I found this introduction to be very interesting in that it appeared to examine all aspects of porn, and equally analyze its positives and negatives. The sexualizing of everything seems to be the norm now, as in the article it mentions how all humans are becoming sexualized, from young children to the elderly. Toys for children include sexy or hyper masculine dolls, teaching kids at a young age to strive for unrealistic ideals and placing an emphasis more on ones appearance than on their actually abilities and strengths as an individual. “Through sexualization, individuals are seen as having no value beyond their sexuality”, which to me is the biggest issue with porn. A lot of porn depicts women as objects (or men for that matter), which is an unhealthy way to view the opposite gender. Many people’s first experience with sex comes from porn, especially with the internet being so accessible, and this sets up unrealistic expectations from a young age at what a normal sexual relationship should be, which is extremely unhealthy. The increasing prominence of violence in porn only adds to this, and even books and movies (such as Fifty Shades of Grey) glorify this. According to the article the infiltration of porn into mainstream culture has helped to make sex and everything associated with it less taboo, and has helped people to be less ashamed of their sexuality and natural desires. I disagree with this though, in that I think American culture became more accepting of sex through sexual education in schools and other awareness campaigns for safe sex. This gradual acceptance and teachings then in turn led to young adults feeling less embarrassed by, and more interested and accepting of porn.
Badr Morshed ENG 201 Porn is a controversial topic in many cultures. In similar ways as stated by the authors Sarracino and Scott in their book, my parents taught me that sex or porn related matters are sinful. They taught me that even looking at a female that isn’t covered up to an extent is a great sin. Also girls were always taught that sex isn’t for joy and that it is only to have babies. This was taught to us as we were growing up and this is stated in Sarracino and Scott’s book the same way. However, porn is literally all around us. My mom freaks out until this very day if I’m watching TV and a female exposes too much skin. It is the way that I have been bought up by mom so I usually avoid watching TV around her as much as possible. Porn isn’t just portrayed in the “actual” human form. “The doll pictured here belongs to a line called Bratz Play Sportz, but it is difficult to imagine any sport-outside of a pornographic video-that dresses young women in uniforms thigh-high fishnets and stiletto heels (popularly called fuck-me pumps)”. When I first read this, I sort of laughed and then realized how sad this is. It is sad to see dolls given to very young and innocent girls to sexually hype them from a young age. Possibly before they ever even have an idea what sex or porn is. In the family and culture that I grew up, a doll like this or even a doll that portrays a sexy women is not permitted by the parents. Even if the parents of that little girl don’t really mind it, it would be very shameful if another person is to see their daughter with it and this is what I think kept most people away from things like this and anything to do with porn. Nowadays, people don’t mind it as much and porn has become more and more acceptable both directly and indirectly. The more shame fades away the more “ok” it is to make porn available in many different forms.
I remember when porn was such a private thing that was needed to be kept secret. Now in this time and age I would say that it is one of the easiest thing to get access to. Like the article says it is everywhere. It is easy for us to find in books, TV shows, movies the internet. Pornography is defined by the article to be just female and male with the man having most of the dominance and it being catered to the man. Now we are more in the porn age where dolls looks like Prostitutes like the bratz dolls. Porn seems to sell. From Paris Hilton taking a bite out of a hamburger to sell a hamburger. which I dont get what that does. does the hamburger make you sexy or does the hamburger bring sexual release? who knows. I mean living the year 2015 where Kim Kardashian naked body can break the internet and clothing become shorter and more sexual, even cartoon shows are more for adults than Kids, Porn can not be avoided.
I agree with this introduction of The Porning of America. Porn has become more open to the world than back in the day. People are making books, movies, TV shows, and other media into a more sexual way. Even in clothing style, where girls’ outfits are getting shorter and smaller to wear. Kid’s toys like the Bratz dolls are giving kids bad influences because of what the doll wears and stuff. Porn is basically everywhere. If Google didn’t have the safe search option, anything you would search would most likely appear something sexual about it. Even in stores like Spencer’s and Hot Topic has sex toys and lingerie in the back of the store. Also, during the super bowl, the commercials they put up like where Paris Hilton is “making love” to a hamburger just to advertise the fast food restaurant. Beer commercials, they put half naked women just so men would buy their beer brand. Nowadays songs are singing about money, sex and women. Women on TV commercials are showing more skin than ever. For example, the Victoria Secret commercials show models posing in their bras and panties. In most scary rated-R movies, most of the movie is shown were breasts and people having sex and getting killed after, like the modern movie Friday the Thirteenth. Now porn is more accepting by people than when porn was in the shadows.
