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Etymology:

The word pornography, derived from the Greek porni (“prostitute”) and graphein (“to write”), was originally defined as any work of art or literature depicting the life of prostitutes. Adult films are sometimes called blue movies because, according to one theory, adult films in its starting days were very hard to make. Budgets were practically non-existent and the film producers used to be very secretive about their movies. And at that time to create a film quickly and in low-cost they used to give it a bluish colour tint. The audience used to watch the cheap blue coloured films and coined the name “blue movie”

Studies on mainstream porn

There have been many studies on porn to find out the most popular porn videos have in common. They all point to agressive, abusive and cursing language, men’s domination, and these common acts: ass to mouth, gagging, choking, slapping, hair pulling, name calling. In particular 88% of these depict physical violence against women; 40% show verbal violence. They also show women are subjects of these acts and their responses are either neutral or begging for punishment.

Some facts:

• The average age at which a child first see porn online is 11
• Porn has become the number 1 sex educator around the world.
• 1/4 of all the internet traffic is pornography
• 35% of all internet downloads are pornographic
• One in every 4 search request is for porn.
• The entire worldwide porn industry is worth $97 billion, is estimated to generate $14 billion a year.
• 75% of boys and 58% of girls have seen porn by the age of 17
• More than 30% of boys aged between 18 and 24 suffers from porn induced erectile dysfunction.
• Porn hub has 92 million views everyday. Every minute, it sees 63,992 new visitors to the site, watching 207,405 videos through 57,750 searches. That one minute also sees 12 new videos and two hours of content uploaded.
• There are around 25 sexual categories on each site; for each category, there are about a hundred to a thousand videos.
• 85% of the world adult content is produced in San Fernando Valley, LA
• There are around 2000 porn stars in LA, roughly 100 out of whom are male. There are also approximately 200 companies/ producers making around 11,000 videos per year in LA alone.
• It is estimated that 20% of online footages depicting trafficked girls

Porn effects

What see we often, we get familiar with it. We tend to ignore real violience in life or normalize it when we see aggression towards women. When we see a man assaults a woman in the street, we might assume that she deserves it or she might enjoy it or it’s none of our business and walk on or just look on.

Children stumbled upon porn by accident either through their siblings’ phone or other older kids can airdrop a porno via bluetooth on a school bus or in the changing room and they cannot help but overhear or cannot help but seeing adults doing activity when they are not ready. Young people also believe what they see in porn is what people do when they have sex. Girls watch porn and compare themselves with porn stars; they think that porn is teaching what is expected of them in bed, and if they want to be worthy of love, they have to be worthy of sexual desire, basically looking like a porn star. Therefore, heavy make-up, large fake boobs and booty become a cosmetic trend. Boys and young men believe that as a man, they are solely valued in sex by having a large penis and eternal erection. There are other misunderstandings that young people take away from porn such as:

• All women have no hair down there. (It’s a personal preference)
• Men love coming on women’s face and women love having men come on their face (Some women do; most women don’t)
• All a guy has to do is start touching or sticking his finger into a woman’s pussy and she is instantly wet and ready to go. (It takes women roughly 15 minutes to get into the mood with lots of kissing, touching, caressing, skin to skin contact, etc.)
• Women climax all the time and in positions where nothing is going on near the clit. (75% of women cannot vaginal orgasm, and every orgasm has something to do with clitorus stimulation)
• All women like anal sex. (The reality is out of 56% having done it, only 2% said they enjoyed it and the rest revealed they were in a lot of pain

Users require more extreme and diviant forms of pornography to get the same levels of satisfaction, leading them to continue searching for novel scenes, added violence and younger performers.

Internet porn can cause addiction and lead to erectile dysfunction; the good news is this is reversible although it takes longer time for young people to get back their mojo than older people since the former started with highspeed internet porn while the latter didn’t watch internet porn till highspeed internet became available.

How can porn be addictive?

According to experts, Internet users find internet porn more compelling than porn in the past due to unending novelty. How internet porn works is based on Coolidge effect. It is a biological phenomenon seen in animals, in which males exhibit renewed sexual interest whenever a new female is introduced to have sex with, even after just having sex withcurrent sexual partners. The Coolidge effect can be attributed to an increase in sexual responsiveness, and a shortening of the sexual refractory period which is the recovery phase after orgasm during which physiologically impossible for a man to have additional orgasm. Each user perceives each novel female on the screen as a genetic opportunity for fertilizing. Excess chronic consumption of porn leads to surges in dopamine, which in terns result in Delta-FosB accumulation. As the binging on novel scenes continues, the brain structure will change and promote a cycle of binging and craving. The first change is numbed pleasure response which means every pleasure in life suddenly becomes boring; the second change is the brain develop hyper-response to porn-only watching porn is super exciting; the last change is will power erosion. All addictions have this mechanism. As a result, the numbed brain of a heavy internet porn user will send a weaker and weaker to his penis. It starts with lower reaction to porn sites, then there is a general drop in libido and in the end, it becomes impossible to get an erection, for which psychological treatments or Viagra won’t work because it is due to physical changes in the brain.

