• What's wrong with pornography?
• Why are you speaking out against pornography?
• How do you define pornography and erotica and are you against both?
• Are you in favor of censorship or banning of pornography?
• If you aren't trying to ban or censor pornography, what are you trying to accomplish with anti-pornography activism?
• But if someone chooses to do porn it's their choice and therefore it's fine and it's nobody's business.
• Who are you to judge pornography, prostitution, or the choices of people who use them, participate in them, or support them?
• If you don't like pornography then just don't watch it. You don't have to speak out against it.
• You shouldn't be forcing your opinions on others. That's fascism!
• You are "in bed" with "the Right!" (Or "The Left", or whoever.)
• Why do you have those annotations on your YouTube videos? Can't we just watch the videos without them?
• You're biased. To be fair you should present both sides of the argument.
• Are you in favor of pornographers being legally prosecuted for making pornography?
• Why are you doing this work?

1. Pornography degrades and dehumanizes women and girls. ("Sperm Receptacles 4,"  "Junkyard Cumholes")

2. Pornography glamorizes rape and abuse. ("Forced Entry Club 1," "Smothered and Covered 7.")

3. Pornography harms relationships and marriages by glamorizing infidelity. ("Cheating Housewives 6," "Latin Adultery 6.")

4. Pornography lies about women, depicting them all as being sexually insatiable. ("Addicted to C*ck," "Gang Bang Junkies.")

5. Pornography creates insecurities in men by falsely implying that a huge penis is necessary for the sexual satisfaction of women. ("Teens Like It Big 2," "Bare Huge Dicks 7")

6. Pornography glamorizes sexual slavery. ("Bound for Brutality," "Indentured Sex Slaves")

7. Pornography encourages child sexualization. ("Bring 'Um Young 28," Barely Legal 90")

8. Pornography tolerates racism that is not acceptable in other media. ("My Daughter's F*cking Blackzilla 17" "Racial Violations 2.")

All pornography video titles taken from March 2009 AVN.com top sales and rentals charts.

NOTE: Much more than the above is wrong with pornography. Please see other FAQs.

-- Because pornography degrades women, sex, and all humanity, including boys and men. It frequently glorifies and promotes sadism, masochism, rape, incest, pedophilia, misogyny, (woman hating), and violence against women and girls.  It harms relationships, marriages, children and families. It also creates demand for prostitution and international sex trafficking. Furthermore, it is a highly unregulated and abusive industry that frequently exploits vulnerable survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Allowing all of these harms to go unchecked by remaining silent is not an acceptable option.

-- Please see definitions link on sidebar for definitions of pornography and erotica. Please note that AntiPornography.org is against the harms of pornography per the definition provided, but not against erotica, per the definition provided. Thank you.

-- No. Censoring or banning pornography would not address the underlying cause of the problem, which is the demand for pornography that is mostly created by men and boys.  If there were no demand there would be no use of pornography, no supply, and therefore the damage that occurs in society as a result of pornography, whether to users or others, or to those involved in the industry itself, would not exist.

A) EDUCATION TO REDUCE DEMAND AND SUPPLY:

The goal of AntiPornography.org (and all of our related projects and social networking sites, such as our AntiPornographyOrg YouTube channel), is to reduce the demand for pornography and ultimately the supply of it through education of the general public about pornography, and most specifically consumers of pornography and participants.

B) FAIR AND REASONABLE REGULATION:

All proposed policy changes outlined in the 2007 peer-reviewed medical journal article “The Adult Film Industry: Time to Regulate?” are supported. If these changes are enacted, the harm done both in the industry  to the participants, and to society in general by pornography itself, will be significantly reduced.

Potential Policy Changes:

– National legislation that includes regulation of internet-based adult films

– Mandatory condom use with condom seal of approval

– Film rating system based on set safety criteria>

– Licensure of performers

– STD testing paid for by the industry

– Vaccinations against human papillomavirus and hepatitis B and post-exposure prophylaxis paid for by the industry

– Education and training of all workers and employees

– Legal age of performers raised from 18 to 21 years old

– Drug testing of performers To learn why such policy changes are necessary, please review the article "The Adult Film Industry: Time to Regulate?"

Note: Many people in the adult industry itself support some, most, or all of these changes, such as Jenna Jameson, Bill Margold of the Protect Adult Welfare Foundation, and Sharon Mitchell of The Adult Industry Medical Foundation.

