When it comes to understanding the messages embedded in pornography, there are few voices I appreciate more than Gail Dines. In this presentation, “Sex, Identity, and Intimacy in a Porn Culture,” Dines explains just how disturbing the porn industry has become and why its prevalence has brought about a global health crisis.
Please note: there is language in this presentation that is graphic and extremely disturbing, though the images have been blurred out. The purposes of sharing this video is to educate about the true nature of pornography today. If you are struggling with a strong addiction to pornography, please do not watch this.
Some may ask: why show this if it is so disturbing? We are sharing this with you because we feel society is harmed more by leaving this education buried.
Video Notes:
0:23 – Dines prefaces her presentation: we have to get uncomfortable to realize what our youth are experiencing.
1:03 – Youth are learning about sex from porn, amassing an “encyclopedic knowledge of smut” and becoming “porn-ready.”
2:38 – Youth have grown up in an image-based culture with no tools to deconstruct the images they see.
5:26 – S&M is sold as a lifestyle, but it is nothing more than sadism preying on the abused and vulnerable. Dines shows examples of trends in sexual media: what makes women attractive is sexual vulnerability, and what makes men attractive is sexual predation.
8:39 – True feminism is pro-male: biology does not destine men to be users and johns.
9:38 – Rape is not a form of deviance, but “over-conformity to society’s messages” about sex. Rape is built into the gender system as it is portrayed by pop culture.
10:23 – Dines offers a definition of objectification: when women (and increasingly men) are delivered up as a series of body parts without any idiosyncrasies or interesting personal dynamics.
11:45 – We live in a sex class system full of double standards. Dines offers several well-known examples.
16:36 – We live in a “perp culture.” Sexualized media and “gonzo” pornography grooms our children, where young girls are being forced into an early artificial sexuality, and young boys are being taught that porn sex is what masculinity is all about.
18:33 – The corporatization of porn: Dines explains the place of porn as a multibillion dollar industry, the Internet, Hollywood, and how the business models of porn operate.
24:43 – Gonzo porn: Dines gives examples of the standard sex acts in porn films today. (This is very graphic. Listener discretion is advised.)
34:25 – Dines explains how to fight pornography with a public health approach.
Learn More
Get more information at the National Center of Sexual Exploitation.
When I cant sleep, I read blogs. Covenant eyes has some good ones and good comments from people. On this topic, I think we fool ourselves about our teenagers. It is like we are stuck in a 50s mentality. We think they are innocent fragile creatures. Nothing could be further from the truth. The evidence is all around us. They use drugs, drink, rob, mug, assault, have sex, kill, and are as big as adults. Why on earth we think they aren’t fully into sex is beyond me. I know men who have gotten child molestation charges because of having sex with a teen, but I assure you those teens weren’t children by any stretch of the imagination. They fully knew what they were doing and sought the encounters out. Out of situations were no real harm was done, men have their lives destroyed and are often forced into poverty and commit suicide. Heck, you couldn’t even tell they were teenagers by looking at them. Then when I do charity work at prisons, I see countless men who were arrested as teenagers and who are now serving their prison time as adults. It amazes me how we do not hold an underage girl accountable for anything but an underage boy we will lock away for decades. Don’t tell me it doesn’t happen this way either because I go to the places most people just write about. Go and you will see the hypocrisy that we do in our nation. In sum, America is in deep denial. Denial makes life easier I guess. There is no going back to the 50s. Wally, the Beave, Ward, and June are not coming back ever. Heck, they never really existed in the first place.
Exactly. That’s what I hope this article (and video) can help to correct.
The last person I want to hear from is an over-weight brainwashed feminist with an agenda. You ever been to a woman’s study lecture? Those women are brainwashed. I left when a 300 pound woman told me I was raping her with my eyes and that yes, men can rape a woman with his eyes. I assure you when I was looking at her I was not raping her. I was disgusted by her actually. To those women, everyone is a victim. No, excuse me. Every woman is a victim. They live in some made up fantasy world that isn’t close to reality.
You not what is so crazy about all of this. Every one wants to exist in a Leave It to Beaver life that has never existed and never will exist. People go to jobs they don’t really want to do, they marry people they settle for, they are bored with life, they are worried about surviving life, and see no point to it all. That is truly what is going on. They use sex and porn and drugs and alcohol as an escape. Why on earth do you think America is the way it is? We consume the most of all these things by far. Except maybe alcohol. Life is hell really. I have a sneaky suspicion that Earth is some form of purgatory Really — nothing is good here.
