There is a particularly disturbing trend that is going on within society today: making pornography seem as though it is normal. There have been many arguments made as to why this might be the case, but it does more harm than any good it could ever dream of. You might be reading this and ask yourself "How is porn normalized within society?" Well, this is done through a couple different ways.
Social Media Pages
There are pages on Facebook and Twitter that attempt to normalize porn by associating them with other things. There is virtually no limit to what these pages encompass. You can find military porn, food porn, poems porn, etc. The possibilities are seemingly endless. Then there was a woman who looked like former Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz who agreed to do porn for $10,000. It is truly reprehensible that we as a society has seemed to fetishize (to an extent) this individual. Why did social media blow up?
Industry itself
The industry itself attempts to normalize it. I mean, of course they would, as their goal is to make money as with any business. But the way in which they do business and try to make their "product" seem appealing and bring themselves into the mainstream. The website, PornHub, went as far as introducing a scholarship to answer the question "How do you strive to make others happy?" It was then announced just recently by PornHub that an app would be released to help people get "Fit as F*ck." Helping people get into shape is one thing, but when it is done through a product that produces a warped worldview is where the line should be drawn.
Why these are problems
To this a lot of people might say? "Oh, they know exactly what they are signing up for." Often times they don't. The average person does not know some of the more pernicious practices that producers have gotten into. An article on CNN Money outlined what one "producer" went into:
"Once they arrived, he secretly drugged them and took them to another location where a 'heavyset, tattooed man' would rape them on camera. This footage was then sold online and to pornography stores. Some victims didn't find out about the videos until they were alerted by friends or complete strangers. Some of the victims do not remember anything until the following day, when they awoke, half-naked and semiconscious, either in their own cars or in their hotel rooms, sometimes covered in vomit or urine,' prosecutors wrote in a court document."
This "industry" creates an inherently unethical product. It is exploitative, not just to women, but to male performers as well. In some instances, "porn stars" are beaten, raped, drugged, or more when they were not wanting to do certain scenes or acts. The stories here are just a microcosm of the exploitation of performers. In addition to this, pornography creates a view of sex that is not normal, as unfair and unrealistic expectations of women. Basic themes in pornography include:
1. All women at all times want sex from all men
2. Women enjoy all the sexual acts that men perform or demand, and
3. Any woman who does not at first realize this can be easily turned with a little force, though force is rarely necessary because most of the women in pornography are the imagined "nymphomaniacs" about whom many men fantasize.
Simply put, pornography is not normal, nor should it be used as a tool in sex-ed like Denmark has considered. It should not be used as an "educational tool" because in a time where children are so impressionable, they should not be shown subject matter that creates a belief that relationships of a sexual nature are only concerned with what we want as individuals, showing no regard for what your partner wants. Pornography destroys relationships as well as basic family units. In addition to this, porn is directly related to creating demand for sex trafficking. So what some might think is an innocent thing that harms no one, is actually something which destroys lives of multiple people. So stop the demand. Society, stop making porn seem normal.
