On December 14th The Women’s Support Project and Zero Tolerance‘s Pleasure vs. Profit launched it’s own website. The people behind the project acknowledge that young people are increasingly worried about the influence of pornography on their culture, relationships and sex lives, but that there is little information out there to help them understand and challenge the porn industry. Pleasure vs. Profit aims to fill this gap, providing the facts in an accessible, young-people friendly way as well as linking to further reading and resources for parents, carers, youth workers and teachers who want to tackle the subject with the young people they work with.
To visit the Pleasure vs. Profit website, click here. Follow Pleasure vs. Profit and their Porcupine Campaign on Facebook here.
You can view the Pleasure vs. Profit video and information pack here.
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But most people who watch porn don’t pay for it. So what’s then the logic behind the slogan “pleasure vs. profit”? Or the claim that the porn industry wants (and gets) your money?
You have mentioned in quite a few of you recent comments that porn is ‘free’ and I think this needs further analysis. At the Challenging Porn Conference we recently attended Dr. Jennifer Johnson visualized the porn industry for the attendees usin scatterplot.
This showed that even thought the porn industry appears to be unorganized with lots of ‘free’ content from the user’s point of view, in reality the industry has a highly interactive core with hundreds of tentacles. These tentacles reach out to seemingly unrelated porn sites, many of which feature ‘free’ porn.
This visualization showed clearly that porn companies actively and efficiently strategize using 3-5 minute “free porn” teasers in order to ‘convert’ as much of their ‘traffic’ into paying customers. Although this may not work on everybody, this is the main goal – to get people to pay for porn.
In terms of the logic for the slogan, I suppose you wuld have to ask the people behind it for more details behind their thinking.
I am glad to see that somebody is trying to throw some light on and explore this contradictory question. Apparently everyone is not like me, equating Payment with Prostitution. (In another post I’ve pointed out how money is intrinsically linked to both virtue and sin in the Puritanism that is the basis of capitalism.)
But why pay for full-length when there are thousands of hours of free porn floating around? Based on what I’ve seen, porn movies are so idiotic that a full-length porn movie would be far more boring than browsing through lots of short clips!
Actually, I would be more likely to believe that free porn is a conspiracy by some dark capitalist forces to keep the masses entertained while they screw over society, rather than based on genuine capitalism.
I don’t think watching porn and not paying for it directly makes any of the men less of a punter. Sure they are not paying for it, but there is still an exchange of money through ads, affiliate links etcetera. Free users a still supporting the industry and the women and men are getting paid no matter whether the individual pays or not. From what is reported on the porn industry’s turnover it is also clear that this business model works. To pornify men through free porn who will then spend money on the sex industry; be that Playboy Magazine, strip clubs, prostitutes, escorts, sex lines or pay-per-view porn.
There is also this article by Gail Dines which was published recently:
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/12/21/3396048.htm
So watching TV paid for with commercials for Coke, Pepsi and McDonald’s makes me support these vultures even though I never buy their crappy junk?
It would also be interesting to know which demographic pays for porn in this day and age. I suspect it’s mostly wealthy men above 50. I can’t imagine anybody my age (29) paying for porn! If it’s mostly the older generation the problem will solve itself in a generation. I can’t imagine that any kids growing up today will ever pay for porn.
I totally agree. There are far more persuasive arguments against pornography then that it wants (and gets) your money. For starters, how about that it’s led to 40 million Americans visiting porn sites on a regular basis (http://reliableanswers.com/med/porn_addiction.asp), 10% of which admit to porn addiction (http://findhisporn.com/learn). I could go on and on here but, you get the point.
I can’t see how you other commenters can disagree with “Porn is Made for Profit.” So what if an individual can watch the porn for free, most actors in porn are paid to be there. That means it’s not a sex act about pleasure and real emotions, it’s a sex act for entertainment and profit.
Amateur porn is one of the few styles on the internet that sometimes breaks this rule and if you watch amateur porn, you will also see striking differences for this. There is actually now some “fake amateur” porn that is still made for a profit…so be aware of what you are looking at. Real people’s sex lives shouldn’t look like porn; if there’s any real emotion involved.
So “Romeo and Juliet” can just be discarded because it’s actors with no real love involved and real people’s love lives shouldn’t be like that?
Free porn is like the drug dealer that gives you the first couple of ounces for free. Whether or not it works isn’t the point. The point is they’re doing it to make a profit. It’s not some altruistic act.
But unlike drugs, there is a limitless supply of the free stuff in porn. You can be an addict and still not pay a penny!
So I’m new and confused. In my mind I can separate all sorts of genres and even motivations within ‘porn’, some of which have been alluded to e.g. genuine amateur vs the rest; gay porn; porn for straight women; fetishes etc. I think it’s too easy to tar it all with the same brush.
There are sites that you pay for upfront and ‘free’ sites, supported through advertising or by linking to services you pay for. I agree with A Shropshire Lad in that I can’t see that many under 30s actually pay for porn. I’m 25 and the only porn I ever paid for (which hopefully doesn’t fall within the definition which you are all fighting against) is called Fuck For Forest.
Surely the issue is how to get more ppl from exploitative pornography and other harmful manifestations of the sex industry and our not-yet-equal society to safe exploration (online or otherwise), real sex education and practice, no?