Porn has undoubtedly become a larger part of American culture throughout the past few decades. Not only do I think this is from the increased accessibility of this material but also because we are becoming more lenient as a society. Back in the day, the most popular way of accessing pornographic material was through magazines, paintings and pictures. People did this in private because it wasn't fully accepted by society back then. Also, there was no digital porn that could be accessed at any time from any location. The fact that such tech exists has now brought porn out from the shadows. Our society has allowed it to creep into the media now more than ever. Take 50 shades of grey as an example, (I haven't personally seen it but) from what I hear it's literally porn in the movie theaters. From little girls playing with bratz dolls to my grandmother coming across that hamburger commercial, nobody is safe from the porning of America.
The introduction talked about how everything now a days is being sexualized including children’s toys and I very much agree with this. Even just 10 years ago I remember playing with some Bratz dolls and they didn’t wear nearly as revealing outfits as they do now. Even Barbie’s and all the action figures that little boys play with get more and more sexualized each year. Action figures have the small shirts and big muscles or the short dresses and big breasts on the Barbie dolls. Kids end up getting these unrealistic images in their minds about how they should look and the dolls end up being such a poor influence on them. Sexual images seem to be way harder to ignore now since they seem to be everywhere. Whether it’s walking into a store and looking inside a magazine, seeing a commercial on TV, or seeing an ad somewhere on the internet, it’s basically unavoidable. It always makes me wonder why sexual content like this is so readily seen everywhere we look now since it wasn’t like that even just 20-30 years ago.
I thought this introduction was both interesting an accurate. While the author only has the perspective of an adult male (having not grown up or matured in the age of internet porn) he does a good job viewing the problem from multiples sides; be it the side of feminist activists or a younger generation. I also thought the author did a good job of weighing the pros and cons of porn, and its overall impact of society. Porn is a very interesting taboo as it strikes at the most carnal desires of people, and is a true phenomenon as the quality and shear accessibility has greatly changed with the invention of the internet and personal computer. In terms of the technology porn is now reaching younger and younger ages as children have more private access to computers at during years. Where I agree with the author is walking the fine line of being against porn not because it’s sexual but because it plays portrays negative images about women and sex in general. The author does a phenomenal job of differentiating between most mainstream porn (generally more misogynistic) and porn directed by women, or amateur porn; while it is telling that what is popular is misogynistic, this is a credible argument that porn isn’t intrinsically bad, but promoting the degradation of women is. Another interesting point the author makes is the increase in violence seen in porn and scandals such as the Abu Grab prison scandal. While I don’t necessarily agree that the photographing of nude inmates and violence towards he prisoners was geared towards engaging in sexual acts or sexually gratifying for the perpetrators (and thus possibly influenced by porn), as opposed to playing upon what the prisoners would find most offensive; a women with an uncovered head sexually abusing men is wildly offensive, especially when done to militant Islamists (although I think all religions would views this as grossly offensive). I do however think this point is fairly current with the recent release of 50 shades of grey and the very sided responses from both the BDSM community that champion the film for normalizing a generally scrutinized subculture and many feminist organizations that say the movie glorifies an abusive relationship. Regardless of which side you stand on a movie like 50 Shades of Grey can attribute some of its success to the porn phenomenon as it has been marketed as porn for middle age women.
To start, I am in shock at the Bratz doll reference. I grew up playing with and quite frankly was obsessed with Bratz dolls, but they never looked this way. All the barbies, polly pockets, or bratz dolls that I played with were fully clothed and innocent so this is saddening for me. I know that as a young girl playing with dolls was sort of like creating your own little dream world. These dolls had endless amounts of clothes, pink convertibles, big sparkly RV’s, and a big hunky Ken doll to date. It is saddening to me that little girls are being given these Bratz dolls to play with who are dressed, for lack of a better word, as whores in pumps. It’s setting a terrible example for these girls because they already get enough of this through pop culture. If anything, dolls for little girls should be keeping the “good girl” image, not fading into the sexuality of America. As this article states, men and women are sexual beings. I see nothing wrong with this statement because I do believe it is true and we are much better off acknowledging the fact that we are sexual creatures than condemning people to hell if they have had sex (like the “olden” days). I think it’s interesting and I am not surprised that pornography has been stigmatized since the ancient Rome. I think when people first hear the word porn our initial thoughts are associated with bad, dirty, secret, etc. Pornography can be accessed a lot more easily in today’s society and like they state in this book, sometimes it is forced on us through television commercials or pop-ups on the computer but I still think that porn is something people attach a stigma too just like the ancient Romans who kept it locked away in a special museum.
