Wow, these people seem to be gearing up for a major battle in the lifestyle wars. NoPornNorthampton presents a solid, well-referenced website peppered with shocked reactions from womynists as they prepare to battle Capital Video, who NPN makes no apologies for linking to the mob on its website. On the sex-positive side, they make some good points about the sad state of porn today. Why, indeed, is ATM (Ass-to-mouth) so popular? But to state that porn is educating men, well, I think that’s taking things a bit too far. Porn has always been the outlet for things you generally CAN’T (or don’t even WANT to) do with your wife or girlfriend. It’s an imagination thing. You watch the extreme scenes, you jerk off, you wipe up and move on. You don’t take these lessons out into the field. Sure, there might be a very small subculture of infection-happy freaks out there who practice amateur ATM, and slap each other around for fun, but I’m pretty sure they have issues, and making the mean, nasty, mobbed-up porn store take the curtains off the viewing booths isn’t going to change anything in your little world.
Capital Video’s ties to the mafia are longstanding and documented in court records and elsewhere:
http://nopornnorthampton.org/2007/01/30/providence-journal-archives-kenneth-guarinos-mob-ties-criminal-past-global-empire.aspx
http://nopornnorthampton.org/2006/06/30/capital-video-owner-kenneth-guarino-associated-with-natale-richichi-a-capo-in-the-gambino-family-of-la-cosa-nostra.aspx
http://nopornnorthampton.org/2006/10/31/boston-globe-profiled-kenneth-francis-guarino-in-1983.aspx
We disagree with the claim that porn is a harmless diversion that doesn’t affect many people’s behavior. Numerous studies have measured how porn makes many men callous about women and rape. People who work at shelters for battered women state the porn is part of domestic abuse in a significant percentage of cases. Certainly Hustler treats domestic abuse as something to be made fun of.
Then there’s the sexual abuse of children, estimated to affect 10% of boys and 25% of girls in America, clearly an enormous problem. Adult and child porn are a cause of this abuse, just as smoking is a cause of lung cancer.
These links are just a small fraction of the 400 articles at NoPornNorthampton.org. We encourage people to read these articles before they conclude porn is harmless.
Hustler was put out from day one to provoke and offend. Using Hustler as an example of how porn treats women is a cheap shot. I know you can do better.
I disagree that porn is a cause for abuse, of children OR women. Abusers might also use porn, that does not prove cause logically. I will stipulate that porn can contribute to the tendency to objectify women.
I would really like to see the studies showing cause. Please use smaller links next time, longer links don’t play nice with this theme. I’m really glad you took the time to reply.
Sorry about the long links.
Hustler is not unusual. Here are similar examples from other porn publications.
To explore the links between porn and abuse, a good place to start is with this research paper by Diana Russell and Natalie Purcell, “Exposure to Pornography as a Cause of Child Sexual Victimization”.
This content analysis of 50 top selling porn films also makes clear how the mainstream porn industry generally portrays women. Aggression, almost always directed at a women, is present in about 90% of the scenes.
You may wish to check out the most recent article as it directly relates. Kittery, ME - Capital Video/Amazing.net allowed to operate booths.