Posted on 11/19/2005 3:23:43 PM PST by Melissa 24
The Sunday Times September 18, 2005
Mummy, I want to be a porn star Pornography is becoming so acceptable in Britain that even teenage girls see it as a career, writes Kira Cochrane
‘Imagine if Starbucks offered a shot of alcohol with your morning coffee. Then there was beer in the office and at lunchtime we all automatically ordered a bottle of wine rather than sparkling water. If alcohol were that available we’d all start drinking more and any stigma would gradually disappear. And that’s how things are developing with porn.” So says Pamela Paul, the American author of Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families. Paul has been looking into the effects of pornography on society and her investigation seems incredibly timely. While Britons may lag behind their European counterparts in education and living standards, it was revealed last week that the UK has become the porn capital of Europe, with access to 27 porn television channels. Germany, our nearest rival, has just five.
This represents only a tiny part of a £31.5 billion global industry. As even the most sheltered know, hardcore material is available over the internet, with 25% of all searches seeking to access one of the 1.3m porn websites. It’s also more available in magazines and even marketed directly to our mobile phones.
With so much material around, porn imagery has naturally crossed into the mainstream. It can now be found at children’s eye level on many supermarket newsstands (in magazines such as Nuts and Zoo), and in advertising (last year, for instance, a stereo system was promoted with a woman bound head to foot in black vinyl tape).
It’s there in the lyrics of Christina Aguilera, the styling of Britney Spears and even the poses of mannequins in Madame Tussaud’s (where a waxwork of Kylie Minogue depicts her on all fours with her bottom poking into the air).
So it is not surprising that Paul’s research flags up some shocking findings, including the appeal of porn’s “glamour” image to young girls.
“I found pre-teen girls who were putting pictures of porn stars on their personal web pages and providing links to porn websites,” she says. “I learnt about them through a porn actress who’d published a bestselling autobiography and was surprised when pre-teen girls showed up at signings. They said they saw her as a positive icon.”
Although women have yet to catch up with men (and the material they access is usually much softer core, such as Sweet Action, the independent “porn for women” magazine), Paul found that more women are using porn: 32m women visited at least one adult website in January 2004, according to her study. In a magazine poll 41% of women said they had intentionally viewed or downloaded erotic films or photographs. More than one in 10 had watched or sexually interacted with someone on a live webcam.
These findings support a recent British survey of 1,000 girls, aged 15-19, which found that 63% aspired to be glamour models, while 25% preferred the idea of lap dancing. For many, the erotic lifestyle and look is not seedy but has become aspirational.
Paul also spoke to a group of twentysomething men who had grown up with the internet, “consuming porn literally every day since they were 14. Our sexual cues and desires are learnt during adolescence, and . . . these young men were regularly viewing bestiality and group sex”.
This last point underlines another reality about porn, says Paul. Most people have no idea of what is actually out there: “Baby boomers associate porn with Playboy or page 3.”
Most women also believe that their husbands would never use porn but this could be a misconception, too. More men than ever are using porn and the material they are accessing is becoming progressively hard core. The heaviest demand on the internet is for “deviant” material, including paedophilia, bondage and sadomasochism.
During the course of her research Paul spoke to 80 men. Even those who described themselves as “casual users” were watching as much as one hour of porn on the internet each day.
Although porn consumption among women is increasing, it is clear that many have mixed feelings about it. Many of the conversations that Paul had with young women, even those who used porn, began with “I’m not a prude, but . . .” or “I’m really liberal, but . . .” as if they had to apologise for feeling shocked by some of the things they had seen.
They were afraid to show any concern or anxiety over porn for fear of being classified as “anti-sex”.
“Embracing pornography has become almost a new form of political correctness,” says Paul. “Part of the reason for the change is that the anti-porn voices of the early 1980s, like Andrea Dworkin, were considered to be very extreme. “When calls began for censorship of porn back then, liberals and moderates became scared that this could be used to censor feminist books. At that stage the tide turned.”
Ever since, Paul believes, many women have tried to accept pornography “by kidding themselves that men look at it simply because they love women”. While this is no doubt true of some genuine “casual users”, the comments from internet chatrooms tell another story.
“Looks like she’s had a few too many sandwiches!” writes one man, while another agrees: “She has no waistline — goes straight down from her shoulders!” And these are just the comments that are fit to print — most are horribly explicit.
How is all this likely to progress? With so much porn imagery having flooded the mainstream, can it go any further — and can it be stopped? Paul believes that the right approach is one of “censure, not censor”.
By stigmatising porn in certain ways — as has been done with smoking — she believes that it could be pushed back out of the mainstream and into the more exclusively adult realm where it used to exist. “In Britain, the government has announced a crackdown on the most extreme websites that mix porn and violence, so that’s a start,” she says.
