Anti-porn men

November 12, 2010
Issue 

The Anti-Porn Men Project was recently launched. Anti-Porn Men is a website providing men with information and a platform to explore anti-pornography views and arguments.

Criticisms of porn from moralistic and religious standpoints are nothing new, but the Anti-Porn Men Project isn’t about moralistic preaching — it comes from a feminist and pro-sex perspective.

Within 20 minutes of posting a link to the website on my Facebook page, I was accused of being anti-sex. Being anti-pornography was equated with being extreme, absurd and unreasonable. I was supposedly saying sex was misogynistic.

But all I said was that I'm anti-“porn”. Is porn sex? The Anti-Porn Men Project says “‘porn’... is — generally speaking — sexually explicit material that is characterised in some way by cruelty, humiliation, or degradation of women. This kind of material constitutes the vast majority of so-called ‘mainstream pornography’.”

There is nothing wrong with sexual imagery or videos of sex. But porn encourages sexism because the vast majority of it shows sex as something that objectifies women, and implies women's role in sex is to please men.

The women's rights movement won important victories in bringing female sexuality into the open, which was emancipating for society. But now, women's sexuality is drowned out by the avalanche of porn that depicts women's role as mere objects, and their role in sex as secondary to men's.

Men’s porn use is not an isolated and separate part of their lives. You can't spend a significant amount of time consuming sexist and degrading material without it affecting your view of women.

Porn is increasingly available and normalised in our culture. This constant degrading representation of women undermines women’s confidence and reduces their sexuality to a tool for pleasing men.

Porn presents violent, man-centric and degrading sex as the norm. Consent and safe sex are often nonexistent.

Porn implies it’s acceptable for men in positions of power to hit on and touch up women within their control or authority at.

Porn presents sex as something a man does to a woman for his gratification, at his choice, as opposed to something two people consensually engage in.

Familysafemedia.com says the average age of first exposure to internet porn is 11, and that 80% of 15 to17-year-olds have had multiple exposures to hard-core material.

This imagery damages how young men view sexual relations and women in general. Presenting objectified women as the norm undermines men's ability to interact with women as equals.

This also destroys men's confidence when they find sex to be not as it is depicted and themselves not to be sexual iron men.

I've had male friends who wouldn't have sex, even with women they were in relationships with, unless blind drunk, because they found their perceived lack of performance too stressful.

Another friend felt guilty for forming an emotional relationship with a woman without wanting to share it as a graphic sexual conquest with the rest of the footy team.

I want my sexuality back! This doesn't mean calling for censorship of pornography or just attacking those who watch it. It means saying sexuality is a beautiful thing that we all should enjoy. But porn is not sex, porn is not real and porn is not healthy.

Let’s stand up for a real sexuality, so our brothers don’t feel like freaks for caring, and our sisters can feel sexually safe and welcome. To do this, we need to be Anti-Porn Men.

Comments

I said this in a different thread but I think it's important for people to read and even if they don't agree...If people were more open about sex, and having issues surrounding it out in the open with their partners and also just in society in general we really would not need porn. If we truly were open about sex and our own sexuality, we really would not need the violence and degradation that we see in those videos and things, because what many view as so dirty and disgusting has become a turn on for people, and the industry just plays on that...plays on our forbidden/shunned sexuality, and molding something more twisted out of it. Does that make any sense to you? This is something a teacher told me and I absolutely agree with it. I just wanted to share that. Thanks! Peace!
Um,actually feminism is a "moral perspective" and all its pronouncements are moral ones e.g. the moral assumption that women are either equal to men or superior to men - both "moral" positions.
Um, aren't you discriminating against 3 billion female porn users? Women may not enjoy the same porn as men, but they DO enjoy porn and consume in equal or far greater quantities.
Thank you for this well thought out article. I am a Vegan feminist and see a direct correlation between the way animals are treated in the 'meat' industry and the way women are treated by society. We are continually commodified and exploited, even by our own sisterhood. Without men, such as yourself drawing this plight to the attention of men & women, this patriarchal society has no hope of making important changes. We have been conditioned to think that porn is healthy and even liberating at times, but fail to look at it's damaging effects on society as a whole.
Great article. I agree to be anti porn does not mean anti sex. I know all too well the problems that ongoing porn can have on a relationship. My partner started watching porn at the young age of 10 years and has become addicted to it. To the point that it almost cost him his job, we were not as intimate in the bedroom as he was focused on self gratification and not mutual enjoyment, and finally he crossed a boundary and we separated. He hid his addiction for the 10 years I have been with him and although he attempted to stop he could not go for more than a few weeks. Porn addiction is a terrible thing, it destroys careers, families and the lives of those with the addiction as they are so focused on the porn. For those who are not addicted their perception of sex becomes focused on self gratification and wants and ommits the partner. I have so many friends that can relate to the impact on the intimacy in the relationship that it is quite scary. With the increasing availability of porn on home computers and the society trend of acceptance, it appears that porn addiction and the affects of porn in modern relationships are on the increase.
Women are superior to men is a moral position? That doesn’t sound very moral, it’s about as moral as me saying man are superior to women, wouldn’t you agree?
A direct correlation between the way animals are treated in the 'meat' industry and the way women are treated by society you say? Well its statements like that witch give feminists a bad name. What planet are you living on?

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