Who are you?
Anti-Porn London: a group of feminists campaigning against pornography. Bin the Bunny (the protest against the Playboy store on Oxford St) was our first campaign.
Why Playboy? Why not Ann Summers?
Playboy is a porn company attempting to portray itself as a ‘lifestyle’ brand. Playboy markets products such as stationery sets and single duvet covers to young girls who may not know what the Playboy bunny logo stands for, and grooms them to become sex objects. Playboy is just one of our targets.
It’s just a rabbit, what’s the big deal?
The Playboy bunny is the symbol of a porn empire that profits from exploiting women. It symbolises women’s second-class status to men within society and helps normalise pornography in everyday life.
What’s wrong with pornography?
All pornography is sexist – it reduces women to objects and promotes misogynistic notions of ‘beauty’. Hardcore pornography is often violent and degrading to women, and portrays a dishonest version of human sexuality, particularly women’s sexuality.
Some women make a lot of money in porn
A very small number of women manage to make a lot of money in the industry, mostly because they have graduated from performer to producer. Most women’s ‘career’ in porn is short and financially unrewarding. Most women enter the porn industry because of poverty and a lack of career choices, and soon wish to get out.
The women enjoy what they are doing
Smiling for the camera and saying how much you love it is part of what they are paid for, it is part of the performance.
Some women consume porn, and what about porn that shows men being degraded?
Violence and degradation is violence and degradation regardless of who is being degraded, who is doing the degrading, and who is getting off on it. Showing men being sexually abused doesn’t challenge the pornographic paradigm that sex is violence and domination.
Are you anti-sex then?
No, we are pro-sex and anti-porn; pornography and sex are not the same thing. We would like to see more honest portrayals of sex in the media and better sex education.
You’re all just a bunch of ugly man-hating lesbians
Anti-feminists have always used bullying and name-calling to try to intimidate women into silence whenever we have challenged the status quo.
I want to cry reading this! Thank you so much for creating this site. It makes me so incredibly happy to read of a group of women, identified as I identify (“pro-sex, anti-porn feminist”), say these things in the way that you do, which is calling porn as it is (degradation to all people, especially women) and making the distinction between porn and sex. It can be so hard as a woman speaking to others, WOMEN INCLUDED, and feeling as though that there is no room to move without running into the stuff or having someone make the case that is normal/not going to change. You are so incredibly right about Playboy grooming or cultivating young women AND MEN to become continuous users and workers for this industry. It is a mountain that must and will be tackled. People must and will see, one day, just how we are ALL being exploited and BEING ROBBED of real, intimate, fun, physically AND EMOTIONALLY SAFE sex. SEX ISN’T WRONG….PORNOGRAPHY IS!
Hello Bella,
Thank you for the encouraging comment. You are right that it can be very hard sometimes to express such opinions to others, when the automatic response from most people is to dismiss you as an anti-sex prude. We just have to keep on trying!
i am afraid its to late for regulating porn in general its pretty much running its course into the realitys of human existince,but now being aware of its retarded backlashes on peoples lives and its uncivilized ways we should all understand that its just another form of gross indulgence.lets face it the world loves to screw everyone in the psycic, moral decay at its fullness
your blog has inspired me to start video blogging about anti-porn feminism, i used this article in one of my posts, don’t worry i linked everyone to you.
http://www.youtube.com/user/antiquelens
here i am if you any of you are interested. keep this site up, it’s needed!
We should make the porn we want to see. Instead of only being critical of the porn out there, we should also produce the pornography that depicts things as we want them to be depicted, and produce said depictions in a way we want them produced.
Problem is, that never actually works. Plenty of women pornographers claim to be ‘feminist’, but their pornography never manages to do anything truly radical. They are never genuinely critical of other porn, beyond saying it’s ‘not to their tastes’; they collaborate with gonzo pornographers, they go up for sex industry awards. They are a part of the mainstream sex industry.