C) INTERNET REGULATION AS PROPOSED BY CP80.ORG:

The proposed plan would divide the Internet into channels, and when a person signs up for Internet service, they could choose to not receive the porn channels if they didn't want them.  Those who wish to receive pornographic content would be allowed to do so, thereby not restricting anyone's right to create pornography or consume it, but only allow those who don't wish to have themselves, their families, or their children be exposed to it to have that choice. Full info at their website: CP80.org

-- Just because someone makes a choice that doesn’t mean it’s a healthy or good choice for them or for society in general. People frequently choose to use dangerous drugs or to inflict violence on others. That doesn’t mean those choices are positive or ethical ones. If one cares about humanity it is important to speak up in order to encourage people to make healthier choices that will improve their lives & the overall condition of our society.

--  We all have a responsibility as members of society to either be part of the problem or part of the solution, and to make educated & fair judgments about what is right or wrong, and then to act on those judgments. Judgments about what is right or wrong, or good or harmful for society, make up our laws & judicial system. Without such judgments & the enforcement of them, no one would have any secure rights or freedoms, & society would be in a state of chaos.

-- Remaining silent in the face of extreme sexism, abuse and dehumanization would be irresponsible and is complicity, and that’s not an option for anyone with a conscience. Would you suggest the same in the face of other harms? Would you tell someone if they don’t like racism or violence to just look the other way?

— Nobody is being “forced” to read or watch anything, and it’s not “fascist” to provide educational information so that individuals can make informed choices about their consumption of pornography or their participation in the sex industry.

Choosing to be mature enough to focus on fighting against the most active and worst oppressors of women and children in our society who are the pornographers, pimps, traffickers, and rapists, etc., rather then wasting time engaging in petty infighting with others who are also fighting against those oppressors, (because they don't happen to do their anti-pornography and/or anti-sexual exploitation activism with exactly the same approach that we do), does not mean that we or anyone else is "in bed with" "the Right" or anyone else. It just means that we care enough about the cause to put our time and energy on what is most important, rather than get distracted from our crucial goals by instead counter-productively fighting against others who are also working to combat sexual exploitation and abuse. Making such accusations of activists that they are "in bed with" others who may have different social and political views in regards to issues other than the harms of pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking, etc., is an age-old tactic of pro-pornography and pro-sex trade people who wish to divert our time and attention away from productive activism and towards unproductive infighting.  We are wise enough to recognize this very tired and transparent tactic and do not fall for it. Instead we choose to behave as civil, polite, and mature adults towards others who are doing their best from their own perspective to fight against pornography and related social ills, even if we do not agree on every other position that those individuals may hold on every other social and political issue.  

— Posting the videos without the annotations on them would be a copyright violation and would result in their removal. (That is what happened to someone else who posted them previously in their original form.) Permission was granted by the copyright owners to keep those videos on YouTube in their Fair Use-like form WITH the pauses and the annotations that provide commentary, criticism, and response. So they must remain.

— Being biased against an exploitative and sexist industry is something to be proud of, and there is no need to present the other side. If a person was fighting against racism, would you accuse them of being “biased”, and insist that they present the views of racists as well so that they aren’t being so “one-sided”? Of course not. However, it’s easy to find out the views of people who are in favor of pornography and prostitution, etc., as the Internet is saturated with pornography and web sites that vigorously promote, defend, and support all aspects of the multi-billion-dollar global sex industry.

AntiPornography.org believes that pornographers should be held legally accountable and should be prosecuted under the following circumstances:

1) When they use someone under the age of 18 in one of their productions, even if the minor willingly chooses to participate.

2) When they use someone over the age of 18 in a pornographic production who is temporarily or permanently unable to give conscious full consent. (I.e. because of a mental or emotional impairment due to intoxication or drug use, because of a mental impairment due to an intellectual disability, because of an inability to understand the language of the contract or production, etc.)

3) When they use an animal in any sexual way in one of their productions, or harm an animal in any way in one of their productions.

4) When they knowingly make their pornography accessible to minors, or in any way knowingly share, show, provide, or distribute pornography to minors, or in any way fail to take required legal action to prevent access to their pornography by minors when it is legally their responsibility to do so.

5) When they threaten, extort, blackmail, coerce or force anyone in any way to participate in any pornographic production for which they are responsible, or use a trafficked or enslaved individual in one of their productions.

6) When they violate in any way the terms of the contract that the performer signed before participating in a production. 

7) When the contract that they had the performer agree to and sign is illegal in any way.

