Quick Blog #5

I watched the Gail Dines video, who spoke about Her New Book  Pornland: How Porn Has Highjacked Our Sexuality. This was not my first introduction to Gail and her standing and current advocacy work on pornography. She came to UNH to speak this past spring and had the opportunity to meet her before her presentation. I believe that she is a leader in this developing movement, just as all the other isms have become understood problems in our culture, the current state of the pornography industry is enabling a white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy to persist.

Here's a few key points from Gail's speech on her book that I thought were important to bring into the conversation of the harms that pornography has on our culture today.

• We now live in an image based culture, which has increased the normalization of pornograpgy into mainstream culture. The average age of first time viewers of porn for males is age 11.
• Many of critics of Gail call her anti-sex, prude, ect... and explains that this is not so, and makes the comparison to being a healthy food advocate who makes a stand against fast food, explaining that fast food is the comodification of food, and has shown to have negative effects on our culture. She correlates this to not being what some call her "anti-sex", but against the commodification of sex, which has become an industry that is having an enormous impact on our society today, and is how a majority of our society is first introduced and now views what a healthy sexual relationship is.
• Pornography is available on the internet on a global scale and universalizes the way cultures think about sex. Here is a short video a friend of mine shared with me recentally that I thought relates to the power and influence the American Pornography industry has on a global society, specifically men. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es0sz_6vDS8
• Since the first Play Boy was published in 1953, pornography has developed into a massive, capitalistic, profit industry. It is estimated that it is a $97 billion/yr industry globally. What many advocates of pornography seem to argue is its the womans choice to be in porn, an adult decison, private business between partners to name a few common examples that I have heard, but seems to ignore and dismiss the forms of violent, racist erotosism that is considered popular mainstream pornography today.
• Her thoughts on how this conversation and movement can look to the future and long term is to raise individuals conscisoucs and awareness of the negative effects that this industry has on our society. This cannot be done through a criminal route but creating safe space for  victums to feel empowered to take a stand against the produces and help those involved in both the production and consumption of pornography change the way society views and discovers a healthy sexuality. This seems to be a subject that people become uncomfortable with and avoid any conversation around the matter, this is ignoring a serious problem facing our culture today.