I am not saying it is impossible to make decent depictions of sex, but the porn industry doesn’t do it and never will; pornography is commodified sex, and it always loses something through the commodification.
Do you have any ideas? How the camera should work? Any ideas for new cinematics? It’s not an easy question, not by any means, more of a brainstorming exercise. Femme Productions had the characters talking about the acts they were about to do, as a type of context for role-play. But if you have studied the raw material, maybe you’ve gotten some ideas along the way? I’ve had discussions about this with my friends and some film students, and it’s a big challenge (at least around a bar table with beers). The demand is to bring what has been seriously capitalized into the artistic, creative realm. Hard to do, as most things nowadays are just for the money. I mean, getting porn out of the for-the-money world is almost easier than doing it to feature movies, since movies are so expensive to make that they demand a return. Pornography actually is in a unique position, making it almost easier to “uncapitalize”. The free streaming sites, where porn is now really moving (magazines -> movies -> VHS/DVD -> Online Streaming) such as YouPorn and RedTube, are actually inviting more free, not-for-profit pornography, but little is really changing without visionaries to do the job.
I showed my boyfriend a clip, where the camera was being held by the woman, and was mainly from her perspective. He had an odd reaction (he’s a film student), he said it was weird being forced by the camera into the woman’s body. I haven’t been able to put this specific camera angle out of my head, it seemed to have some possibilities. I’ve known DIY pornographers in the punk community, not-for-profit of course, but without an artists vision no medium can really escape what the makers have already seen, and good artists in any medium are few and far between. It’s a case of “The surest sign of the amateur is one who reads more than they write”, since it’s hard to escape what you’ve already seen as a basic model.
Err … No. This is an anti-porn blog, we’re not here to help you make ‘better’ porn.
I suspect the main reason why women do porn ‘for free’ is that they think it will get them into a career in porn or glamour modelling or reality tv, which they think will make them a lot of money and make them famous (in the vast majority of cases, it won’t). The last time I looked at the front page of YouPorn or PornTube or whatever, all the images were indistinguishable from commercial porn, in terms of the scenarios on offer, and the appearances of the women involved (skinny, no body hair etc.).
Maybe I should clarify; by ‘depictions of sex’, I did not mean recordings of staged sex acts. I meant art that was about sex, that communicated our experiences of sex – a recording can never get that subjectivity across.
I am delighted to find this blog. Like many, I was utterly ambivalent towards pornography until faced with the overwhelming evidence of its harmful nature whilst taking a course at university. I’ve spent hours and hours and hours on end trying to educate friends and family on the issue, and am glad to find this resource.
I decided to comment on this specific page because I admire what you have done against Playboy. What particularly troubles me about it is that often children are being dressed in Playboy merchandise – by their parents! It disgusts me that it can be considered a ‘fashion brand’ by anyone, but to see it on kids and young teenagers is especially disturbing.
As someone who went through systematic child sex abuse, all sorts of scenarios play out in my mind in regards to this. Even when I consider it objectively, however, I am still horrified; to feel that the Playboy brand is somehow glamourous and some sort of aspiration is a tragic indictment on our society.
Best wishes
Pandora
I am only 19 and i understand the full affects porn has on society. it sickens me to think how porn hurts men and woman.i cant understand the pro porn feminists they say porns impowering.what its impowering to get anally raped.your anus is and was never meant to be penetrated.men are getting so screwed up from porn its sad. i was lucky enough to find a man who is anti porn. he wasent when we first got toghether. but over a year he realized how f*cked it actually was. he saw how much it hurt me. i was antiwoman at one point because of pornography i felt i could never compete. i love websites like this one there so empowering. [EDIT]
Hi Dessy,
I’m happy to hear that this website is useful for you, and it’s really encouraging to hear from young women like yourself.
I’ve taken your email address out of your comment, there are a lot of unpleasant visitors to this site (some of the search terms that lead people here are disgusting) and you don’t want them emailing you!
