Women like to watch porn. Deal with it.

File this one under “if you wore a short skirt, you asked for it.” Except this time, it’s coming from women who call themselves feminists. Case in point: Mary Anne Layden, professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston stating, “The more pornography women use, the more likely they are to be victims of non-consensual sex.”

It’s true that women are watching pornography for sexual pleasure and partnered enjoyment more than ever. While many of us see this as an exciting new chapter of women challenging the world to deliver sexual pleasure (and entertainment) on our terms for a change, a small subset of women are seeing the explosion of female porn viewers as an opportunity to scare us away from taking back our right to watch. It’s been surprising to many women that the most sexist theories about female porn viewers are coming from feminist women. The sum of Layden’s message to women is that if you watch porn, you now know what will happen. Never mind that her assertion of ‘fact’ makes no sense — unless you peel back the veneer of this logic. Women: explore the man world of sex, and you will pay the price. It’s a man’s world, after all. Then again, so was voting. Layden is a teacher. She knows she is telling women, and journalists, what to think. Her claims are completely unsubstantiated, and this in and of itself should have her up for review. Any media who sourced this wingnut as an authority when she had no data or facts ready for checking, should be fired.

I’m just tired of seeing these scared women afraid to have an honest conversation about porn’s female viewers without pulling out all the predictable stereotypes — and acting like sexist old men about what we’re figuring out together. (Without them.) It’s increasingly difficult to believe that women in positions of influence (Layden) that invoke punishment and shame and fear of the unknown, actually have the greater good of female sexual empowerment and gender equality as their goal. Because what they’re preaching with hellfire and damnation sure sounds to me like someone whose interests are best served by keeping us in our places.

The woman who brought this to my attention is Miss Maggie Mayhem; a writer, performer, sex educator, feminist and activist (just returned from volunteer rebuilding in Haiti). She also faces off with the (lucrative) trend of female porn addiction. Her blog is not work-safe and has images of nudity, so don’t click if you’re at work or might be unprepared (or not of age) for adult material. Ms. Mayhem writes in Porn & Rape? –

(…) Even in an article about the “record setting” number of women utilizing porn, the article still relies on the age old dichotomy of women as emotional creatures for whom sex is a means to love and romance and men are just horny visually stimulated animals. Not just men, of course, young men and women. That’s because being sexual is something that you grow out of when you mature, of course.

When gender is singled out in this manner it reiterates the notion that women who are interested in sex for fuck’s sake are unnatural aberrations. It’s also known as slut shaming. As a whole, more women stated preference is for sexual literature but that is because it makes their genitals gush rather than their hearts. No one read them in the bathtub because they were thinking about how they were going to tile the floor when prince charming rescued them. Cheap paperback editions mean that no one cries when it gets dropped into the suds when the shower nozzle is pulled out.

But hey, the title of the article itself is, “More women lured to pornography addiction.” This is because women are sweet and innocent emotional Red Riding Hoods websurfing their way to Grandma’s House of recipes and quilting when the Big Bad Pornographic Wolf found them and led them astray. I don’t think women are that naive. I think women use that search bar, read those reviews, and comment on the forums because they want to watch porn. (…read more, link NSFW)

This is an interesting item, especially on the tail end of discovering that the poster girl for today’s feminist anti-porn charge — Gail Dines — has had her own (now former) research assistant publicly oppose Dines’ anti-porn arguments. After working with her former boss and mentor for an unspecified amount of time, female research intern Beth Brigham completely disagrees and now openly disputes with Gail Dines anti-porn claims. Brigham and has since worked in porn and so now can speak firsthand about what’s true in Dines’ porn statements about porn and its performers, and what is not.

While clearly the most vocal the anti-porn views (such as Dines’) may not be fact-filled, the way women relate to porn (or not) is sincerely charged with very valid emotions and our own experiences. Clarisse Thorn writes a very balanced and provocative article for Carnal Nation explaining why she’s pro-porn, yet doesn’t entirely write off the anti-porn feminists. Thorn’s perspective makes sense, helping us to understand what seems to many of us like a bizarre extremist mindset. It is, but the main reasons why, Thorn tells us, has much to do with a lack of sex education. They may see pro-porn women as wrong, and refuse to talk to or engage with us, but in Sympathy For the Anti-Porn Feminists she explains,

(…) So how can I have sympathy for anti-porn feminists? Only because I remember how I felt just a few years ago. I remember that I felt so confused about my own sexuality; I remember how resentful I felt, that sex seemed so easy for men—that the world seemed to facilitate their sex drives so thoroughly, particularly by providing all this porn!

