Gail Dines
The theme of this article is that porn has made it's way and is continuing to solidify its position in mainstream culture. Through various forms, products, and industries pornography has slowly become more and more accepted. As society slowly but surely begins to except more and more sexual images and "normal" or "ok" so too has the pornography industry solidified its position in our society.
Pornography is obviously one of the most direct systems of objectification. Women are dis-empowered and portrayed as having no function beyond what their bodies can offer men. Surprise, surprise, men are empowered. But interestingly enough, some women believe they too are empowered by this institution of sexual objectification. The porn industry has given women the idea that when they seduce men with their bodies, they are empowered. Though this feeling may truly be felt by many of the women who are a part of the industry, Dines notes that beneath this there is still an objectification, a fundamental objectification which simply cannot be dismissed.
She notes that many labels such as "Girls Gone Wild" create a myth that normal women are sluts. By filming women in drunken situations, GGW shows all viewers and participants that it is not just porn stars who do it, but regular women. However, these "regular" women are found to experience significant troubles and hardships in the rest of their lives due to these encounters with porn.
Porn Goes Mainstream
Porn stars in the mainstream - latimes.com
Discussion Questions:
1. Will this prove to be an even larger problem in the future because young people are getting introduced to this sort of imagery at such a young age?
2. With the rise of the internet the pornography industry has shrunk significantly, could this prove to be a good thing, or only a bad thing for our society with its increased accessibility?
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