This is an excerpt from the excellent article Toxic Porn, Toxic Sex: A Real Look at Pornography
You can’t learn the truth about sex from pornography. It doesn’t deal in truth. Pornography is not made to educate, but to sell. It is a big business that makes a lot of money, and doesn’t care how. Porn producers will show you whatever they think will make you come back and buy more. So, pornography will tell whatever it wants to attract you and/or hold an audience. Porn thrives on myths – mistruths about sex, women, marriage and a lot of other things. Let’s look at some of these and see just how they can mess up lives and attitudes:
- Myths #1 – Women are less than human
The women in Playboy magazine are called “bunnies,” making them cute little animals or “playmates”. Penthouse magazine calls them “pets.” Porn often refers to women as animals, playthings, or body parts. Some pornography shows only the body and doesn’t show the face at all. The idea that women are real human beings with thoughts and emotions, wonderful companions and spouses is played down or ignored.
- Myths #2 – Women as a “sport”
Some sports magazines have a “swimsuit” issue. This suggests that women can be just some kind of sport. Porn views sex as a game and in a game, you have to “win,” “conquer,” or “score.” Men who buy into this view like to talk about “scoring” with women. They start judging their manhood by how many “conquests” they can make. Each woman I “score” with is another trophy on my shelf, another “notch” in my belt to validate my masculinity.
- Myths #3 – Women are property
We’ve all seen the pictures of the slick car with the sexy girl draped over it. The unspoken message, “Buy one, and you get them both.” Hard-core porn carries this even further. It displays women like merchandise in a catalog, exposing them as openly as possible for the customer to look at. It’s not surprising that many young men think that if they have spent some money taking a girl out, they have a right to have sex with her. Porn tells us that women can be bought. Women and children are not commodities that can be bought or sold.
- Myths #4 – A woman’s value depends on her attractiveness
Less attractive women are ridiculed. They are called offensive names simply because they don’t fit into porn’s criteria of the “perfect” looking woman. Porn doesn’t care about a woman’s mind, emotions or personality, largely-only her body.
- Myths #5 – Women like rape
“When she says no, she means yes” is a typical porn scenario. Porn teaches men to enjoy hurting and abusing women for entertainment. This is truly demeaning, offensive and unrealistic.
- Myths #6 – Little kids should have sex
One of the biggest sellers in pornography is imitation “child” porn. The women are “made-up” to look like little girls by wearing pony tails, little girl shoes, holding a teddy bear. The message of the pictures and cartoons is that adults having sex with kids is normal and “alright”. This sets the porn user up to see children in a sexual way. These are our children, and our upcoming next generation.
- Myths #7 – Illegal sex is fun
Porn often has illegal or dangerous elements thrown in to make sex more “interesting.” It suggests that you can’t enjoy sex if it isn’t weird, illegal or dangerous. Truly a deception.
- Myths #8 – Prostitution is glamorous
Porn paints an exciting picture of prostitution. In reality, many of the women portrayed in pornographic material are runaway girls trapped in a life of slavery, some are orphans. Many having been sexually abused. Others are infected with incurable sexually transmitted diseases that are highly contagious and often die very young. Many take drugs just to cope. . .