological harm to another person and found that 33 percent of scenes met that criteria. In each study, women were on the receiving end of the aggression more than 90 percent of the time.)
  • A., the young woman who said she had never seen an image of a penis until she watched porn, resisted the idea that porn was uniformly bad for teenagers. “At least kids are watching porn and not going out and getting pregnant,” she said. But recently, she told me that she’d given up watching it altogether. She disliked looking at women’s expressions now, believing that they probably weren’t experiencing pleasure and might be in pain. When Drew watched porn, he found himself wondering if women were having sex against their will. As another student said with a sigh: “Nicole and Jess ruined porn for us.”

“Effects of Pornography Use and Demographic Parameters on Sexual Response during Masturbation and Partnered Sex in Women” (2020)

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Sean M. McNabney, Krisztina Hevesi, David L. Rowland; “Effects of Pornography Use and Demographic Parameters on Sexual Response during Masturbation and Partnered Sex in Women”, Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(9), 3130; (Received: 24 March 2020 / Revised: 27 April 2020 / Accepted: 28 April 2020 / Published: 30 April 2020)

  • The effect of pornography on sexual response is understudied, particularly among women.
  • On average, women using pornography were younger, and reported more interest in sex. Pornography frequency differed significantly by menopausal status, sexual orientation, anxiety/depression status, number of sexual partners, and origin of data collection. During masturbation, more frequent pornography use predicted lower arousal difficulty and orgasmic difficulty, greater pleasure, and a higher percentage of masturbatory events leading to orgasm. Frequency of pornography use predicted only lower arousal difficulty and longer orgasmic latencies during partnered sex, having no effect on the other outcome variables. Pornography use frequency did not predict overall relationship satisfaction or sexual relationship satisfaction. Overall, more frequent pornography use was generally associated with more favorable sexual response outcomes during masturbation, while not affecting most partnered sex parameters. Several demographic and relationship covariates appear to more consistently and strongly predict orgasmic problems during partnered sexual activity than pornography use.
  • Research pertaining to pornography has traditionally been conducted from three perspectives. First, pornography use has been evaluated in relation to couples’ relationship satisfaction, often under the assumption that greater reliance upon erotic materials during masturbation is associated with poorer relationship outcomes. Second, pornography has been studied from a neurobehavioral perspective to determine whether individuals who report “compulsive” use exhibit neurophysiologic or epigenetic alterations that typify models of addiction. Third, content analyses of pornographic materials have been conducted to examine the extent to which exposure to beneficial/educational (e.g., providing clitoral stimulation during partnered sex), risky (e.g., condom-less sexual activity), or demeaning (e.g., lack of verbal consent during intercourse, sexual aggression, etc.) sexual scripts might increase the preponderance or social acceptability of such behaviors. Despite the insights gained from these approaches, few studies have analyzed putative direct effects of pornography use on the sexual response cycle, including arousal and orgasmic parameters, comparing masturbatory and partnered sexual activities.
    In stark contrast to prior research findings and public opinion, we did not find strong empirical support for the hypothesis that pornography use is consistently associated with greater sexual dysfunction or relationship dissatisfaction. In all five regression analyses related to masturbation, more frequent pornography use predicted greater ease of becoming aroused and reaching orgasm, longer latencies to orgasm, greater pleasure upon orgasm, and a higher percentage of masturbatory events leading to orgasm. Among the same parameters for partnered sexual activity, more frequent pornography use predicted greater ease becoming aroused and longer latencies, but no significant associations, either positive or negative, were observed for any of the other outcomes in the regression analyses. Overall, women’s use of pornography to enhance orgasmic response and pleasure was strongly supported by our findings, yet pornography use during masturbation appeared to have no deleterious effects on sexual functioning during partnered sex. Indeed, it was actually associated with lower arousal difficulty during partnered sex. Furthermore, no associations were observed between pornography use frequency and general relationship satisfaction or sexual relationship satisfaction with one’s primary partner in the previous 12 months. In these respects, our results highlight the potential positive effects that pornography use might have for women’s enjoyment of sex. Furthermore, to the extent that pornography use might represent greater openness to using less conventional strategies for enhancing their sexual experience, it may reflect one of a number of techniques that differentiate women who use pornography from women who do not.
  • In our multinational, cross-sectional survey of pornography use and sexual response in women, higher frequency of pornography use predicted greater sexual functioning across all outcome variables during masturbation, yet had no deleterious effects on sexual outcomes during partnered activity. Across masturbation and partnered sex, lower levels of educational attainment and the presence of ongoing anxiety or depression were the two most consistent predictors of orgasmic dysfunction in the regression models. Greater sexual relationship satisfaction, in contrast, was associated with more favorable outcomes during partnered sex. Taken together, these findings suggest that the frequency of pornography use per se does not contribute to sexual problems during partnered sex., However, it could well be that a subset of women use erotic materials to compensate for psychosocial factors (e.g., dissatisfaction in one’s sexual relationships, ongoing anxiety or depression) that independently impinge upon sexual responsivity.

See also

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