It's Just a Guy Thing

How Pornography Preys On It’s User




Some, regard pornography as a harmless male pastime.  A simple act of leisure. Research is uncovering the not so innocent side to the cute and fluffy Playboy bunny. Pornography is more than attractive women in lingerie and animal ears. The proverbial "Bunny" is not a passive little pretty picture intended to help a man have a "happy ending" to his "hard" day. Pornography has become mainstream and accepted by many as a common male pastime. The women or “characters” in pornography are usually depicted in subordinate roles, such as slaves or animals. They are dressed in costumes inspired by patriarchal marauders and often portray abuse, mutilation and humiliation. Playboy mischievously referrers to it’s women as “bunnies” suggesting they are a form of prey. Fluffy, innocent, subordinate, disposable and bountifully copious.  This imagery supports the notion of the innocence of pornography.
  Pornography is not a fuzzy harmless pastime. Disguised as an blameless personification of male fantasy, pornography is a predator, stalking it's victims and pillaging it’s user of the most precious treasure in life:  the ability to fully bond with loved ones and be fulfilled by happy personal, familial and intimate relationships, because it creates addictions which become fiends, threatening to tear apart relationships, families and lives.
"It's just a guy thing. A common leisure activity. It doesn't hurt anyone. It's just a picture of a pretty girl. It doesn't change the way I feel about my wife..."  These are among many of the phrases employed by people attempting to defend their personal usage of "pornographic products, including magazines, videos, books, live shows and internet distributions” (Shaw 197). Most pornographic products are created for the male consumer because pornography does not represent the woman or her needs as a whole. It may be "just a guy thing" but it "touches the lives of countless people throughout the world" regardless of gender(Shaw 197). 
Most women are familiar with material with sexual content and have been involuntarily exposed to it by a man.  In a survey done by  The Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo it was found that only nine out of thirty two women had used pornographic material. Fifty one percent of men view pornographic material on the internet once a month. This supports the idea that pornography is “just a guy thing.”
   Women’s contact with this material was usually uninitiated. “When women did look at or watch such pictures or movies, it was generally at the initiation of male friends, family members or partners, and not because of their own desire or choosing” (Shaw 209). Most women instinctively feel the need to physically and emotionally flee from pornography, while men are drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
Pornography is “a common leisure activity for men,” this is an excuse often employed by those attempting to justify it‘s usage. However, “pornography focuses on women’s bodies and depicts women in various sexual acts for the exclusive pleasure of men, pornography can be seen as the quintessential leisure activity in which women are used as he objects of men’s leisure” (Shaw 209).  Most of what is portrayed in pornography is purely fictional.  These are characters; they are not real women.  Average women don’t look like that or act like that.  Often after viewing pornography men begin to fantasize about the real women in their lives behaving in the way they have seen pornographic characters behave. Often attempting to reenact the behaviors they have seen in their own relationships.  This involves persuading, coercing, intimidating and even forcing their partners into sex acts. This simple form of leisure swiftly becomes a “propaganda tool that controls women and perpetuates gender based inequalities" (Shaw 198), by systematically saturating its users mind with inaccurate information about women and sexual relationships.
"It doesn't hurt anyone" claim pornography supporters.  It is a private and covert act.  It is between the man and his centerfold. However exposure to pornography and especially "exposure to violent pornography does increase, or is a least associated with, callousness towards women as well as increased propensity to violence" (Shaw 198).  Pornography often portrays women as subsidiary objects, linking male power and male aggression to the objectification of women in pornography" (Shaw 198). We innately mimic the things which we are repeatedly exposed to. 
Spending time in certain areas of the world one will probably unknowingly pick up certain, phrases, mannerisms and even an accent. Pornography affects the way men view and treat women in the same way, planting seeds of aggression and nurturing "sexual subordination, victimization and degradation of women" (Shaw 199).  One a can not consume pornography without it eventually affecting one’s character. Pornography feeds, like a parasite, on the values and principles of it’s audience.  It slowly morphs them until they assimilate their behavior into a shadow puppet of the ethics they are immersed in.
"It's just a picture of a pretty girl."  These pretty pictures are destructive to men by presenting them with an "unrealistic expectation of how women look" (Shaw 206). As well as "encourag[ing] men to put women into categories according to their appearances.  Such categorization is seen to be associated with the inferiorization of women, or with looking down on some or all women" (Shaw, 206)  We have all heard a men give women numerical values.  “She is totally a ten!”  Or, “I would give her a five point two.”  “Her face isn’t pretty maybe a three but her body is hot so I’d give her a seven, overall.”  Women are being unfairly judged against suped up produced images. Women are graded on their curves.
Sandra, married, a forty year old nursing instructor says "Most of us don't look like that, and if you figure men are comparing you to that type of body, then you probably don't feel as good about yourself as you should" (Shaw 206).
Women's self esteems are negatively affected by their partner’s use of pornography. Pornography becomes an unfair standard to which average women are judged.  Women feel unfair pressure to meet the beauty standard created by men.  The attempt to meet these standards make women victims to the parasites of the fashion and beauty world who scavenge on women’s decaying self image as they desperately try to compete with the male induced standard.
"It doesn't change the way I feel about my wife." Actually, it does change the way you feel about your wife. Oxytocin is a hormone produced in the brain. Oxytocin is released during sexual activity it’s a bonding hormone acting as an "emotional super glue between partners" (Human, 11).  Men produce an additional hormone called Vasopressin.  "Vasopressin helps a man bond to his partner and instills a protective instinct toward his partner and children" (Human, 11).  When a man uses pornography his brain still produces oxytocin but instead of bonding in a loving relationship the oxytocin forms a bond, in his brain, to the pornography. Eventually this breaks and reroutes the bonds previously made to the man and his wife and children. Pornography can change the users feelings for partners and children by altering the chemical paths in the brain, just like a drug.
Pornography is not "just a guy thing."  "Pornography portrays women as sex objects, mentioning terms such as ‘disposable‘, ‘creatures’ of a lesser value, slaves abused and battered" (Cowan 102). Pornography is demeaning to women because is does not portray the woman's total being.  Women are "presented as sexual objects who enjoy pain and humiliation"(Cowan 102). They are "cut up, mutilated or physically hurt or depersonalized as animals or things" (Cowan 102).   
Leisure time is an individual choice but those who choose pornography as leisure need to realize that pornography is not a victimless choice.  Pornography has an interconnected web of influence. It negatively  effects the lives of  everyone involved. It's not "just a guy thing."  Pornography is a dangerous predator, it's prey is the user and those in his life.  Pornography users become lured and trapped by it.  Pornography lures, hypnotizes, then the user.  Pornography is the predator and its user, the helpless, unstinted prey. Like a rabbit in the headlights, mesmerized and paralyzed by that that which will destroy it.