I remember how hurt I felt by porn, because I believed that it represented “what men want”, and that therefore I was “supposed” to act like porn women—even though the way women acted in porn didn’t appeal to me at all. (…more, carnalnation.com)

This great article reminds me of female sex academic The Sexademic’s awesome blog post, Porn is More Boring than Offensive (sexademic.wordpress.com).

Teens peep porn; they need to understand what they’ve seen. What you say to a kid after they’ve seen pornography depends on the context, your moral compass, community values, and the kind of sexual citizen you want to raise. But what do you say to a kid after you find out they’ve seen pornography and know you need to say something? Well, here’s a post about porn content and context from a UK youth sex and relationships blog — maybe a good place to start is to look at what youth are saying to each other about porn. And what they’re saying on Bish might surprise you.

Bish is a sex and relationships blog for young people, and they wrote a very detailed post called Porn School: The Problem With Learning About Sex From Porn. At the start, they warn that if you’re young and have not seen porn, to go away immediately, and I appreciate that (whether or not it works, it lets kids know they are entering an arena they are not supposed to be in, or are ready for). However, taking into account that under-18s do encounter pornography — in a wide range of contexts — the post takes a “harm reduction” approach and instead of saying explicit imagery is bad without further discussion, attempts to put into context what kids have seen and how it relates to the real world of sex and relationships.

Most after-the-fact discussion about porn viewing with kids seems to be nonexistent, or a scare-tactic house of horrors, and I think this is really problematic. Kids aren’t dumb, and they have a lot of questions; if they have questions, they deserve answers.

Anyway, I’m interested to know what you think of this. It would be nice to see this developed into a primer for teens about porn that tells them how fake it is, that it’s basically like “Jackass” for sex, but also does not make girls feel like victims or tell boys they will be rapists — as punishment for natural sexual curiosity, or living in shame as adults should they decide to incorporate it into their own self-defined, hopefully healthy sex lives. Better yet, a primer for sex-positive parents and moms to help navigate talking to their kids about porn. Great job, Bish! Snip:

So lots of young people learn about sex and relationships from porn. The problem with this is that they can learn good and bad things. The legal age for watching porn is over 18, I think this is a good thing. I think that you need to be old enough to understand some of the things going on.

Anyway I’ve written a blog below which should correct some misunderstandings you might have about porn if you’ve watched some and are confused.

Even though they are actually having sex in porn scenes, they are acting. It’s kind of like wrestling on the telly, it’s all made up even though it’s real. They are usually pretending to enjoy it, it’s edited together to look more fun, it lasts for ages, everything happens in the same order and they are putting on a show.

Porn sex is completely different from real sex.

Some things are so common in porn that viewers can start to think that it’s ‘normal’. For example cumming (ejaculating) on someone is very popular in porn, but not everyone likes it really. Also anal sex is much more popular in porn than in real life. (…read more, bishtraining.wordpress.com)

On July 27, 2010, Facebook removed the Our Porn, Ourselves Facebook campaign page. After the page was removed, anti-porn organization Porn Harms claimed victory and thanked Facebook for the deletion, on the organization’s Facebook page and their Twitter feed. Our deleted group had roughly 3,500 members, most of whom were women (I combed through the member logs frequently). Our page had over three times the members of Porn Harms’ anti-porn page.

According to Facebook the deletion was in response to reported violations of Facebook’s Terms of Service, among which include obscenity. As I am an active and high-profile figure in the online social media space, I am not a newcomer to social media, or implementing Terms of Service. I also knew that someone was persistently trying to get every piece of art removed from our gallery — regardless of the content, nearly every user-uploaded photo was mysteriously being flagged and removed.