Christ should have never left. Period. He needs to come back because evil has swallowed this world and it will not be stopped. I don’t believe in the rapture and that nonsense. But I do know this, without him, this is all a losing battle. Also, don’t give me this promise of heaven garbage when I see people starving, homeless, filled with disease or wasting away in prisons. Oh yea, America leads the world in that too. Forgot that one. Puritans founded America and they screwed this country up badly. Everything they made taboo has flourished. We are nothing more than a police state hell bent on witch hunts and that is precisely why nothing ever gets better and nothing ever will.
Hi S.T.
I’m not sure what being over-weight has to do with her opinion on this matter. Let’s play fair when commenting.
You clearly aren’t a fan of feminism—at least the kind promoted by Mrs. Dines. I understand. I too sat through my fair share of lectures with a feminist-bent during my undergrad that were frustrating because of the dogmatism that was present. Still, I don’t think it is wise to paint everyone with the label “feminist” with a broad brush.
The reasons why I appreciate Mrs. Dines point of view are…
1. She is constantly working alongside others with different viewpoints (such as Christians) to fight the ills of pornography in our culture.
2. She respectfully modifies her lectures to cater to her diverse audiences.
3. She blatantly states (in nearly every lecture I’ve heard) that she is not against men but is rooting for the humanity of men, that she doesn’t believe men are born johns and users, that men are born with a dignity that all women should respect.
4. She does an excellent job ripping the mask off the misogynistic sex industry by doing excellent research.
5. Unlike so-called “pro-sex” feminists today, Mrs. Dines utterly rejects the hyper-individualism of our culture. She writes, “In radical feminism we don’t talk about empowerment of the individual but rather collective liberation for women as a class. We say that as long as one woman is being oppressed then our job is to fight for her. We don’t see more sex or better orgasms as the answer to women’s oppression. What we want is the end of a system where women are the majority of the world’s poor, hungry, illiterate, overworked and raped. Our bodies are commodified to the point that you can buy and sell a woman over and over again. For radical feminists only massive structural change will do.” I agree with her.
While there are plenty of areas where I know she and I would disagree, I’m happy to provide a free exchange of ideas here on our blog to include her opinion.
If you find anything specific in her presentation you’d like to discuss, let me know.
Weight comes in because the insanity of her comments are illustrated by that. She just assumed I was attracted to her and raping her with my eyes. The reality was that she was not attractive at all. She created this fantasy scenario in her head. A scenario that was baseless. This is what feminists do. They distort reality.
You ever actually read rape statistics? Rapes have steadily declined for 20 years now. In fact, here are just two articles on this fact. There are tons of them: http://www.samefacts.com/2011/06/everything-else/the-startling-decline-in-rape/ and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800610.html . Yet, feminists push this “rape culture” myth. They support their myth by using the following caveat: “Most rapes are not reported”. So, how in the world do they know the rapes happened? They don’t. They are essentially making things up. I can do the same thing. “Most rapes are committed by one-eyed aliens ….. they are just not reported.” I will call it the “one-eyed alien rape culture in America.”
Then, feminists push an agenda that is based on faulty statistics and this agenda has severely impacted boys. Boys are completely being feminized in America. Feminized to the point they are committing suicide at a rate 4 times higher than girls, boys aren’t marrying, boy’s aren’t working, boys are not enrolling in college, etc. Add in the inequities in a divorce court and the 50 million abortions in America. Well, it is clear that feminism has been a destructive force. Yes, a good idea in concept, but the reality, is completely different. Men and women hate each other more now than ever before in our history and both sexes are miserable. Why do you think porn use is so high? Everyone is looking for something better.
Here is the kicker with feminists. They ignore real evidence of what is going on. They see girls dressing like strippers. They see underage girls looking like they are in their twenties. They see female after female celebrity pushing sex. They see millions of women using sex to make money. From hookers, to strippers, to escorts, to webcam girls. Feminists see the statistics about women become alcoholics in college and everywhere (https://www.google.com/search?q=female+alcoholism+on+the+rise&oq=female+alcoholism+on+the+rise&aqs=chrome..69i57.14136j0j1&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8). Yet, they will not hold their own gender accountable. The rise in female alcoholism is a huge reason for the “rapes” on college campuses. There is a lot of drunk sex going on. Yes, there are cases where a woman is brutally raped, by the vast majority of rape cases are drunk sex cases but of course, the woman is never held accountable — only the man is. Then his life is literally destroyed. Not hypothetically —- literally and completely. I am a man. I have had good sexual experiences and bad ones. Just because I had bad ones that does not mean I have been raped. But in our culture now, if things do not go perfectly for a woman. She feels like she is a victim. Heck, she has been taught since birth that she is a victim. The woman who thought I was raping her with my eyes is a prime example of this. She had been indoctrinated so much so actually believes the garbage completely.