Although I don’t know much about porn, I do know that a lot of it portrays women as sluts and whores and as dirty, nasty individuals. I am not a feminist but I do believe that women deserve more than that and I know for a fact that no woman wants to be treated that way, whether she is a porn start or not. All women, even porn stars, would choose respect over self-degradation. It is unfortunate that in today’s society women have to be dressed in close-to-nothing and over-sexualized in order for men to be interested. I am going to quickly relate this back to social media in my generation. I am a huge fan of instagram but recently have started seeing more and more girls posting “selfies” in as little clothing as possible. I have seen girls on instgram three years younger than me rocking push-up bras, spray tans, stilettos, heavy makeup and bleach blonde hair and getting up to 4,000 likes on their photos. Once again, it’s saddening to me. Call me old fashioned but I believe women, especially young girls, should demand more respect than that. Young girls should not feel the need to do these things to themselves and their bodies in order to get attention. It makes me sad that young girls feel this way and it makes me even more upset that boys are putting this type of pressure on girls.
I think the introduction precisely describes positive and negative aspects of porn. I am not sure if I actually understand the phenomenon of “porning” but I definitely agree with the author that porn is becoming more and more open to the world than it was before. I think the reason for it is hidden in our nature. As it has been said in the introduction - humans are very sexual creatures. The reason why we see sex more often in some things that were not initially sexual (such as burger from the ad with Paris Hilton), is because people like it so they are ready to pay for it. They are subconsciously attracted to these things, so more likely they will spend their money. Marketers know this and use it everywhere now. Another reason why it can be happening is because society is becoming less religious and morals are changing so it is not a shame for people to watch porn anymore. Watching pornography used to be very personal and everyone kept it secret. Due to the development of technologies, porn became more accessible and more popular.
From Sarah:
ReplyDeleteI found this introduction to be very interesting in that it appeared to examine all aspects of porn, and equally analyze its positives and negatives. The sexualizing of everything seems to be the norm now, as in the article it mentions how all humans are becoming sexualized, from young children to the elderly. Toys for children include sexy or hyper masculine dolls, teaching kids at a young age to strive for unrealistic ideals and placing an emphasis more on ones appearance than on their actually abilities and strengths as an individual. “Through sexualization, individuals are seen as having no value beyond their sexuality”, which to me is the biggest issue with porn. A lot of porn depicts women as objects (or men for that matter), which is an unhealthy way to view the opposite gender. Many people’s first experience with sex comes from porn, especially with the internet being so accessible, and this sets up unrealistic expectations from a young age at what a normal sexual relationship should be, which is extremely unhealthy. The increasing prominence of violence in porn only adds to this, and even books and movies (such as Fifty Shades of Grey) glorify this. According to the article the infiltration of porn into mainstream culture has helped to make sex and everything associated with it less taboo, and has helped people to be less ashamed of their sexuality and natural desires. I disagree with this though, in that I think American culture became more accepting of sex through sexual education in schools and other awareness campaigns for safe sex. This gradual acceptance and teachings then in turn led to young adults feeling less embarrassed by, and more interested and accepting of porn.
Badr Morshed
ReplyDeleteENG 201
Porn is a controversial topic in many cultures. In similar ways as stated by the authors Sarracino and Scott in their book, my parents taught me that sex or porn related matters are sinful. They taught me that even looking at a female that isn’t covered up to an extent is a great sin. Also girls were always taught that sex isn’t for joy and that it is only to have babies. This was taught to us as we were growing up and this is stated in Sarracino and Scott’s book the same way. However, porn is literally all around us. My mom freaks out until this very day if I’m watching TV and a female exposes too much skin. It is the way that I have been bought up by mom so I usually avoid watching TV around her as much as possible. Porn isn’t just portrayed in the “actual” human form. “The doll pictured here belongs to a line called Bratz Play Sportz, but it is difficult to imagine any sport-outside of a pornographic video-that dresses young women in uniforms thigh-high fishnets and stiletto heels (popularly called fuck-me pumps)”. When I first read this, I sort of laughed and then realized how sad this is. It is sad to see dolls given to very young and innocent girls to sexually hype them from a young age. Possibly before they ever even have an idea what sex or porn is. In the family and culture that I grew up, a doll like this or even a doll that portrays a sexy women is not permitted by the parents. Even if the parents of that little girl don’t really mind it, it would be very shameful if another person is to see their daughter with it and this is what I think kept most people away from things like this and anything to do with porn. Nowadays, people don’t mind it as much and porn has become more and more acceptable both directly and indirectly. The more shame fades away the more “ok” it is to make porn available in many different forms.