I was very careful to keep the page, all links, all images, and member behavior within the Terms. It was important to do this because the main purpose of the group was to create conversation about women watching pornography and discussion around all aspects of explicit imagery, and women (and all genders and orientations). This was in an effort to sort out both the positives and negatives of adult content and examine its effects in an unbiased manner. For the first time, we wanted a clean, safe discussion about a topic typically discussed in a grotesque and offensive manner or context. We were civil at all times; we shared work-safe links, news, studies and information.

What we wanted, and what we created, was a “clean, well-lit” place to talk about pornography. Especially in relation to women and our varying relationships with porn, and a space for men to not only support us but be able to give us their side of the discussion. Everyone welcome. It is still my belief that if you don’t talk about “it” whatever “it” is, then “it” can hurt you.

The reaction to the deletion was loud and strong. There was outrage from women and people who are pro-female sexuality — and by this I do not mean “anti-porn feminists” who maintain a narrow and judgmental view on female sexuality. I am asked about the deletion (specifically if Facebook has responded) constantly in person at events, and online. Women are very, very angry. Facebook has not responded to my letter. Psychology Today wrote Cutting Off Your Vagina Despite Your Facebook. A former member of the page reacted in anger with a piece on Carnal Nation, Facebook Censors Female Sexual Desire. Jezebel wrote, When It Comes To Women’s Issues, Facebook Still Hasn’t Figured Out How To Play Fair. It was seen as an act of censorship in When your face doesn’t fit: Facebook censorship. There were more, but you get the idea. It didn’t happen in a vacuum.

Meanwhile, other social networks contacted me and said they would welcome the Our Porn, Ourselves group with open arms, most notably Squarespace, a media platform that recently got $38.5 million in funding.

What I didn’t realize until the Facebook deletion was how much the page meant to other people — around the world. It was a way people could vote their support. They could join us, if they wanted to. As evidenced in recent emails, it was also a destination for global scholars and academics to peer into a world much bigger than anyone suspected. The world of women taking back the right to look — and more.

I am still considering pursuing a contact at Facebook, but clearly — right now — Facebook isn’t a safe place for women to talk about explicit sexual imagery in any manner other than with fear, aversion or hatred. That any group can be removed by people who do not agree with the point of view of said group (such as the anti-homophobia group that was deleted around the same time), highlights a greater problem between our culture, democracy, free speech and social media: its fragility. Social media is simply too weak, and too frightened of what it means to be human, to be sustainable.

It seems that the very idea of Our Porn, Ourselves is acutely threatening to people who want to define female sexuality in a specific, restrictive way. Clearly we need a house made of brick, not straw. They don’t want us talking about porn, or what it means to look at (or enjoy) porn, or deciding for ourselves what is healthy (or not). Imagine a world where people actively prevent women from exploring and owning our sexuality on our own terms, and talking to each other about it. They think we’re not noticing they are so desperate that anti-porn feminists have joining forces with conservative Christians to keep us from taking back the right to look (and in some cases, the right to participate). We are adults who want to enjoy the many facets of adult sexuality. Having that page deleted is an exciting challenge.

I’m glad I double-posted the links we discussed on the Facebook page on this blog, and I’ll continue to do so as I explore ways for us to organize and converse and share without having people enact dirty tricks to ruin our work, delete our community-building and erase our experiences.

What does this all mean? It means we were doing something that is necessary.

Follow us on Twitter for updates and stay tuned for the next development. I am talking to developers and exploring a variety of cutting-edge options that will allow us to build community, foster conversation, connect our social media outlets, take advantage of the positives offered by Facebook and other social media sites, without worrying about the ease in which these networks can be exploited for harassment.

If you’re a girl who has never really seen pornography, admitting to yourself that you want to watch porn or explicit sexual imagery may take some — or a lot of — forethought. And if you think that all porn is nothing more than pool boys and women with poor payment negotiation skills and eternal bad hair days (or worse: women being coerced into doing something they don’t want to), then the realities of today’s porn will come as quite a surprise.

One of the major obstacles that we women face is the widely held notion that women don’t respond to sexual imagery as men do — a notion that is absolutely untrue. We are told we won’t like it. But on our own, with a wide selection of the many different kinds of porn, and especially porn made by women, for women — we find out that we do. Recommendations for high quality pornography made by women, expressly for women are at the end of this article.

