Pop Goes the Porn Culture

"Pop Goes the Porn Culture"
By: Gail Dines

Gail Dines uses three examples to show that porn has been becoming more mainstream over the last decade.  She shows through all of these examples that women are used as commodities especially in porn, but then also in mainstream pop culture. The three examples she uses are Girls Gone Wild, the appearance of a porn star, and Vivid Entertainment.  Each of these have "sanitized" porn to mellow it down from the hardcore porn industry to move it into the mainstream so that pop culture deems it acceptable. Porn culture, especially Girls Gone Wild, makes porn seen "fun, edgy, chic, sexy, and hot." The soft core porn of a decade ago has filtrated our mainstream pop culture...and we barely even notice it.

The following clip is a Girls Gone Wild ad from 2007.  I did not watch the whole thing, so be warned that this contains an adult content.  The phenomenon Girls Gone Wild preys on the stereotypical college years of sexual exploration.  GGW's thing is using "real women" this adds to the concept that all women are sexually available

The appearance of porn stars further removed the dirty connotation with porn, and slowly made the vocation of a porn star financially appealing, and contained the "star factor"
The first porn star: Jenna Jameson

A big part in the essay is that Jameson served as a recruiter for other women to become pornstars, and the comments of users showed that porn stars are interchangeable, and all women are sluts because any woman can be a pornstar.

Here is a link to an article "the truth about the porn industry" where Gail Dines was interviewed and asked questions about her book. I thought that one of the most disturbing quotes was:

"I have found that the earlier men use porn," says Dines, "the more likely they are to have trouble developing close, intimate relationships with real women. Some of these men prefer porn to sex with an actual human being. They are bewildered, even angry, when real women don't want or enjoy porn sex."

While we can argue for and against porn, when someone studies this AND has evidence, I think we can no longer ignore the real consequences. When men begin to desire porn of a real sexual relationship...what does that mean for our lives and world? (discussion question).


Even if a man and woman do not watch porn, I still think the filtration of porn into pop culture and the prevalence of porn advertisements effects their relationship and their idea of what their sexual relationship should be. Do you agree with this? Is it harmful? Why or why not?  ....and what do we do about it either way

Another thought that necessitates discussion is that in the porn industry, women are there to please the man.  It is all about the man's pleasure.  What does this say to the 2nd wave feminism argument of empowerment through choice?  How can we say women are empowered when the result is still male pleasure?