A
Great stuff! You girls are so awesome! Thank you, and I can’t wait to check out more of your site!
Some very good criticism, definitely. But it seems to be intended toward mainstream pornography. What about something like this: “Eco-Rainforest Pornography”? A couple in Sweden makes their own home-made videos, by themselves, sells them, and donates all of the profit to a rainforest fund.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0910-01.htm
First, since it’s a real couple, it’s not imposed beauty standards, and since it seems to be “worker self-managed,” there doesn’t seem like there’d be as much gender behavior roles. And second, since it’s a couple, the exploitation normal in commercial pornography, the harming of women, isn’t as present.
Oh, and it helps the environment.
How does being a ‘real’ couple automatically guarantee a lack of ‘imposed beauty standards’? From the picture in the article you link to, Leona seems to fit right in to standard feminine beauty, she just dreadlocks her hair instead of bleaching it blond for mainstream porn, or dying it black for ‘Suicide Girl’ style ‘alt’ porn.
How does being ‘worker self-managed’ automatically guarantee a lack of ‘gender behavior roles’? There are no real descriptions in the article, except of a plastic bag full of “basques and knickers”, and Leonora is described as wearing stockings and suspenders, that all sounds pretty gendered to me.
How does being a couple automatically guarantee a lack of exploitation in the manufacture of porn? There are married couples in the LA porn industry and plenty of men pimp out their wives and girlfriends, being in some kind of recognised relationship doesn’t guarantee or prove a lack of abuse, and marriage can even make abuse easier, since it as seen as occurring ‘in private’.
“A couple in Sweden makes their own home-made videos, by themselves”
According to the article, they spend a lot of time finding other ‘models’ to make porn with; can it be guaranteed that none of those ‘models’ were coerced or bullied into it in any way, that they weren’t intoxicated when they signed up, that they didn’t regret it afterwards?
Why concentrate on a tiny minority of pornography that may not be quite as bad as gonzo (and gonzo sets the bar pretty damn low)? We are never going to be handing out seals of approval, we’re against porn culture as a whole, and so-called ‘better’ porn doesn’t do anything to challenge that.
“Oh, and it helps the environment.”
No, it doesn’t. Installing a compost toilet or taking the train instead of driving helps the environment. This porn is being used to raise money, hopefully the charities that accept it are legitimate and worthwhile, but consuming this porn does not directly help the environment.
I wonder what kind of synthetic chemicals were needed to make her neon pink stockings and suspenders? I also wonder what more legitimate projects lost out because he fraudulently took £5000 from the Norwegian government? It all sound like self-indulgent green-washing, on the part of the makers and the consumers.
“I wonder what kind of synthetic chemicals were needed to make her neon pink stockings and suspenders?” Probably the same kind that are used for the data center that stores the files for your blog. Which is probably owned by some company that makes money off of advertisements that use gender behavior roles. And let’s not even touch the worker self-management issues there.
Oh, and where are the data files for your website stored then?
Can I link to you from my new anti-porn blog?
Please do, you’re already on our blogroll!
I am so happy to have found this site. Some times I feel so alone in my views. I am a Vegan Feminist,, and find within my own community a double standard. Here we fight for the end of animal exploitation , yet many ignore the plight of the human animal. I await the day,,,when all sentient beings are respected and given honor.
Hi I’m a 22 year old guy and I’m anti-porn and have been reading feminist blogs since I was 17 (although not for the last three years due to being a step dad so I’m probably not as feminist as I could be although I hope this is not the case) I just wanted to ask if it is ok for guys to comment on the posts on your site or if it is for females only?
thanks for taking the time to read this -A
Hi I’m Just Me/A,
Being a pro-feminist and a good step-father is better than a lot of men manage, so don’t put yourself down if you haven’t been keeping up with your reading – actions are more important.
And any comments from men which aren’t abusive or stupid are welcome on this blog.