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Connecting the dots: porn and women’s declining libido

Connecting the dots: porn and women’s declining libido

Dr Bella Ellwood-Clayton, resident anthropologist come sexpert, released her new book this week Sex Drive: In Pursuit of Female Desire. In it she draws attention to something researchers and sex therapists have largely ignored (in this country anyway) and that’s the negative impact of porn on women’s libido. “In any given second, 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography and 372 internet users are typing adult terms into search engines. Every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is created in the US …The effects of this pornography flood are yet to be fully understood, but it inarguably harms female libido” argues Ellwood-Clayton. We know porn is everywhere – “the wall paper of our lives” as Naomi Wolf puts it – with global sales exceeding 97...

Porn bad for women’s libido, Jon Hamm’s ‘softcore’ career and other porn-related news in March

Porn bad for women’s libido, Jon Hamm’s ‘softcore’ career and other porn-related news in March

My name is Brett and I look after the news page on this website. I am from Minneapolis, MN and became interested in the anti-porn movement after seeing the damage pornography had done to my own life, the lives of many who became addicts, but mostly to the women it objectified. In my monthly blog I will highlight several articles from the last month I found particularly interesting and briefly comment on them. Please offer your thoughts as it would be great to have some dialogue about the articles. Here are my selections from March. I start with the article entitled “Court bans internet pornography in Egypt“. The administrative court banned x-rated sites and they cited the reason that it “destroys values”. The court believed pornography was destructive...

Women’s Support Project booklets on sexual exploitation

Women’s Support Project booklets on sexual exploitation

Recently the Women’s Support Project launched a new series of five short information booklets on different aspects of sexual exploitation. The booklets each focus on a different concern within sexual exploitation and provide key information, background reading and also ideas on how to discuss these sometimes sensitive and controversial issues with young people. The booklets cover the following five aspects of sexual exploitation: PORNIFICATION GROOMING SEXTING SEXUAL EXPLOITATION SEXUALISATION The leaflets also contain some valuable tips on how you can help tackle problems created through sexual exploitation, including taking actions on a local / social level. The pornification leaflet for instance points out how you can target TV stations, local supermarkets and DVD shops with regards to their display and sale of pornographic items. The...

Challenging Porn Culture Conference in London December 3rd

Challenging Porn Culture Conference in London December 3rd

On the 3rd of December the London Metropolitan University will be hosting an international conference entitled Challenging Porn Culture. The conference will be aimed at supporting and inspiring feminist thinking and activism against pornography and porn culture. The organisers have managed to put together a really exciting programme which features academics and activists from the USA, Australia, Norway, Scotland and London. Confirmed speakers include Dr. Gail Dines (professor and author of Pornland: How pornography has hijacked our sexuality), Dr. Karen Boyle (lecturer, author of Media and Violence: Gendering the Debates and editor of the 2010 book Everyday pornography), Dr. Meagan Tyler (lecturer, researcher and author,whose book Selling Sex Short: The pornographic and sexological construction of women’s sexuality in the West was published earlier this year – you can...

Internet porn makes men bad in bed

Internet porn makes men bad in bed

Psychology today recently published an article by Marnia Robinson, author of Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow, which stated that a growing number of young men addicted to porn, that are otherwise healthy, were developing an inability to be turned on by real partners. Supported by research from Italy and elsewhere the idea is that internet porn desensitizes young men to such a degree that when actually faced with a real human from their target sex group, they are entirely unable to participate as they should. “Desperate young men from various cultures, with different levels of education, religiosity, attitudes, values, diets, marijuana use, and personalities are seeking help. They have only two things in common: heavy use of today’s Internet porn and increasing need for more extreme...

What Is Gay Sex? Pornography Tries to Give Us the Answer, and Fails

What Is Gay Sex? Pornography Tries to Give Us the Answer, and Fails

Below are several passages from Audre Lorde’s classic radical lesbian feminist essay, “The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”: “The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, and plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with the pornographic. But pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.” “The principal horror of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, or which defines human...

Jensen Speaking Event (US)

Jensen Speaking Event (US)

Robert Jensen will be speaking about pornography in Moraga, Calafornia on October the 27th at St. Mary’s College of California. The title of his talk will be ‘The Impact of Pornography on Violence Against Women’ and will take place at the college’s Soda Center at 7pm. If you’re interested in attending contact: Sharon Sobotta, ssobotta@stmarys-ca.edu Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, the author of Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, and co-author with Gail Dines and Ann Russo of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. For interviews and articles by Robert Jensen on pornography check out his Project page here, or his own website here.

The harms of mass-market pornification: New Book

The harms of mass-market pornification: New Book

The release of a new book entitled “Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Porn Industry” got covered by the The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Coporation). The title of the article – “Nothing radical about mass-market masturbation” made it sound interesting and I must admit getting intrigued when I found it was published in the religion subsection of the ABC’s website. It made me wonder what the main focus of the article was going to be and interestingly it is not religion / faith / spirituality at all. In fact the article does not even refer to spiritual themes. Instead the authors skilfully point out that “Challenges to the pornography industry that call attention to evidence of harm and the destruction of human...

One Real Wrinkled Wife or a Harem of Airbrushed Goddesses?

One Real Wrinkled Wife or a Harem of Airbrushed Goddesses?

Contribution by Mark Chamberlain, Ph.D. author of ‘Love You, Hate the Porn’ out on Shadow Mountain Press. The amazing thing about pornography is how it can keep arousal fresh when it would otherwise stagnate, excitement electric when it would neutralize, keep us awake when we’d otherwise sleep. And awake, and awake, and awake. Marnia Robinson and Gary Wilson probe porn’s secret recipe for keeping the high going. Key ingredient: the convincing illusion of so many participants eager sex with little old moi, the viewer. (This is where that little gullible part of the brain screams, “Illusion? Illusion?! Noooo!!”) What could be better than that dreamy vision, that fantastic mirage? May I humbly suggest: How about a real life one-and-only? After Valentine’s day this year,...

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