Behind the scenes

Porn actresses are not referred to by their name but rather “it, that, meat” and other dehumanized names.

STD rates among sex performers are 10 times higher than that of the same demographic populations in the general populations. Some porn stars contract 4 or 5 STDs per year. It’s impossible to keep track of who gives them STDs and whom they spread these to.

Porn stars aren’t allowed to use protection while having sex and still have to make movies while they are contracting an STDs. According to an old former porn star, if you watch some videos closely, you can see the infections such as how red the vagina was and how thick, colored the discharge was. (This makes me think of “cream pie”; porn users might be watching an infected woman releasing a milky thick discharge and thinking it was only the guy’s semen).

Most porn stars die between the age of 37 and 43 due to AIDS, suicidal, diseases and unnatural causes which are most likely alcoholism and drug abuse.

No one wants to watch a porn actress that is clearly in pain while having sex, so all female actresses have to put on a smile and convince the producer they are the perfect fit for a role. When there’s gang bang of 10 guys or more and an actress is scared, or wants to withdraw, she will be coerced, forced, threatened, drugged to make it through the scene. Female actresses get street drugs and prescribed drugs by doctors on site; the common drugs these porn stars use are Vicodin, Prozac, Xanax, meth, etc. They are meant to blur the effect of emotional abuse and to numb the pain of violent onset sex.

Most porn stars who entered the industry voluntarily were attracted to the glamourous lifestyle, the costumes, the money and false promises of being kept safe. After a few years in the industry, actors and actresses lose hope, spark and life once they had in their eye. They are simply surviving. Many try to get out, but they get stuck; they are made to feel they are no good, no use to society and making porn is the only thing they can do. A retired popular male porn star admitted losing feelings towards women and regarding them as sex objects while many former porn actresses confessed having trust issues with men.

 Revenge porn

Revenge porn can be understood in simple terms as the images or videos of sexual activities or intimate relationship released without the consent of people involved. These images or videos were made with or without their knowledge. The possession of the material may be used by the perpetrators to blackmail the subjects into performing other sex acts, to coerce them into continuing the relationship, to punish them for ending the relationship, or to silence them. This practice has been made outlawed in some countries. In other countries, it is classified as sexual abuse, domestic violence, violation of privacy, defamation or psychological abuse. Both men and women can be a victim. My personal approach to this is never to click on such a video or help share it with anyone.  Instead of being curious about the content of the video as the person who uploaded it had hoped, we should condemn the offender.

Ethical porn

Since mainstream porn is dominated by men, portraying women as sexual objects, ethical porn was born with women being involved in producing a porno. Ethical porn focuses on women’s pleasure as well as men and from women’s perspective. Ethical porn assures that everyone involved is comfortable with what they are doing and looks after performers’ welfare and guarantees their fair incomes. Therefore, ethical porn isn’t free and is not readily accessible to the general public.

Make love not porn

Similar to ethical porn, this movement is embraced by people who are into real love making between people. The videos are made by normal people and viewed by subscriptions only. The movies feature amateur couples having sex the way they want, acting on how they feel rather than on scripts. They are paid a fair share for their video submission.

Contemplation

Porn is here to stay and will continue to dominate young people’s life. Not everyone that watches porn will get addicted if they know how to do it moderately. If porn addiction has the same effect on our brain as drugs, then maybe we should do it recreationally or never try it? Only watch porn when you fail to imagine. Only watch porn when you have no partner. Don’t watch porn and masturbate at the same time. Only watch porn once in a while for a change. Only watch mild porn such as sensual massages instead of violent ones. Instead of constantly looking for new scenes, maybe just be content with one scene at a time and re-watch one video many times? Keep in mind that, everything you see in is just an act; it is far from reality. Watching mainstream porn means partaking in sex trafficking and women’s exploitation. So if you have to, consider switching to ethical porn for a more realistic love making scenes and more positive porn image. If not, what can you do to help with your sexual life? Read erotica or listen to audio porn. Audio porn can be very powerful and intimate. It allows you to immerse in the storyline and your imagination to go wild. Better yet, learn how to give a sensual massage so that you can experience sensations that even porn cannot give you.

Now for the future, I hope one day there will be some kind of VR technology for people to experience fake porn, but not as a person who pays to fuck porn stars but as porn stars who get abused, slapped, kicked, choked, called names, etc. What are the consequences? I don’t know; only scientists can tell me first if it’s possible to do so, and second if it does more harm than good in helping people give up porn addiction or fantasize about it instead of acting on it in real life.