The last and probably the most ironic thing is that do you know why women are drinking like fish and are so unhappy? Because feminism sold women an illusion. An illusion that no one can live up to. They tell women they can be lovers, wives, mothers, career people, activists, in-shape, and empowered. Hate to them but men learned long ago, to get something you must give up something. Women are just now learning this and they are unhappy. The only ones that are happy are the ones who are millionaires and can do it all because they have an army of people helping them.
Look at her comment: “she is not against men but is rooting for the humanity of men, that she doesn’t believe men are born johns and users.” She has already stereotyped men. That is backhanded “compliment” if you can call it that. Also, she as completely failed to address the woman’s part in this. The part where a woman should not entice men. But all women do this from the age of 14 on up. The problem now is that flirting no longer exists. Everything is hardcore enticement. The girl that at the age of 14 that used to climb trees is now going to Victoria Secrets to buy g-strings. Parents are the biggest fools of them all. They actually think their daughters are chatting on their phones about school and “boys”. No, those girls are sending nude pictures and talking about sex. We want to believe our daughters are these innocent flowers, but I assure you, many of them are not. It is the age old double standard. A girls skins her knee and everyone comforts her because she is viewed as fragile. A boy skins his and he is told to suck it up. The same thing occurs now. Girls are never viewed as sexual aggressors. The reality is they are very much aggressive now and we have not dealt with this at all.
We better deal with this things because if we don’t, this situation is terminal. You are fighting biology when it comes to sex. You are only holding men accountable. We are ignoring the female responsibility and never holding them accountable for anything. When you do that, nothing will change. Because there is an endless supply of women willing to do porn. It is pretty freaking easy to take off you clothes and have sex. We always tell men to stop looking at porn!!!! Well, hate to tell people, but if women didn’t do porn there wouldn’t be any porn for the men to look at. But who are we kidding. The woman making a couple grand a week at a strip joint is not going to want to go study and become an engineer. The webcam girl making $70 grand a year does not want to do math or equations. The porn star can go sit in an office cubicle for 50 or 60 hours a week or go have sex during the week and have some fun. Guess what she is going to choose?
You know it may sound like I am against women. I am not at all. I completely understand that there are reasons why women do porn. I do know there are single moms who are strippers, hookers, and webcam girls. I get that. The reality is we need to educate people more and create jobs. So a woman can make ends meet at a normal job. We have to value the family unit more. Go to war less and use that war money to build industries in America. We need to re-think capitalism. We need to value the family. We need to deal with reality.
The porn issue is much deeper than people understand. Until we truly talk about these things. It will never improve. The girls are victims, guys are perverted stance just isn’t reality and it isn’t cutting it.
Hello again, S.T.
Let me see if I can deal with your comments one by one. I’ll probably miss something, so let me know.
1. I agree the “girls are victims, guys are perverted” rhetoric isn’t helpful. The thing is that Gail Dines shies away from that rhetoric. Certainly in specific circumstances, we need to see some women who are part of the sex industry more as victims than as instigators (such as victims of abuse and trafficking), but Dines isn’t afraid to call a spade a spade. When she debates female porn stars and female porn producers on college campuses, she isn’t coddling them as victims but speaking against their viewpoints and their lifestyle. She even says in this presentation that she doesn’t think men are perverts by nature.
2. You say we need to “re-think capitalism”: yes, I agree. And so would Mrs. Dines. In fact, that is one of her major platforms: she believes that one of the reasons why porn thrives is because of the downsides of a capitalist economy.
3. I think it is an unnecessary dichotomy to say we should hold women accountable for the way they sell themselves before we hold men accountable for being willing to buy them (either through porn or some other exploitative act). If you are going to deal with the problem holistically, we need accountability for supply, distribution, and demand, not just one of them.
4. I wholeheartedly disagree that saying men are not born johns and users is feeding a stereotype. It is a direct statement against that stereotype that would say men are bound by their biology to use women in immoral ways.
5. When I was asking about weight, I was asking about your comment about Gail Dines, not your professor you had in college. And yes, I still don’t see its relevance to Mrs. Dine’s speech.
6. Despite what you may think, the concept of a “rape myth” is not something merely believed by feminists. It was primarily psychologists in the 80s who did experiments to show the connection between rape-myth acceptance and pornography viewership—not feminists operating in the political realm. Furthermore, to claim that rape prevalence is on a rapid decline, as reported by the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), is based on poor data collection. The National Research Council has found multiple problems with ways rape data has been collected by the NCVS. I’m not saying that rape rates are not on the decline. I’m just saying we don’t have good data to work with.
I get that you aren’t trying to be mean to women, and I get that you are trying to correct what you perceive as great imbalances in the way some feminists have dealt with these issues (imbalances that I probably would agree with). But it would be more constructive if your comments were less like “All feminists are…” and more like “Mrs. Dines was right when she said this, but wrong when she said that.”