In her 1994 study, Dr. Ellen Laan of the University of Amsterdam proved that women respond physiologically to sexual images, even when the women said that the porn they watched was boring or unarousing. When seeing the sex onscreen (whether from male or female directors), their genitals congested quite robustly, thank you very much.

According to many studies, lots of women watch porn, and like it, too. We can find out how the performers feel about their work by reading their blogs and doing our homework on the pornography we’re considering. This is the first time in history that female porn performers have the freedom to talk about their work unfiltered. Now that the Internet has given female porn viewers the privacy to explore our reactions to explicit sexual imagery on our own terms, we’re finally allowed to decide for ourselves how we feel about, and react to porn.

Many women are finding that pornography is a sex toy that is as reliable and their favorite vibrator, and is as versatile — it can be easily shared with their lovers. Lots of women watch porn, and are none the worse for it. Read why in my CNN article Are more women OK with watching porn? (cnn.com).

Women like to watch, and — guess what — it’s not exactly “breaking” news. In late 2007, Nielsen Netratings revealed that 1 in 3 users of porn were women, and over 9 million American women accessed adult sites in September 2007 alone. The same year (2007), a sociology researcher at conservative Brigham Young University found that half of young women surveyed believe that viewing porn is an acceptable way of expressing sexuality. And in women-friendly boutiques such as Babeland, women make up 80% of the porn rental and purchase market.

Going back in time, in a 1987 Redbook survey of over 26,000 female respondents nearly half stated that they regularly used porn. And it’s not just the “wild ones”, either: a 2003 poll by taken by Today’s Christian Woman readers found that even good church-going women were peeking at the odd bit of porn: over 34 percent of female respondents to their online survey self-disclosed that they had deliberately gone looking for porn. Articles from sources such as The New York Times and MSNBC have asked “What Women Want” and answer themselves with the resounding response, “Women are hungry for porn.” In 2004, the New York Times told us in no uncertain terms that Women Are Tailoring Porn to their Eyes. In the 1996 book Defending Pornography by ACLU president Nadine Strossen, “Women, either singly or as part of a couple, constitute more than 40 percent of the adult videotape rental audience. . .” In 1989, Good Vibrations added adult videos to their catalog, at the demand of female staff and customers. And as consumers, women are changing a market once considered a boys’ club — female directors like Candida Royalle are selling hardcore erotic videos made by women, for women at the rate of approximately 10,000 titles a month.

What Can A Girl Expect? A New Woman’s Guide To Porn

Once you feel okay with using porn as a sex toy, there are a few things you need to know before you get started. First, keep your expectations in check — you’re not going to see anything like the mega-budget Hollywood blockbusters (but with sex included) that you’re used to. Why not? Because outside of Hollywood studios, no one has that kind of money, or those resources to throw around, especially in a film genre that’s controversial.

A great place to start is this free chapter from my book The Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn: Chapter 3 – I was a Porn Virgin (oprah.com). You can also click to listen to the introduction and hear my personal journey looking for good porn for women.

The quality you’re going to see is like daytime soap operas; with simple sets, standard lighting, digital cameras, and barely there acting. Unless you go with a film from a bigger studio — because the world of porn has a studio system just like in Hollywood. The big studios have bigger budgets, better sets, actors who might have gone to acting school, writers who have writing experience, and directors who are more likely to take their craft seriously.

Continue reading →

How do you feel about the idea of obscenity — or other people telling you what you should think is obscene? A lot of really thought-provoking items about pornography have come up recently, and they touch on themes we’ve been exploring here and on the Our Porn, Ourselves Facebook page (which now has over 3,000 members!) — read on:

The same “War On Porn” people who inspired Our Porn, Ourselves (and make their living off anti-porn hysteria) were very excited about the John Stagliano porn obscenity trial in Washington this week. Founder of Enough is Enough (where you can purchase a variety of religious products to save the children) Donna Rice Hughes said, “The pornographers know exactly what they’re doing and they’re not going to respond to anything but the stick of the law.”

