> porngraphy

Pornography is a system of advertising the sexual domination and degradation of women. It consists of videos or images of prostitution – because no one can consent to abuse, and sex without consent is abuse. If the sex were wanted, money would not be changing hands.

Porn is not, as is often claimed, a mere fantasy – real women are abused and used as sex objects.  We OBJECT.

Porn trains viewers (including children, since the age verification promised by David Cameron in 2017 never happened) to develop a sexuality which erotices the domination of men and subordination of women. The pain, abuse and degradation deliberately inflicted on women is, incredibly, portrayed as ‘sexy’.  Porn consumers learn to become sexually aroused by (and often ONLY by) the oppression of women in our society, often losing the ability to orgasm unless seeing pain inflicted.  They are taught that this is the ‘natural’ order – that women are innately aroused by receiving abuse and violence, and that men are biologically inclined to be sexually turned on by asserting their dominance and inflicting this abuse.  It is taught, wrongly, that men and women are simply ‘born that way’ and that sexuality cannot change and is not affected by socialisation.

Men, the physically more powerful sex, learn to power-play this advantage for their own sexual satisfaction, making it very difficult for a habitual porn user to enjoy normal equality-based sex with mutual pleasure-seeking. Using porn makes real sexual relationships very difficult to maintain.

If animal porn was as socially acceptable as sub-dom hetero porn, we would see a big rise in cruelty to animals. As it is, we have a big rise in sexual cruelty to women and girls, as reflected in the regular media reports on sexual violence, abuse and bullying, as well as the ever-rising rape stats and ever-sinking prosecution and conviction rates.

This is not a ‘moral panic’, it is reality. 

 

OBJECT’s work on Pornography

2021 OBJECTinar  featuring Dr Julia Long and Professor Kathleen Richardson

2020 OBJECT supported CEASE’s Traffickinghub protest against Mindgeek, the owner of much-sued Pornhub, standing in the rain outside an apparently empty block which is registered as one of Mindgeek’s offices. 

2019 OBJECT asked Marks and Spencer to rename its canned alcopop Porn Star Cocktail – as a family store it should not be introducing porn to aisles where children shop. Porn may be legal, but normalising it in a family context, Marks and Spencer agreed, is not their aim. We were delighted to try the new Passion Star cocktail and found it delicious!

2019 OBJECT got The London Porn Film Festival moved from its planned prestigious central London venue. A ‘Porn Film Festival’ was due to take place, all day for a week with no age verification, at the Horse Hospital, Russell Square London WC1. Festival hashtags included ‘blood’, ‘violence’ and ‘necrophilia’. OBJECT wrote to Camden Council, concerned that children might attend and that these films might be unlawful under the Criminal Justice & Immigration Act 2008 which bans possession of extremely violent pornographic images eg images of life-threatening injury or necrophilia). Camden investigated and the pornographers “faced with the prospect of a picket,” had to change venue. OBJECT and other feminists protested at the new venue, a closed-down pub in Camberwell (The Flying Dutchman) on 27th April, counting only 20-30 people attending the film on show. The pornographers informed us (by ‘invoice’!) that our efforts meant the ‘Porn Festival’ made a loss of £2000. 

2019 Laila Namdarkhan, OBJECT board member, spoke at the CEASE conference on how OBJECT got the Camden event moved, giving tips on how to make a protest super-effective.

2018 Porn Is Not Liberating –  OBJECT board member Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans was inteviewed on The Wright Show on talkRadio, explaining why pornography is not ‘empowering’ for women, debunking the common pro-porn arguments.  Hear interview or read transcript.

“What [pornography] says, to young girls – and to young boys, who are also affected by it – is that it’s really cool, for a boy or for a man, to be dominant; to pull a woman’s hair; to ejaculate all over her face; to call her terrible names; and the woman will really enjoy it. That’s the message that boys and girls are getting.  That is not about sexual liberation – for boys or for girls.”
Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans, talkRadio (2018)

2018 Janice Williams, OBJECT’s Chair, spoke at the CEASE conference on the subject of age verification for viewing porn which Prime Minister David Cameron had promised in 2017 to implement. Jan predicted that, because of the power and reach of the porn industry, reasons would be found not to do this. So far (2021) she has been proved right!

 

Recommended Books on Pornography

  • Bray, Abigail. & Reist, Melinda Tankard. Eds. (2011) Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry.
  • Brunskell-Evans, Heather (Ed.) (2016) The Sexualized Body and the Medical Authority of Pornography: Performing Sexual Liberation.
  • Dines, Gail. (2010) Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality.
  • Jenson, Robert. (2007) Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity.
  • Saini, Angela. (2017) Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story.  [NOTE: This book usefully explains how sexual behaviour is learnt/cultural and not innate.]

 Recommended Websites on Pornography

To read OBJECT’s latest blog posts on pornography, click here.