“And I also think that just increasing people’s awareness of what porn really is can make a real difference. Before Fast Food Nation came out, people never really knew what was in their chicken nuggets.
“Hopefully my book can go some way to exposing the reality of porn and its effects, too.”
> Ummm beer & corn flakes
& porn ;-)
They're the same perverts on Madison Avenue who think all women should look like 14-year-old boys.
Heh. My sister works for a firm that advertises for pharmaceutical companies on Madison Avenue. She seems to like her boys a bit older. =)
Will try again to stop on Monday. No one in my family knows I've restarted. I don't have the heart to disappoint them.
Wish me luck! Since I live in the Peoples Republic of Maryland with a high cigarette tax, every time I buy a pack I'm making a donation to the democrats. That should be reason enough to quite!
Good luck Lizma.
I send you positive thoughts.
Yeah I've heard it's hard but I think that for myself and the kiddie I think I'll do it. Good luck on trying again, (I've been told that we all slip once in a while)
England is reaping what it's society has sown. It would be so in the US were it not for people who have at least a moral base line from which they live their lives usually connected to their religious faith. In the case of Europe, they have very precious little influance from religious faith except the religion of murder known as radical muslim.
Pornography is the celebration of selfishness.
If we make porn common and normal, women will no longer get paid thousands of dollars a night. Supply and Demand. It takes no talent to be a female porn star, and you're only getting paid because most women have too much class to do what you are doing.
The more women enter the field, the less any of them will make.
Not to be too crass, but I imagine prostitution is the same way. I know HBO has some series about the "rabbit ranch" or something like that where women get paid thousands of dollars a night to have sex with men who come from other states.
But if prostitution was legal everywhere, I'm sure there'd be plenty of illegals willing to undercut the going rate, and "good women" wouldn't be tempted by the exhorbitant money. I guess this is the same argument used by people who want to legalize drugs.
I'm not arguing we SHOULD legalize stuff, just saying that people already IN the business probably don't want the stigma reduced.
+
You mean the same one's who design women's clothing? Especially bathing suits.
You know, she was approached by some TV producers who wanted her to host a "Who Wants to Be a Porn Star" type show, similar to the premise of American Idol. She was appalled by the idea, and said she didn't want to influence girls to choose her career.
How sad is it when the porn star has more sense than the TV producers?
Barney Frank's role model as well, wasn't she?
"You know, she was approached by some TV producers who wanted her to host a "Who Wants to Be a Porn Star" type show, similar to the premise of American Idol. She was appalled by the idea, and said she didn't want to influence girls to choose her career.
How sad is it when the porn star has more sense than the TV producers?"
If she's the one I'm thinking of, she IS doing it. For the Playboy channel. Saw a commercial for it while watching SpikeTV at about 2 in the morning.
Just did a google search, and you are correct. Too bad -- I thought she had a teensy bit of sense!
"England is reaping what it's society has sown. It would be so in the US were it not for people who have at least a moral base line from which they live their lives usually connected to their religious faith."
Ha ha! You really think this is something that the US has 'avoided' but us heathen Brits have not? Sounds like you're right in the target audience for this book (which, incidently, is primarily focused on the US, although obviously the Sunday Times has highlighted the parts relating to the UK as being more relevant to the readership).
Have a look at Pamela Paul's website:
http://www.pamelapaul.com/index.php?p=1
"PORNIFIED shows why it's important for all Americans - those who look at pornography and those who do not - to understand how porn has changed and what we need to do about it."
And a couple more articles here:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/177/story_17736_1.html
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/mohler/?adate=8/22/2005
Ha ha! NO! As a matter of fact I see the US as terrible in the whole thing. Making mounds of the crap, destroying lives in the process, wreaking havoc amongst society, it has just not overcome the US as it seems to have overcome all of Europe. So, stop being so insulted at the obvious you wern't called anything. There are more people in the US that stand against porn as acceptable than in Europe and England...or can you prove me wrong? Now, it may be a matter of rote numbers of population but my assertion of the church being of low influence in England and Europe is accurate and it at least has influence in the states where the battle goes on and in many cases is lost for people of faith in the courts rooms which is of a more recent event than people are willing to admit.
If it is such that the number of people who stand against porn in England is high I'll admit being wrong in approach. There has only been one instance where I have seen the influence of porn having an affect here in the states in a tawdry way as to be "normalized' and that is a screwy idiotic class in California where they have a course on being a whore.
Sex sells the world over, no nation is above the other but some have social acceptability factors higher than others...and in this, you reap what you sow.
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