As far as I'm concerned, the worst aspect of pornography is the attitudes of those watching. But before I get to that it's clearly important that I talk about the effects of pornography on those involved.
Many people will say that prostitutes and porn stars choose the lifestyle which they live. To some extent that is true. They are not actual slaves and so always have a choice. First of all, though, we have to acknowledge that as far as prostitutes go, many are slaves or are essentially slaves. What pimps are masters of is getting their girls, or boys, addicted to drugs that are extremely hard to unhook from, like cocaine; then the prostitute hardly has a choice: if they leave, they'll be poor and unable to get the drugs that they seem to need. Even if prostitutes aren't literal slaves, then, the choice they have is a false one and might as well be slaves. Porn stars are not much different. Men and women, women especially of course, are led into a life with a false choice: many porn stars have left the profession, if it can be called that, and then immediately return because they have been convinced that they aren't good at anything other than having sex with people for money. Once in the "real world" as we call it they find that it is much easier to have sex for half an hour rather than working a 40-hour week. Of course I simplify. Most porn stars are in a number of videos every week. Still, the amount of work that they put in is nothing compared to a full work-week where they cannot use what they have been told is their best attribute: their body. For most porn stars, then, pornography seems to be the only choice that they can make until their body is no longer deemed beautiful. What once was a choice made perhaps as an 18-year old to make some extra money is now the only choice that they can make.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that porn stars do choose pornography without any strings attached to that choice. The fact will remain that porn stars are used and abused during the filming of pornography. Frankly porn stars are used and abused before the cameras are even turned on: they are paid ahead of time for the action about to be performed, with more money for the more perverted actions. If pornography is a profession, then we can imagine that more perverted actions will be performed more and more often with porn stars wanting to make more money. It's not likely anyway that a porn star, even if they entered the industry with the hope of only performing straight sex, would be able to escape the pressure to perform the more perverted roles. The porn industry knows quite well what they want and how to apply pressure to get what they want.
During filming, the woman is told to be perverted and to like being used and dominated. We may say that certain amounts of power domination or roughness in the bedroom is healthy and I wouldn't disagree. A loving relationship between two people is a lot different, though, than porn stars randomly put together in a video and the woman being abused. The effect this has on the female, as said before, is that they begin to think that what they are good for is being used for male enjoyment, and that male enjoyment should bring them pleasure. No longer will the female think that they are worthwhile human beings on their own without being used. Self-image becomes a major issue whether they acknowledge it or not. Surely some will still say that they are choosing the life and that choice brings them ultimate pleasure and fulfillment, but there is no denying that what they deem as fulfillment actually entails having their worth demeaned and destroyed.
I have had the opportunity since my bike trip to watch some documentaries on the pornography industry, which I'll list and talk about in another post, that have only confirmed that anything that destroys the image of the porn star will also encourage the loss of proper attitudes toward sex and the opposite sex in those watching pornography. Unfortunately I know from experience that watching pornography leads more and more to thinking of the opposite sex as a plaything. Granted, I, like other people, might still be a good enough person to see other good qualities in members of the opposite sex. Still, the end hope for interactions with the opposite sex is, indeed, sex. Someone who watches pornography has a much harder time not thinking about sex with just about everyone of the opposite sex that they come across, even if they don't act on it. And believe me, certain expectations develop. It's hard for someone who watches pornography to not expect a girlfriend or boyfriend to do certain things in the bedroom, or out of the bedroom.
Those expectations then carry the image and worth issues that porn stars deal with into normal relations. Girlfriends especially are now expected to act like amateur porn stars. Obviously I don't know to what extent women feel these expectations pressuring down on them, but from personal experience I know that it's hard for a woman to deny a man that they may want to date or are dating. The end result of this is that, basically, we re-create sex slavery in our own bedrooms. More accurately we are re-creating pornography in our own bedrooms, especially when we consider the growing trend of taping ourselves in the bedroom and then posting the videos on the Internet. Taping might also be a healthy expression of loving passion, but the trend of taping and then posting is an indication that we want to imitate pornography. But I argue that we are indeed re-creating sex slavery in our bedrooms. What happens is that we indulge master/slave scenarios over and over again. At the end of the day the man and the woman may still consider themselves equals, but it's hard not to escape the feeling first engendered in the bedroom. And our women expect that and live into that expectation, then further encouraging the attitudes of men everywhere.
The worst part of it all is that men now think that it's ok to treat a woman as a slave of sorts for their own enjoyment. If ever they encounter a woman who has a positive self-image and doesn't want to entertain the notion of being dominated or used or any of that, then the man is now left with a dilemma: stay with the woman and respect her, leave the woman and find someone else who will let him do whatever he desires, or stay with the woman and disrespect her. Believe me, the first choice may be desired by most men, but is also extremely difficult for most men to choose and commit to. Both of the other choices in some way lead to the use of slavery.
If a man who has developed in the ways that I have spoken about from watching pornography only dates and stays with women who will indulge his desires, then essentially he is being told that it's ok to feel the way that he does. That man will then desire more and more domination of women and then, eventually, will cheat on even the woman that gives him what he wants. And the man who stays with the respectable woman with the idea of finding an indulgence to his desires elsewhere will obviously cheat.
Neither situation necessarily leads to slavery. Both situations certainly lead to worsening our ability to properly love and respect women, which is certainly not what we want. Both situations also have developed the attitudes necessary for using sex slaves. Whether or not a man actually will find and use sex slaves depends only on whether or not how frustrated they are and how easily they can find other non-slaves to use and abuse. Having once used sex slaves it's more likely that the man will return and with more intense and perverted wishes. Those wishes might then find their way into relationships with non-slaves, then worsening the attitudes involved in pornography and watching pornography that helped lead to the use of sex slavery in the first place. This is much worse considering that the vast majority of sex slaves are very young... I'm sure we can imagine what the result of using young sex slaves is on the society-at-large. With the attitudes that we are already developing and allowing to develop, the attitudes that are also brought back into society from those who use sex slaves only intensifies the evil situation we find ourselves in.
At some point along the line you may disagree with my conclusions. I think the fact remains, though, that watching pornography affects a whole range of attitudes and actions that can and do lead to the holding and using of sex slaves. Even if the person watching pornography doesn't use slaves, that person brings an attitude to relating with others that may influence someone who has never watched pornography at all to enter into a form of slavery or to use slaves. Pornography is indeed a worse evil than we may think.
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