I remember when porn was such a private thing that was needed to be kept secret. Now in this time and age I would say that it is one of the easiest thing to get access to. Like the article says it is everywhere. It is easy for us to find in books, TV shows, movies the internet. Pornography is defined by the article to be just female and male with the man having most of the dominance and it being catered to the man. Now we are more in the porn age where dolls looks like Prostitutes like the bratz dolls. Porn seems to sell. From Paris Hilton taking a bite out of a hamburger to sell a hamburger. which I dont get what that does. does the hamburger make you sexy or does the hamburger bring sexual release? who knows. I mean living the year 2015 where Kim Kardashian naked body can break the internet and clothing become shorter and more sexual, even cartoon shows are more for adults than Kids, Porn can not be avoided.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this introduction of The Porning of America. Porn has become more open to the world than back in the day. People are making books, movies, TV shows, and other media into a more sexual way. Even in clothing style, where girls’ outfits are getting shorter and smaller to wear. Kid’s toys like the Bratz dolls are giving kids bad influences because of what the doll wears and stuff. Porn is basically everywhere. If Google didn’t have the safe search option, anything you would search would most likely appear something sexual about it. Even in stores like Spencer’s and Hot Topic has sex toys and lingerie in the back of the store. Also, during the super bowl, the commercials they put up like where Paris Hilton is “making love” to a hamburger just to advertise the fast food restaurant. Beer commercials, they put half naked women just so men would buy their beer brand. Nowadays songs are singing about money, sex and women. Women on TV commercials are showing more skin than ever. For example, the Victoria Secret commercials show models posing in their bras and panties. In most scary rated-R movies, most of the movie is shown were breasts and people having sex and getting killed after, like the modern movie Friday the Thirteenth. Now porn is more accepting by people than when porn was in the shadows.
ReplyDeletePorn has undoubtedly become a larger part of American culture throughout the past few decades. Not only do I think this is from the increased accessibility of this material but also because we are becoming more lenient as a society. Back in the day, the most popular way of accessing pornographic material was through magazines, paintings and pictures. People did this in private because it wasn't fully accepted by society back then. Also, there was no digital porn that could be accessed at any time from any location. The fact that such tech exists has now brought porn out from the shadows. Our society has allowed it to creep into the media now more than ever. Take 50 shades of grey as an example, (I haven't personally seen it but) from what I hear it's literally porn in the movie theaters. From little girls playing with bratz dolls to my grandmother coming across that hamburger commercial, nobody is safe from the porning of America.
ReplyDeleteThe introduction talked about how everything now a days is being sexualized including children’s toys and I very much agree with this. Even just 10 years ago I remember playing with some Bratz dolls and they didn’t wear nearly as revealing outfits as they do now. Even Barbie’s and all the action figures that little boys play with get more and more sexualized each year. Action figures have the small shirts and big muscles or the short dresses and big breasts on the Barbie dolls. Kids end up getting these unrealistic images in their minds about how they should look and the dolls end up being such a poor influence on them. Sexual images seem to be way harder to ignore now since they seem to be everywhere. Whether it’s walking into a store and looking inside a magazine, seeing a commercial on TV, or seeing an ad somewhere on the internet, it’s basically unavoidable. It always makes me wonder why sexual content like this is so readily seen everywhere we look now since it wasn’t like that even just 20-30 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI thought this introduction was both interesting an accurate. While the author only has the perspective of an adult male (having not grown up or matured in the age of internet porn) he does a good job viewing the problem from multiples sides; be it the side of feminist activists or a younger generation. I also thought the author did a good job of weighing the pros and cons of porn, and its overall impact of society. Porn is a very interesting taboo as it strikes at the most carnal desires of people, and is a true phenomenon as the quality and shear accessibility has greatly changed with the invention of the internet and personal computer. In terms of the technology porn is now reaching younger and younger ages as children have more private access to computers at during years. Where I agree with the author is walking the fine line of being against porn not because it’s sexual but because it plays portrays negative images about women and sex in general. The author does a phenomenal job of differentiating between most mainstream porn (generally more misogynistic) and porn directed by women, or amateur porn; while it is telling that what is popular is misogynistic, this is a credible argument that porn isn’t intrinsically bad, but promoting the degradation of women is. Another interesting point the author makes is the increase in violence seen in porn and scandals such as the Abu Grab prison scandal. While I don’t necessarily agree that the photographing of nude inmates and violence towards he prisoners was geared towards engaging in sexual acts or sexually gratifying for the perpetrators (and thus possibly influenced by porn), as opposed to playing upon what the prisoners would find most offensive; a women with an uncovered head sexually abusing men is wildly offensive, especially when done to militant Islamists (although I think all religions would views this as grossly offensive). I do however think this point is fairly current with the recent release of 50 shades of grey and the very sided responses from both the BDSM community that champion the film for normalizing a generally scrutinized subculture and many feminist organizations that say the movie glorifies an abusive relationship. Regardless of which side you stand on a movie like 50 Shades of Grey can attribute some of its success to the porn phenomenon as it has been marketed as porn for middle age women.