Ouch! Okay little Johnny, now take the blow-up doll and show the nice doctor where Donna Rice Hughes hit you. As it turns out, the stick Hughes and the War on Porn gang wants to beat filmmakers with is so outdated it doesn’t make sense and so full of intentional falsehoods it got tossed out of court (Stagliano’s case was dismissed today for those very reasons).

You have to admit that now with the “War on Porn” group and its media presence, the anti-porn feminists and anti-porn Christians are officially one and the same.

Reason Magazine covered the trial and produced these two thought-provoking videos:

In other exciting news, Ms. Magazine interviewed anti-porn poster girl Gail Dines and came away with a refreshingly balanced article — including the input of gorgeously diverse porn star, Latina BBW (Big Beautiful Woman) April Flores. Most shocking was the commentary disagreeing with Dines that came from her former intern — who is now a porn performer herself. Don’t miss Porn: Pleasure or Profit? Ms. Interviews Gail Dines, Part II. Dines famously campaigns against porn as “for profit and not for pleasure” while shocking audiences into moral panic for profit. We’re looking forward to Part III in the series.

It’s only once a month right now, and we’re eager for more of The Ethical Pornographer by Garnet Joyce (site is not work-safe). In our combined mission to unite, find and enjoy ethical pornography of all kinds, Joyce is interviewing (and starting to help define) pro-woman, ethical porn makers. It’s very exciting. From the male side, Grey’s Matters just launched Pants-On Porn Reviews: A more cerebral look at adult films with an eye towards what they can say about human sexuality, gender, the people who make them as well as we the viewers.

In the UK, it seems that feminism is seen as good because it is anti-porn — which seems so dated and like Backwards Day compared to America. The politically motivated anti-porn and anti-sex worker rights organization at the forefront is OBJECT, a feminist org that not only categorically operates with the belief system that links adult imagery and violence towards women, but are notoriously intolerant toward any other point of view. Well, good thing times are changing: you can now add OBJECT WATCH to your pro-porn blogroll, as they’re now the much-needed beginning of a watchdog group to monitor OBJECT’s typically unchallenged activities, statements and opinions.

Photo of Bettie Page with Bunny Yeager.

Watching porn is way different than watching a full-length erotic feature film, or a Hollywood movie. But when it’s your first few times, or you see porn you don’t understand, chances are good no one told you just how different this viewing experience was going to be. Or that it’s a viewing experience you need to proactively control so you see what you want, or to avoid things you won’t enjoy.

Women first encounter porn in a variety of ways. We all have different reactions, ranging from feeling freaked out to being turned on and inspired. How pornography makes us feel depends on a lot of factors. However, just as with orgasm and masturbation, no one tells us how to look at porn for the first time, or first few times, or how to decide if porn is a sex toy that might work for you. And no one tells us that a) it’s okay if you really like it, or b) it’s perfectly okay to try it and then decide it’s just not for you — without having to take a radical pro-porn or anti-porn stance on the whole thing. Part of the development of this blog as a resource includes creating guides to help you find the porn that’s right for you, and good for the culture it represents. It’s part of the “Whole Foods” approach to porn I’m cultivating.

First timers, or women with questions about their first encounters with porn might find this helpful: Oprah requested to put an excerpt from my book The Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn on her website as a free resource. Specifically, not just an excerpt but the entire chapter, “I Was A Porn Virgin.” It’s a great place to start and gives context as to why watching pornography is different than watching a full-length erotic feature film, or a Hollywood movie. Here’s a snip:

Aside from mouse clicks or pro-porn boyfriends, the context for your first foray into porn may not intentionally be a sexual one, solo or otherwise. You might watch your first porn film when your best friend drags you to a bachelorette party, or when a pal suggests something wild, like renting a dirty movie. If you decide you’re okay with going along for the ride, know that you’re doing just that—it’s likely that your friend or friends were too nervous to watch porn on their own, and wanted to have you there to make it feel safer. It can be a lot of fun to watch porn with friends, and with the right crowd you might wind up laughing your head off. Prepare yourself by knowing that there’s a chance you might see something that will arouse you or offend you, and realizing that, you’ll be better able to disengage from seeing explicitly sexual material with people you don’t feel sexual about. However, if you’d like to consider adding porn to your erotic repertoire, I recommend that you watch your first porn by yourself.

