I have argued with various people about porn here.

Many made the same sort of arguments that Gail has dealt with - mentioned in her article.

One of the main issues I am interested in is how porn has become educational material for some people. How much better it would be to have 'healthy relationship' porn. I remember being attacked for such notions. Like we shouldn't expect women to be happy with their sexual lives.

I wonder if there is any change in the sentiments around here.

the Gaile Dines article.

Especially with regard to your comment about porn becoming "educational material". Young men and women today can get there fill and more of "sex" as soon as they learn to use a search engine. I put "sex" in quotes here because what they are learning isn't sex as my generation knows it, but rather the sensationalized version that predominates the genre on the internet. We have not adjusted as a society to dealing with this problem; most authority figures do nothing to teach these kids that what they are seeing online is a far cry from reality. Instead, they engage in what is for now a futile attempt to prevent them from accessing it. This results in children "learning" everything they think they know about sex from the worst possible source for such an education, doing so far too soon, and spending years without any alternative voices to tell them that what they see on the internet is 90% bullshit.

It needs to change. Either we have to find EFFECTIVE methods of shielding children (at least pre-teens) from the worst of it or we need to start a LOT earlier in explaining how things really are, or at least how they should be. We already have a generation of young adults who tend to emulate the sexual experiences they see online because it is all they know.

...Fillipines...but, somehow, it's an issue of free speech when it's done by the sex industry?"

...because there are unskilled day laborers in the construction industry who work in unsafe conditions for low pay with no protection who also are being abused; so the fact that there are also well paid people who enjoy working in construction shouldn't matter either.

Hedges has done a lot of work on this. It's worth it to look him up.

Even in countries where making porn gets the death penalty, (and worse!) people still make porn.

Why?

$$$.

There always has been a market for porn, and there always will be.

Besides, who gets to decide what is porn, and what is not?

Youtube censors obvious porn, but has lots of "nudist" videos.

Anti-porn crusaders would even ban the Bible. Oh yeah, they would.

To vote us out of existence.

And I would stand in solidarity with them.

It's a real issue. People will discuss it. You don't like the topic. Trash the thread. I think it's a worthwhile topic.

I think most people have sex that is not violent at all.

People are not getting a reasonable understanding about sex from the violent stuff.

It's not a question that all sexual violence will be stopped. It's is reasonable to expect reasonableness, and to try to improve the narrative and expectations of people.