At TED2009, audience member Cindy Gallop gave a 4-minute presentation that became one of the event’s most talked about. Speaking from her personal experience, she argued that hardcore pornography had distorted the way a generation of young men think about sex. She talked about how she was fighting back with the launch of a website – http://makelovenotporn.com – to correct the myths being propagated.
Popular culture bombards us with hyper-sexualized images of idealized women and men, conveying powerful messages that help shape sexuality. Dr. Gail Dines explores how masculinity and femininity are shaped by pornified images that spill over into our most private worlds.
Gary Wilson is host of www.yourbrainonporn.com. The site arose in response to a growing demand for solid scientific information by heavy Internet erotica users experiencing perplexing, unexpected effects: escalation to more extreme material, concentration difficulties, sexual performance problems, radical changes in sexual tastes, social anxiety, irritability, inability to stop, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms.
Ran Gavrieli lives in Tel Aviv and studies gender at Tel Aviv University. He works with youth and adults all over the country in sex and gender studies and how we can build positive self-images in a world inundated by sexual imagery with negative connotations.
Ran writes and lectures about emotional and physical safe sex; porn and porn influenced cultural damages; gender and power relations; and sex and intimacy.
Erika Lust is an independent erotic filmmaker and author based in Barcelona and runs XConfessions, an ethical, feminist production company that produces erotica by women, for women. She graduated from Lund University in 1999 with a degree in Political Sciences and founded Erika Lust Films in 2005. A staunch feminist dissatisfied with the portrayal of women in the mainstream adult industry, Erika is committed to infusing intimacy, modernity and beauty into her explicit films.
Many believe in the widespread fairytale that all women you see in porn movies enjoy doing it, right? In reality, there are few happy endings for women in porn but many, many tragic ones. A closer look at Bree Olson ‘s heartbreaking story will explain a few of the reasons why.
Ann Cahill, Elon University, discusses her article “Recognition, Desire, and Unjust Sex” and explains why the current emphasis on ‘consent’ does not even begin to cover what she refers to as an epidemic of ‘unjust sex.’ Published in Hypatia 29(2).
Public Health Crisis of Pornography – connections to violence, trafficking, child exploitation, addiction, broken families from Center On Sexual Exploitation on Vimeo.
From the team behind The Invisible War, comes a startling exposé of rape crimes on U.S. campuses, institutional cover-ups and the brutal social toll on victims and their families. Weaving together verité footage and first-person testimonies, the film follows survivors as they pursue their education while fighting for justice — despite harsh retaliation, harassment and pushback at every level. You can stream the full movie here.
InRealLife is a documentary about British teenagers and their relationship to technology directed by British filmmaker Beeban Kidron.
The boy addicted to porn; the girl who endured sexual assault to get her BlackBerry back… In Beeban Kidron’s sobering documentary British teenagers open up about how they use and feel about their smartphones and the internet
Pleasure Unplugged 