Women who watch porn alone and solely for themselves know what they like, enjoy trying new things, feel confident in making their own sexual choices, and like to treat themselves to masturbation on their own time and on their own terms. This reality is light years away from the decades-old, false stereotype of porn viewers as male, raincoat-clad, drooling, compulsive masturbators. Whether done by a gal enjoying time with her roommates gone, the mom with a quiet evening to spare, a girl whose boyfriend is out of town for the weekend, or just as part of a healthy masturbation session, watching porn ignites routine masturbation with a visceral erotic spark. (…read more, oprah.com)

The more they tell us why we should think porn is bad, the more we see specific themes repeat in anti-porn values. Two of the strongest themes don’t seem to actually have much to do with pornography itself: namely misandry (hatred of men), and sexual xenophobia (uncontrollable hatred and fear of unfamiliar or unknown sex practices). When we break down understanding the reasons why anti-porn people think pornography is evil, it becomes clear that there is widespread belief (especially in feminist anti-porn ideology) that men are thought of as inferior and malfeasant, and that the anti-porn people really don’t know that much about how porn is made. And that they have zero tolerance or interest in understanding sexual activities outside their own limited definitions.

The rest of us get pretty confused by this; we are, after all, talking about a group of people who want to put an end to people’s enjoyment of explicit visual stimulation simply by telling us that certain sex acts are “good” or “bad” (such as anal sex). Meanwhile, some of us do have legitimate questions about making sure we watch porn that is “fair trade” if you will; made with respect and consent. We do know, however, that judging other people’s sexual choices is not anywhere near an answer to our concerns.

Sex educator Charlie Glickman had an epiphany: he pulled apart the difference between being anti-sex and anti-porn in one of the most interesting articles to come out of the anti-vs-pro porn debates. Delightfully, unlike the destructive, shaming and condemning attitudes of anti-porn pundits, it is a solutions-oriented approach to encountering potentially offensive pornographic content without becoming sex-negative. He offers ways we can navigate porn’s lamenesses and our own limits, and also how offensive porn sites could fix the negative ways they portray sex acts without giving up the fantasies viewers pay to see. (Some ethical porn websites already do this; Gag Factor does not.) Here’s a snip from 7 Ways to Create a Sex-Positive Critique of Porn:

One of the most common responses to the anti-porn critiques of pornography is that they’re sex-negative and all too often, that ends up creating a “no we’re not/yes you are” argument. And yet, whenever I read the anti-porn side of things, I’m struck by how often sex-negativity is woven into their claims, although in all fairness, that’s not always the case.

I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was that bothered me by the way that Gail Dines keeps talking about gagfactor.com, a website that focuses on men facefucking women. And then it hit me- there are two parts to it. First, Dines is trying to foment a moral panic. And second, she simply doesn’t understand sex.

I can explain the first point better if I start with the second one. As someone who has been studying sex in all its wide and varied forms for over 20 years (my goodness, that makes me sound old!), I can attest to the fact that for any sexual act, there are people who enjoy it and people who are squicked by it. There’s a certain privilege inherent in being part of the majority- if you enjoy penis/vagina intercourse, you can be pretty confident that lots of other people share your taste. And it’s important to also remember that there are people who feel just as much disgust about your desires as you might feel about something less common. No matter what the act, some people love it and some people would never dream of doing it.

(…) So why do I think that Dines’ strategies are sex-negative? Because she deliberately works to trigger disgust about a sexual practice in order to manipulate people into rallying to her call. Rather than opening up a dialogue about the real reasons that some porn is problematic or asking how the performers on the site feel about their experiences, she uses tactics that depend on and deepen sexual shame in order to sway people to her point of view. And that makes them sex-negative. Facefucking is not inherently abusive, violent, or misogynistic any more than intercourse is inherently respectful, pleasurable, or egalitarian. As with any sexual act, it’s a question of whether you want to do it, how you do it, and how you feel about it during it and afterward. When Dines makes it sound otherwise, she reinforces sex-negativity. It doesn’t really matter whether she deliberately chose this strategy or happened to discover its effectiveness by accident.

