Customer Reviews

Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality

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Gail Dines' Pornland lives up to its billing as the culmination of the life's work of one of the most reputable scholars of the effects of pornography on society. In it, Dines lays out an indictment of the pornography industry where only the pornography industry itself could vote "acquit." She masterfully traces the history of pornography from the feud between Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler through the modern day mainstream "body punishing sex" and brutal violence of online pornography. Based on her several decades of research on pornography and its purveyors, she lays bare an industry that has violated women in every way imaginable and is now running out of ideas on how many ways to penetrate their orifices. Her book reveals to everyday pornography users and to people who haven't ever seen pornography just how much porn is effecting our society, how violent it has become, and how much we all need to work to rid our society of its effects. Pornland is a call to action to reclaim a critical part of ourselves -- our sexuality. Whether the reader understands the cause of pornography to be sin, patriarchy, oppression, whether the reader sees porn as an expression of healthy sexuality, an addiction, or a harmless pastime, all should read Dines' critical look at this omnipresent influence on our society.

I am fortunate enough to have had the chance read Gail Dines' book, Pornland. Dines' describes how the porn industry operates *today*, in the 21st Century. She does this first by describing the men who created the industry as now know it: Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccione, and Larry Flynt. These men were excellent capitalists, not lovers of freedom. Dines provides evidence from women who've worked for them, and uses the pornographer's own words as well, to prove her points.

She then describes the hard-core pornography that has become mainstream today. The popular film series Girls Gone Wild depicts all women as being sexually available, Dines asserts, because women, specifically young, white women, are ready to undress and make-out with one another just for the thrill of knowing men are watching...or so one would think from watching Girls Gone Wild.

Dines also addresses how both women and men are negatively influenced by the mainstream porn industry in their everyday life. Many heterosexual women are confused by why men are so interested in having anal sex; the increased focus on anal sex in pornography might have something to do with this. Likewise, the vast majority of teenage and twenty-something women in the U.S. have taken up shaving their pubic hair. This comes directly from porn, where women are typically shown hairless (liking pubic hair on a women is considered a fetish and there is a special genre of porn for it). This change in the way women take care of themselves has resulted in nurses changing the way they do rape-crises kits; they can no longer collect samples of public hair, as they once did.

Anyone living in today's society should pick up this book, as I really did not begin to touch on the arguments Dines makes. Everything she says comes from the view of a Marxist and leftist who is fed up with the left not taking the racist, misogynist, capitalist porn industry seriously, and indeed, coming up with every possible excuse of why not to do so.

Finally a current feminist work that delivers what is promised: an actual feminist analysis of pornography as an institution, industry, and ideology historically rooted in the currents of the global capitalist order. Dines obviates such empty claims as "anti-porn is anti-sex" by showing the opposite, that any pro-sex movement must first target the industry that so many feminists seem to have fallen for.

The work directly incorporates the voices of both men women in the industry, and even the directors (which pro-porn people might be surprised to learn are very afraid of where the industry is heading regarding violence and extremity).

I recommend this book for those who have been directly affected by pornography use (including users and victims), radical feminists (to strengthen their critique), liberal feminists (to get them turned around in the right direction), and anyone else concerned with the direction that pornography is heading.

If you think that this is porn is a fantasy, you need to read this book. An essential guide to the influence of the porn industry. The author Gail Dines with 20 years of lectures behind her in this subject has managed to writes incredible comprehensive expose of the way a multi billion industry is shaping culture and warping reality. What she said to her children is useful for any prospective parent or human being. Some of the stories of exploitation will leave you horrified.

This is a book every parent should read for their children. It was disturbing and powerful. Gives an view into a world unknown to me (Gonvo!) and one that impacts all of our sexuality.

Gail Dines provides a powerful cultural analysis of how pornography affects us all. Whether you are a parent or an educator, Pornland is a profound resource for all who care about how our children's sexuality is continuously compromised by the porn industry, which is solely dedicated to making money off of women's bodies. Reclaiming our sexuality means stopping the onslaught.

This is a succinctly but cogently argued book about how corporate pornography's effects are permeating our culture and our socially-constructed social norms. The most extreme and violent images are entering our culture and our culture's ideas of sexuality in ways that are having widespread impacts on this most intimate aspect of our humanity. This is NOT a simplistic anti-sex, anti-male, PORN=RAPE book, but a sophisticated critique of porn's evolution and impacts on society and individuals. She may be slightly exaggerating the market dominance of gonzo porn, but her basic thesis is still intact as the most degrading and defining elements of gonzo porn are now commonplace themes in other forms of widely used erotic materials. She very effectively sets forth how porn is a global corporate industry with a large, well-defined economic incentive for commodifying and market-segmenting the sexuality of the consumer, not just the performers who produce this material. Far from dismissing the idea of individual responsibility or agency, she puts forth a clear argument for how the cultural environment shapes the choices of individuals, has the potential to impact the quality of individual lives and relationships, and indeed delimits what choices are available to us, even in a realm in which so many have fought, and are still fighting, to be free of oppressive norms.

Dines faces up to what porn has actually become -- its content, how it is used, how it is made. Throughout, she is clear, forceful, uncompromising, and compassionate. Anyone interested in this issue, and especially anyone experiencing conflicts over porn use (their own or someone else's), should read this book.

Well I haven't finished the book, but it is definitely a good read. Be aware that the author does write from a feminist perspective so it's not an unbiased study of the porn industry, but still a very informative read. My eyes were definitely opened to the ways in which the industry has infiltrated pop culture and pornographized American culture over the past 50 or so years.

A great book for anyone interested in feminine theory or the anti-porn movement.. or ANYONE! It is very informative, and Dines makes some very good points.

A highly recommended book.