ReplyDeleteFrom Haley:
ReplyDeleteTo start, I am in shock at the Bratz doll reference. I grew up playing with and quite frankly was obsessed with Bratz dolls, but they never looked this way. All the barbies, polly pockets, or bratz dolls that I played with were fully clothed and innocent so this is saddening for me. I know that as a young girl playing with dolls was sort of like creating your own little dream world. These dolls had endless amounts of clothes, pink convertibles, big sparkly RV’s, and a big hunky Ken doll to date. It is saddening to me that little girls are being given these Bratz dolls to play with who are dressed, for lack of a better word, as whores in pumps. It’s setting a terrible example for these girls because they already get enough of this through pop culture. If anything, dolls for little girls should be keeping the “good girl” image, not fading into the sexuality of America. As this article states, men and women are sexual beings. I see nothing wrong with this statement because I do believe it is true and we are much better off acknowledging the fact that we are sexual creatures than condemning people to hell if they have had sex (like the “olden” days). I think it’s interesting and I am not surprised that pornography has been stigmatized since the ancient Rome. I think when people first hear the word porn our initial thoughts are associated with bad, dirty, secret, etc. Pornography can be accessed a lot more easily in today’s society and like they state in this book, sometimes it is forced on us through television commercials or pop-ups on the computer but I still think that porn is something people attach a stigma too just like the ancient Romans who kept it locked away in a special museum.
Although I don’t know much about porn, I do know that a lot of it portrays women as sluts and whores and as dirty, nasty individuals. I am not a feminist but I do believe that women deserve more than that and I know for a fact that no woman wants to be treated that way, whether she is a porn start or not. All women, even porn stars, would choose respect over self-degradation. It is unfortunate that in today’s society women have to be dressed in close-to-nothing and over-sexualized in order for men to be interested. I am going to quickly relate this back to social media in my generation. I am a huge fan of instagram but recently have started seeing more and more girls posting “selfies” in as little clothing as possible. I have seen girls on instgram three years younger than me rocking push-up bras, spray tans, stilettos, heavy makeup and bleach blonde hair and getting up to 4,000 likes on their photos. Once again, it’s saddening to me. Call me old fashioned but I believe women, especially young girls, should demand more respect than that. Young girls should not feel the need to do these things to themselves and their bodies in order to get attention. It makes me sad that young girls feel this way and it makes me even more upset that boys are putting this type of pressure on girls.
I think the introduction precisely describes positive and negative aspects of porn. I am not sure if I actually understand the phenomenon of “porning” but I definitely agree with the author that porn is becoming more and more open to the world than it was before. I think the reason for it is hidden in our nature. As it has been said in the introduction - humans are very sexual creatures. The reason why we see sex more often in some things that were not initially sexual (such as burger from the ad with Paris Hilton), is because people like it so they are ready to pay for it. They are subconsciously attracted to these things, so more likely they will spend their money. Marketers know this and use it everywhere now. Another reason why it can be happening is because society is becoming less religious and morals are changing so it is not a shame for people to watch porn anymore. Watching pornography used to be very personal and everyone kept it secret. Due to the development of technologies, porn became more accessible and more popular.
ReplyDelete