So all of this has me thinking: what would a sex-positive approach to the question of porn entail? (…read more, charlieglickman.com)

Photo by Firebird Photography.

With a sexy fetish boot on the cover that teases you with kinky sex imagery, Gail Dines’ new book “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality” looks primed to validate everyone’s wildest fears about pornography. Dines prefers to shock people into trusting her opinions and beliefs about porn and human sexual relationships at face value, and so far it seems to be working. Remember: her talk has been required in college feminism courses, and the students are not prepared for the graphic imagery they are shown. And with “Pornland” getting a FOX-style feature in typically respected outlets such as Guardian UK (which is being run without alternate viewpoints), we can expect the political astroturfing she’s laying down to pave the way for plenty of book sales. The Guardian is, in fact, presenting her book as if it is an accurate historical reference. If Dines has a low-scale contract, we can guess that she got between $10-25K as an advance on sales, and when those are met that she’s likely to get between 7-9% in royalties off the sale price for print and 25% for digital sales. Add to that Dines’ $5K a pop speaking fee, and a cottage industry is fluffed.

But traumatizing people into buying your products isn’t just for anti-porn feminists. This year has also seen quite a lot of “female porn addict” hysteria. Organizations such as Dirty Girls Ministries (a female-targeted version of XXX Church profiled May 2010 in the New York Times) offer to heal so-called female porn addicts. It’s interesting to note that like Dirty Girls, the same orgs who are pushing the female porn addiction scare are simultaneously crusading against masturbation. This should raise a lot of red flags at the very least in terms of credibility, especially before such an organization gets prime endorsement in the NYT. But what caught my eye was seeing that Dirty Girls Ministries is making a tidy profit off of the sexual disorder epidemic they’ve helped to manufacture.

Each of the high-profile anti-pornography organizations and pundits are profiteering quite conveniently off of “pornography’s victims.” It’s a never ending revenue source for shame merchants: curing masturbation has been lucrative for centuries as patients can never actually be “cured,” and porn’s so-called victims will exist as long as humans have the capacity for sexual fantasy. So when these victims are viewers that are shamed and exploited by the anti-porn message and shock tactics, it’s worth it for everyone to take a closer look at how anti-porn organizations are profiting from fear.

Make no mistake, I’m a big fan of people making money. It’s business. But what are these FUD-based (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt) businesses, exactly? Most interesting is to see that the sources anti-porn organizations cite as basis for scientific research and proofs for porn’s harms are selling “cures” and other products as well:

Profiteer: Dirty Girls Ministries (dirtygirlsministries.com) / XXX Church (xxxchurch.com)
Products: Their own porn and masturbation cures and products. X3WATCH “accountability software,” Safe Eyes filtering software, X3PURE 30-day online porn addiction cure. Also L.I.F.E. Minsitries’ Workbooks.
FUD: Cures women and men of “porn addiction,” masturbation and erotic fantasy.
Cost: X3WATCH app: (iPhone $1.99/Android $4.99), Safe Eyes ($49), X3PURE ($99 each course). L.I.F.E. Workbook for Women ($24.95), Workbook for Couples ($40.95), Teacher’s Workbook ($68.95).
Additional: Claim for Dirty Girls that “X3 is downloaded 500 times a day” and 100 workshops sold a month.

Profiteer: Candeocan (candeocan.com)
Product: Porn and masturbation cures. Candeocan is the “brain science” website and porn study resource cited by “Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media,” Christian anti-porn organization “Pink Cross Foundation” (Shelley Lubben), “Porn Harms” (Patrick Trueman), and “Stop Porn Culture” (Gail Dines).
FUD: Self-generated papers such as “The Science Behind Pornography Addiction” “The Brain Science Behind Internet Pornography Addiction” “How Adult Pornography Contributes to Sexual Exploitation of Children.” Cures for masturbation and porn addiction.
Cost: $47 a month with 6-month minimum (recommended).
Additional: This year Candeocan launched Candeocan Weight Loss (candeoweightloss.com).

