Porn: probably one of the most discussed topics of the 21st century, as well as a subject that garners a multitude of differing opinions. As a female, I feel quite strongly about pornography and the significant effect it has on the pressure to look and act a certain way. Women in porn don’t look or act like real women, and this is the problem – how can we compete with an illusion? Often, female porn stars are told to act a certain way in order to please a predominantly male audience and this leaves real sex somewhat lacking when compared to the unrealistic scenes men view on their laptop. Porn is a bad influence on relationships and sex because it is portraying females in an inaccurate light – how can this ever be healthy?
An inaccurate image of sex
I’m not ignorant, I know that pretty much every male watches porn, and some women too – I think this fact has to be accepted, it’s going to happen and there is nothing that can be done about it. My biggest issue with the viewing of porn is how it presents an inaccurate image of sex, a false perception of what ‘good’ sex is supposed to be like. We all know the porn star image – tiny waist, huge fake breasts and completely shaved bikini line. I know that this is not what every porn scene looks like, I just mean as a general rule. The fact that in porn a woman looking like this is expected creates an almost impossible sense of perfection – not many women actually do look like that.
It also creates a pressure for women to change, if men find that attractive on screen, aren’t they going to want that in real life? The fact that many porn stars have surgically enhanced breasts does two things – firstly, it changes the way natural breasts are perceived, creating a false illusion that bigger fakes ones are better. The fact that fake breasts are much rounder and more equal in size means that to a male viewer that is how they may imagine real breasts to be. The other problem with using surgically enhanced porn stars is the pressure this puts on female body image – if women have to change to be ‘hot’, how can we ever be comfortable in our own skin?
Creates unrealistic expectations
Another problem porn creates is the shallowness of the action – you choose exactly how you want the woman to look. With categories to choose ‘bigger’ girls, what kind of impression does this create? This marginalises females who have a higher dress size, I believe it is wrong to give them their own category. In Britain the average dress size is probably nearer to a 14 than to an 8 and therefore the women men are choosing as ‘bigger’ is in actual fact average size – creating unrealistic expectations for the female body.
I don’t feel threatened by porn, I don’t believe that if my boyfriend watches it he loves me any less but what I do make sure is that he is repeatedly told that what he is witnessing is unrealistic. I am keen for him to know that my body will not be as taut, tanned or perfect as these porn stars are – it never will be because they have changed theirs artificially and they are acting. I explained how to tell if breasts were fake or real, and I was surprised after talking to him and his friends, that they actually found it quite difficult to tell the difference. I was shocked that they had become so desensitized by pornography showing large fake breasts, that they couldn’t distinguish these from real ones.
Portrays unrealistic scenarios
Another issue I think is prevalent in porn is the lack of realism in some scenarios. Showing scenes from a male POV and playing on stereotypical male expectations means that videos are often inaccessible to females. Some women do watch porn but I would imagine that the stereotypical porn created with men is mind is not always great watching for them. I learnt that most sites have sections of videos for women, and these videos are different in the respect that the build-up is slower, there is romance, talking, foreplay – to put it more clearly, they have more realism. If these scenes specially created for women are more realistic, what does this say about the male categories? The fact that they are deliberately unrealistic and play on fantasy highlight the problem that pornography will never reflect real sex scenarios or real women.
I know porn isn’t going to go away and I accept that. It is an industry that continues to thrive and probably always will. In spite of this, there must be some changes. The depiction of females need to be changed, otherwise males are continually going to have an inaccurate perception of what women really look like. Men also need to be educated on what real sex is, not what they are seeing on their computer screens – that is not a reflection of reality. Without any change the porn industry will continue to lower the self-confidence of women and to continually alter the way females are perceived until, eventually, the real female body will never seem good enough.