8) When they force or coerce anyone who has agreed to participate in a pornographic production of theirs to do any specific action or actions:

     a) that the performer did not previously agree to

     b) that the performer says at any time before or during the production that they do not want to do

9) When they violate any OSHA workplace health and safety regulation during a pornographic production, including not using condoms or other proper barrier protection to prevent the transfer of blood-borne pathogens. (NOTE: Barrier  protection to prevent the transfer of blood-borne pathogens is required by law in the United States for ALL workplaces, including the pornography industry. See http://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/adultfilmindustry.html)

10) When any person participating in any pornography production is physically harmed as a result of that participation in a way that they did not agree to, and the injured party wishes to press charges. (This would not include harm such as scratches and bruises incurred as a result of voluntary and prearranged sex acts, for instance sadomasochistic sex, but rather harm done as a result of an unconsensual assault, etc., such as physical harm resulting from the director telling one performer to do something to another performer even though doing that action would clearly harm the other performer. I.e. telling a male performer to penetrate a female performer more vigorously, deeper or with a bigger object, etc. even though the female performer is clearly in pain and at her limit already, and pushing past that point would likely result in physical harm to the performer, such as tearing her anal or vaginal tissue, etc.)

---

OTHER PROSECUTIONS OF PORNOGRAPHERS: Please note that AntiPornography.org does not participate in or support campaigns to enforce prosecution of pornographers with Obscenity law.  There are a variety of very valid and well thought-out reasons for our position on this issue and when time allows we will elaborate further. However for now we will just say that after much research and after much experience with anti-pornography activism of many different types and under many different conditions over a number of years, we have no reason to believe that enforcement of Obscenity law meaningfully decreases demand for pornography, the supply of it, the use of it, or the harm done by pornography to women, children, and society in general. Obscenity prosecutions usually consume an enormous amount of time, energy and human and financial resources, (as do the campaigns that are often required to bring about the prosecutions), and we feel that all of these valuable resources would result in more meaningful and concrete results for the cause if they were invested in educational efforts, which have been proven to significantly reduce the demand for, support of, and use of pornography by consumers, as well as the willingness to participate in pornography by potential and current performers. And since the creation and supply of pornography by pornographers only exists at all because of the demand for it by consumers, and the willingness to participate in it by performers, we feel that other than prosecution of pornographers when appropriate for the stated points above, that efforts to combat the harms of pornography are best invested in education of current and potential consumers of pornography and/or participants in it. 

NOTE: We understand and respect that those who campaign in favor of Obscenity prosecutions and those who carry them out are usually acting with the best of intentions, and we also believe that anti-pornography activists who take a strong stand against Obscenity law and/or Obscenity prosecutions usually have the best of intentions as well. We do not oppose or take issue with any individuals, groups, or organizations who take either of those positions, (as a result of their taking that position), and we hope that those who take a different position on this issue than we do can respect our right to engage in our activism as our own conscience and experience dictate, while we respect their right to do the same in return. We also hope that all activists will choose to maturely focus on what we do agree on when interacting with each other, so that peace and harmony will prevail in the anti-pornography movement, which is in the best interests of the cause and everyone involved.

— Because…

a) It’s the right thing to do.

b) Silence is complicity, and that’s not an option for anyone with a conscience.

c) “The only thing that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” — Attributed to Edmund Burke.

d) “You must be the change that you wish to see in the world.” — Gandhi.

Lastly… it was once stated bluntly at the porn site ‘gag factor (dot) com’, that “Porn destroys women. That’s why we love it.” They are quite correct, pornography does destroy women — both those in the industry and those outside of it. It also destroys girls, boys, and all men globally, and thus all humanity. It is a multi-billion-dollar industry in which girls and women are commonly referred to as “bitches”, “sluts”, and “whores”, and that sells products that promote the degradation of women as well as cruelty and abuse. (Examples include video titles such as: “Cum Face F**k Dolls”, “Use ‘Em, Abuse ‘Em, and Lose ‘Em 19″, and “Human Toilet Bowls 3.” Note: All titles taken from Oct. 2008 AVN.com charts of best selling, most rented, or most downloaded porn titles.)

So…we can all either just sit back and let pornographers continue to wreak havoc on the human race by allowing them to continue to spread misogyny, destroy human compassion and empathy, harm innocent children, devastate relationships, marriages and families, and to fuel international sex trafficking & sexual slavery, (and let them continue to “love” doing so), or we can choose to do something about it. This website and all of our social networking projects represent the choice to be part of the solution rather than remain silent and thus be part of the problem.

“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”
– Margaret Mead

Note: If your question is not answered above, please review the rest of the information at this website. Many other FAQs will be answered by doing so, including what’s wrong with gay and lesbian pornography, why sadomasochism is harmful, etc. Please do not send e-mails asking questions without first doing this. Thank you! 

Please also note that this FAQ is a work in progress and will be added to and revised as necessary and as time allows.