Profiteer: The Social Costs of Pornography (socialcostsofpornography.org)
Product: Manufactured research. Self-published book “The Social Costs of Pornography: A Statement of Findings and Recommendations” and self-published DVD “The Social Costs of Pornography: A Consultation.”
FUD: Pornography addiction is the same as heroin addiction (actual statement). Anti-porn psychologists.
Cost: Book $5; DVD $9.95.
Additional: Sponsored by The Witherspoon Institute (seminars, courses and publications on faith-based morality, religion and the Constitution) and The Social Trends Institute (STI is a “research center” with publications such as “Embryo: A Defense of Human Life”).

Profiteer: Pink Cross Foundation (thepinkcross.org)
Product: Shelley Lubben’s 501(c)3 nonprofit to save porn performers from their work.
FUD: Premise that porn creates and actively promotes disease, sexual abuse, addiction, secondary effects such as rape.
Cost: 501(c)(3) that solicits donations.
Additional: On examination of Pink Cross’ 2009 tax return, of $125K in donations only $13K went to porn star help and “outreach” (only non-admin category).

Profiteer: Enough Is Enough / Donna Rice Hughes (enough.org)
Product: Instructional materials on saving children from pornography. Internet Safety 101 Program.
FUD: Pornography creation and use creates child rapists and facilitates child predators.
Cost: Internet Safety 101 Program Kit ($39.95), DVD Teaching Series ($19.95), DVD Teaching Series Booklet ($24.95), Facilitator’s Edition ($69.95), Workbook & Resource Guide ($24.95), Booklet Multi-Pack ($29.95)
Additional: Solicits donations to protect the children, solicits vehicle donation, solicits donations from eBay sales.

* “Not For Sale” is listed as an anti-porn and “anti-slavery” organization endorsed by Porn Harms. Not For Sale has a “Freedom Store” where visitors can buy everything from bath and body products to Converse high-tops. Patrick Trueman’s “Porn Harms” website solicits PayPal donations. L.I.F.E. Minsitries “globalized God’s army to battle sexual addiction” with a complete store.

Since Stop Porn Culture changed its feminist coat for a Christian cloak to team up with religious organizations and declare “War on Pornography” last week in Washington, it seems appropriate to examine their perennial strategy in “shock and awe” military battlefield terminology. Tactics to shock your audience into agreeing with your position can be effective, though they don’t make for a solid argument. As we see in the above clip from 2008 (when Stop Porn Culture launched) Penn and Teller unpack the “shock and awe” put into anti-porn presentations and theories, which categorically claim that porn viewing causes rape and child abuse — usually bracketed with extremely graphic descriptions (or pictures) of decontextualized BDSM or fringey shock porn. The idea behind “shock and awe” is to paralyze the adversary’s perception of the battelfield (in this case, the audiences’ perception of porn as a whole via nonconsensually shocking audiences outside of their comfort zones), and destroy the will to fight or challenge (here, the capacity to question the information being presented). It also creates an atmosphere which discourages dissent in the form of social pressure.

These tactics can be clearly seen in anti-porn presentations by Gail Dines from the past several years and are a template for creating a “for the terrorists or against the terrorists” environment. This effectively polarizes any and all discussion about porn. More importantly, this makes anyone who might question the information appear sympathetic to people who commit sexual crime, or suggest the questioner may be a rapist, child moletster, or helpless and victimized sex worker. The most recent presentation by Dines last week in Washington presented the same “shock and awe” template. The language and tone asserts the viewers’ agreement that all pornography is the same, that sex workers are victims of sexual abuse, that sex work could not possibly be consensual, that all men are “sleeping” rapists until triggered, and that most sex is rape.

In my opinion, this is a “rapid dominance” form of conversation, but typically does not survive debate as it is one-sided. Upon examination, it is also incredibly offensive to rape survivors, child sexual abuse and sexual trauma survivors, men in general, and of course, porn performers. It’s important to remember the “shock and awe” tactic when speaking to media; this is something I tell sex educators to stay on alert about so they don’t get off-topic when “shock jock” interviewers attempt to provoke emotional responses. There is nothing here from, for or about female porn viewers, LGBTQ porn and porn performers, and most especially the gay porn industry and its substantial consumer base.