Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families.
Mummy, I want to be a porn star
Pornography is becoming so acceptable in Britain that even teenage girls see it as a career, writes Kira Cochrane
‘Imagine if Starbucks offered a shot of alcohol with your morning coffee. Then there was beer in the office and at lunchtime we all automatically ordered a bottle of wine rather than sparkling water. If alcohol were that available we’d all start drinking more and any stigma would gradually disappear. And that’s how things are developing with porn.” So says Pamela Paul, the American author of Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families.
Paul has been looking into the effects of pornography on society and her investigation seems incredibly timely. While Britons may lag behind their European counterparts in education and living standards, it was revealed last week that the UK has become the porn capital of Europe, with access to 27 porn television channels. Germany, our nearest rival, has just five.
This represents only a tiny part of a £31.5 billion global industry. As even the most sheltered know, hardcore material is available over the internet, with 25% of all searches seeking to access one of the 1.3m porn websites. It’s also more available in magazines and even marketed directly to our mobile phones.
With so much material around, porn imagery has naturally crossed into the mainstream. It can now be found at children’s eye level on many supermarket newsstands (in magazines such as Nuts and Zoo), and in advertising (last year, for instance, a stereo system was promoted with a woman bound head to foot in black vinyl tape).
It’s there in the lyrics of Christina Aguilera, the styling of Britney Spears and even the poses of mannequins in Madame Tussaud’s (where a waxwork of Kylie Minogue depicts her on all fours with her bottom poking into the air).
So it is not surprising that Paul’s research flags up some shocking findings, including the appeal of porn’s “glamour” image to young girls.
“I found pre-teen girls who were putting pictures of porn stars on their personal web pages and providing links to porn websites,” she says. “I learnt about them through a porn actress who’d published a bestselling autobiography and was surprised when pre-teen girls showed up at signings. They said they saw her as a positive icon.”
Although women have yet to catch up with men (and the material they access is usually much softer core, such as Sweet Action, the independent “porn for women” magazine), Paul found that more women are using porn: 32m women visited at least one adult website in January 2004, according to her study. In a magazine poll 41% of women said they had intentionally viewed or downloaded erotic films or photographs. More than one in 10 had watched or sexually interacted with someone on a live webcam.
These findings support a recent British survey of 1,000 girls, aged 15-19, which found that 63% aspired to be glamour models, while 25% preferred the idea of lap dancing. For many, the erotic lifestyle and look is not seedy but has become aspirational.
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Over the years I've noticed this with the younger generation as well. Especially with the push of Straight guys willing to experiment on film and seeing doing porn as a sign of "coolness" with their friends. What's your take on this?
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Originally Posted by basschick
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