Porn Industry Has Negative Impact On All

By: Gary Parkosewich

Posted: 10/12/06

Dr. Gail Dines, a sociology and women's studies professor at Wheelock College in Boston, came to the Student Union Theater Wednesday to protest the pornography industry against negative mental and physical impact on both men and women.

With soft-core pornographic images of perfectly-shaped women dominating the media and hardcore Internet pornography setting the screaming "standard" for good sex, Dines said the now pornographic society is disturbingly affecting the self-image of both men and women and their relationships.

"They're destroying any true hope of connections with other women, men, and the world."

According to Dines, the media is causing women to feel they have to match the perfect anatomical standards of cover girls, such as slim waists and flat stomachs, while men are being brainwashed into thinking they have to have these specific types of women in order to have the perfect sex partner.

"The body politic has become the political body of the female," Dines said.

Dines said soft-core porn has already made its way into mainstream society through women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan, and men's magazines such as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, leaving the Internet with mostly hardcore porn. According to Dines, the pornography industry makes $56 billion a year, making more than any other kind of medium.

"That is a huge number of men jerking off to a huge number of images, and every single one of you in this room is affected by that, whether you are a woman or a man." Dines said. "When you walk through the world in your life, you are walking through the world as a woman with men who have consumed this on a regular basis."

A few men in the audience openly admitted that pornography had been deteriorating their relationships and made them feel inferior during sexual relations with their partners, since they felt they could not match the "professionals."

"What pornography says to men is that you are the most pathetic things walking around," Dines said. "You are reduced to that sating thing in between your legs. You have no moral gravity, you have no empathy. There is nothing about you that is human. All you are is your cock, that big thing and all you need to do is release it."

Dines also demonstrated how violent pornography is against women by showing only a small slice of what internet pornography has to offer. The names of the Websites spoke of their subject matter for themselves. Many members of the audience gasped upon the subject matter of these sites.

Dines said many women in the pornography industry suffer from a range of medical problems, such as gonorrhea of the eye, gonorrhea of throat, along with tears in the vagina, anus and throat.

Other members of the audience said they were greatly affected by what Dines said.

"I'm having a nice long talk with my brother," said Tess Bird, a 5th semester women's studies major.

In order to fight the pornography industry and "detoxify" society from these negative images, Dines urged women and men alike to start a new wave of feminism.

"Feminism gives us the tool to have these conversations," said Kathy Fischer, the associate director of the UConn Women's Center.

Fischer also highly encouraged men to participate in feminism.