Pornography in the Media

Here yall go ig

    The pornography industry is rapidly growing and has a huge impact on everyone's life in one way or another. I know this may seem like a bit of a stretch but if someone was to sit down and go over every single time a person is exposed to pornographic media in a day, it would shock everyone. This comes from the industry's expansive reach and influence it has had on the media, and not just the social kind. Pornography has been found in even the simplest things, such as books, for such a large number of years. The pornography industry has even managed to find its way into everyone's daily life, such as mine, even if it isn't specifically for porn. This industry has been covered very well by a documentary titled The Price of Pleasure (1) and I found it very informative and eye-opening to the extensive world of the pornography industry.    
I kept a journal of all the pornographic media I came into contact with over a span of three days. Within this period, I became more aware of how the pornography industry has managed to sneak its way into the daily lives of people without them even realizing it. If I hadn't been doing this assignment, I definitely would not have noticed it myself.
    At the beginning of my keeping of this journal I did not expect to see any pornographic material, and while I did not see much, I still saw enough. I came into contact with pornographic imagery three separate times over a span of three days and I was aware of it. The first piece of material I saw was a screen-side advertisement of an overly sexualized video game character. The second piece of material I saw was a fairly vulgar hashtag underneath an Instagram post of a swimsuit. The last was a reaction post to a very explicit and sexual TikTok that someone had stumbled across.
    When I came into contact with each of these pieces of media I thought about how the pornography industry was influencing them. As someone who, before watching The Price of Pleasure, was pretty supportive of the pornography industry, I never really thought about its influence before. Now I realize that it affects more than we realize. In seeing these pieces of material, I have seen how the pornography industry has come to make people over-sexualize everything to a point where people can't even talk without a phrase being taken as "dirty".
    I have also realized how deep the porn industry has dug itself into the mainstream media. In the past, we have been told that our ads are based on our search history. As a sixteen-year-old girl with nothing in her search history that should attract the kinds of ads it does, I no longer believe that statement. The porn industry doesn't care about what's in someone's search history. It cares about how it can expose itself to as many people as it possibly can.
    This doesn't have to come in the form of ads though. As stated before, I came into contact with someone who was reacting to a pretty explicit TikTok. This shows me that porn is no longer hidden in the mainstream media, it is incorporating itself into it. It is incorporating itself into an app for kids. This is extremely concerning to me. While people are free to do whatever they please and use their platform however they choose, TikTok is not the place.
    After coming to this conclusion, I no longer support the porn industry in the way I used to. At first, I commended the industry for doing what they wanted and not caring. But I have now realized that they genuinely do not care. They don't care to a point that they are hyper sexualizing little girls and women in swimsuits and not caring one bit. But, this doesn't change my view on individual pornography creators. Should they be using an app meant for children, like TikTok, to produce their content? No. Am I glad they have decided to stay out of the harmful reach of the expanse and growing pornography industry? Yes.
    Overall, I would say that my findings while completing my media journal have changed my opinion on the pornography industry and has made me aware of the way it affects the mainstream media.
    Alongside completing my media journal I watch the documentary The Price of Pleasure and have come to realize many things about the pornography industry.
The documentary, The Price of Pleasure, is a 57-minute look into the pornography industry and what goes into the productions that come out of it. It also takes a look into how it has become the large and ever-growing success it is today. The video features the stories of multiple girls that have been, or still are in the industry. It also goes over how they keep up with the changing times and all the different genres and trending genres over different eras. The documentary also showed photo and video evidence of the different genres available.
    The documentary also goes into depth about the ways that porn has affected people's relationships and average sex lives. I appreciate that it did so because I find it very important to cover the way these topics are affected and it seems as though not many people know about it. Something that I had a friend tell me once was also brought up in this portion of the documentary. She had told me that she doesn't believe that young teenagers, or people who haven't had sex, should be watching porn because it gives a false idea of what sex actually looks like. This was something covered in the film and I am glad they talk about it.
    They also covered the fact that porn is, in fact, just a fantasy. While some people can tend to forget this, the producers of the pornography industry are aware and they have been shown in videos of them joking about how people need to remember that porn is, once again, just a fantasy.
Overall, I believe that this documentary did a wonderful job of summarizing the different parts of the pornography industry and how it affects different people and lives.
    After watching and analyzing the documentary The Price of Pleasure I also have my own thoughts about it. I have realized that the pornography industry is much deeper than what I thought and is a lot more popular and successful than I would have originally believed.
Pornography has received a large amount of backlash ever since it has been gaining popularity, yet in recent years it has become more common for people to talk about and reference. With the removal of stigma from porn, also comes the people who are no longer afraid to speak out about it. In the documentary, The Price of Pleasure, one of the girls spoke about how she hadn't gone to college and she had no previous work experience, this is what led her to enter the porn industry. This gives me the idea that some girls only go into porn to feel like they have worth and they can amount to something. A perfect example of someone with this mindset is Sarah Chamoun or, more commonly known as, Mia Khalifa. Mia Khalifa has recently spoken out on her experience in the porn industry and has stated in an interview with Anthony Padilla, "I started to get positive male attention, which was validating for a very short period. And then I started to, kind of, chase that validation, because I felt like that was the only way for me to get positive attention from men because I was so overweight growing up." (2) Using that little extra bit at the end about Mia being overweight as a child, we can settle with the idea that it is common for girls to enter the industry in hopes that it will help them boost their confidence and self-esteem.
    The documentary also made me think about what the men in this industry think about when they are producing their videos. The way they speak about the women is almost degrading and they make it sound as though the women are only objects. Then I heard someone say it. I heard a man say that he saw women as objects and all they want is to be dominated by men. I also became fascinated with watching the behavior of the men at the AVN Expo. These men, and the occasional woman, were lined up just to watch a woman touch herself. Adult men were pushing each other out of the way just so they could get a photo or video of a woman touching herself. Now, I am absolutely not here to judge people for what they like, but I will judge their behavior. This behavior is unacceptable for someone of any age. Just because a woman is putting her body out there, it does not give someone permission to act like an animal. A woman, performing or not, deserves to always be treated with respect. As I stated previously, some of these men clearly do not respect women and they do not try to hide it.
    This documentary opened up my eyes to what a lot of people believe and I have to say that I am not surprised. Women have been treated as objects for years and the porn industry does not help it. This industry has a huge impact on women and can make them feel empowered while completely stripping them of all their self worth at the same time.
    While being quite expansive and ever-growing, the pornography industry is still very flawed, and not all it's cracked up to be. It affects everyone's lives and has made its way into the mainstream media by making people believe it is better than it is. It's incredibly large reach is already so far out that it can't be stopped and I am scared of what this will bring in the future. In conclusion, I have learned a large amount about the pornography industry over the time I have completed this project and I no longer see it as the free and empowering movement that I once did.

Works Cited
Khalifa, Mia. "I spent a day with Mia Khalifa." Interview conducted by Anthony Padilla. I spent a day with Mia Khalifa, directed by Anthony Padilla, screenplay by Elise Felber, produced by Alessandra Catanese, YouTube, 2020.

The Price of Pleasure. Produced by Chyng Sun, Michelle Change, and Miguel Picker, screenplay by Robert Wosnitzer, Media Education Foundation, 2008.