Stats

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 is an issue for the left but practical approaches from across the political spectrum shouldn’t be rejected out of hand

Porn is an issue for the left but practical approaches from across the political spectrum shouldn’t be rejected out of hand

Last week saw the publication of the ‘Findings and Recommendations’ of the UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection. The inquiry was headed up by the Conservative MP Claire Perry, and while some may argue (or presume) that the report is couched in a “save the children” small ‘c’ conservative-style rhetoric, the cross-party inquiry’s findings and recommendations are actually far more balanced in their ideological approach than one might expect. Crucially, in the report the inquiry shows special concern regarding the “violent, degrading and coercive” pornographic material that teenagers are said to be accessing (p.13), and noted from evidence given by the NSPCC, that “overuse of pornographic material has been shown to desensitise children and young people to violent or sexually aggressive acts ...

Supply and Demand: Our insatiable appetite for porn is fuelling the exploitation of women

Supply and Demand: Our insatiable appetite for porn is fuelling the exploitation of women

With 13,000 new films per year, 28,000 online viewers every second and 793 million Google hits for the word itself, our demand for porn seems almost insatiable. Statistics indicate that 43% of all internet users view pornography and when in 2009, scientists at the University of Montreal attempted to carry out a study involving men in their 20s who had never watched porn, they couldn’t find any. In an age of increased consumer awareness, where big name shops like Primark, Topman and Marks and Spencer cede to customer pressure, and where persistent lobbying is increasing the range of fair-trade products available, does the average pornography consumer question the willingness of those from whom he is getting pleasure? The problem of sex trafficking is largely...

Man-centric media impairs our ability to see the sexism in porn

Man-centric media impairs our ability to see the sexism in porn

Nearly all mainstream pornography is depicted from a man’s perspective. This may be obvious; such as in Point of View (POV) type scenes, or made evident through the fact that the woman (or women) take up most of the picture or screen (they are the ones to be looked at), or even apparent through the kind of sex and sex acts being depicted; Ass To Mouth, for example. These are just a few ways in which porn can reveal the fact that it is almost exclusively a particular kind of man-orientated vision of sex and sexuality. Perhaps, like many men, this is not something that immediately struck me about porn when I first started to use it. This may be explained by the fact...

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...

Australian teachers urged to address porn in sex education

Australian teachers urged to address porn in sex education

Below is an article from today’s Sydney Morning Herald about the findings of two Australian researchers who have examined the influence that porn is having on the sexuality and sexual behaviour of teenagers. Porn industry ‘veterans’ who took part in the research noted that there had been a shift from ”lovey-dovey sex” to Gonzo sex, a cinematic style where a hand-held camera is used to film what is often a violent scene. They also interviewed young female performers, who confirmed that pornography had become more violent in recent years, and that they had to pretend to enjoy being treated badly. The researchers argue that “young people urgently need help to critique pornography’s representations of gender and sex, and to help them distinguish between what...

Blame the industries, not the people who follow them

Blame the industries, not the people who follow them

No matter how many news articles one reads, there will always be one that takes one by surprise – not necessarily in a good way. I know I shouldn’t give the Daily Mail any attention, but I read their featured article “Since when did women’s lib mean dressing like a porn star?” with a mixture of feelings I am not sure how to place; it was probably a mix of understanding some of the issues raised as well as baffled annoyance. Somewhere halfway through the piece the author appropriately pointed out that the fashion choices of today’s women and girls are informed by a hypersexualised mainstream porn and pop culture noting that “it is becoming increasingly clear that the harsh and brutal aesthetics of...

EMMA Winter edition. A large-scale human experiment

EMMA Winter edition. A large-scale human experiment

In the Winter 2011 edition of EMMA (Germany’s leading feminist magazine in Germany, and the only political magazine in Europe entirely run by women) a large part of the magazine was dedicated to pornography. We felt that a couple of articles in that edition of EMMA would be of interest to a lot of you, so we decided to translate them into English. The first article A large-scale human experiment shows that the concerns about the harms of pornography are being raised world-wide. The second article The dream of being a porn star, which we have split into three posts that will be published over the coming weeks, is a detailed account from a survivor of the pornography industry. A large-scale human experiment In...

Over 1in5 UK Children view ‘inappropriate content’ on their smartphones

Over 1in5 UK Children view ‘inappropriate content’ on their smartphones

A study, compiled by YouGov for Carphone Warehouse has found that 21% of 8 to 15 year olds in the UK have accessed ‘inappropriate content’ from their mobile phone. The investigation into the mobile web behaviour of 8 -15 year-olds in the UK found that 2.8 million or 25% of UK children aged 8-12 have smart phones, and more than one in five of those children admitted to accessing websites that they know are “not for them.” However, answers to other questions in study indicate that this number may be higher with 87% saying they know that they do not have parental restrictions on their mobile phones. Other possibly interesting stats are that the number of children watching ‘online videos or video clips’ on...

Page 1 of 3

1 2 3 »