Stora Porrboken comes highly recommended. This new anthology explores the harmful effects of pornography and its increasing accessibility in modern society. Drawing on the expertise of researchers and professionals across multiple fields, the book offers a comprehensive and multifaceted perspective on a pressing issue. The contributors collectively highlight a sobering reality: commercial pornography operates with minimal oversight, resulting in significant societal harm, particularly for children and young people. Robert Schenck has read it.
Editor Nina Rung expresses hope that readers will gain “more knowledge and understanding of the consequences of pornography,” and her wish has certainly been fulfilled in my case. The anthology comprises sixteen succinct contributions, each approximately ten pages long, by police officers, lawyers, researchers, midwives, therapists, and others working with youth. Together, these essays offer a clear and thorough examination of today’s pornography world and provide a wealth of knowledge on the topic.
Pornography is now more accessible than ever. The supply is vast, often free, and just a click away on any device. Due to insufficient sex education in schools – according to students themselves – and adults’ discomfort in discussing sex and intimacy with young people, commercial pornography becomes the primary source of information and role modeling for children and teenagers, resulting in dire consequences. In mainstream pornography, male satisfaction takes center stage, women are depicted as always compliant, and acts like choking and “ass-to-mouth” are normalized.
The consequences for young people watching pornography are emphasized in the book, and rightly so. Researcher Meghan Donevan informs us that “24 percent of boys in their third year of high school consume pornography daily.” Psychologist, psychotherapist, and sexologist Linn Heed highlights the isolating effects of pornography addiction: “Porn addiction creates an isolated world, where the inner motivation and the ability to go out and live life for real gradually diminishes and, in the worst case, completely disappears. Young people are increasingly developing a sort of emotional and relational phobia, where real sex and authentic relationships become something frightening and difficult to achieve.”
Several authors also highlight that the way out of this world for the traumatized young women who have filmed pornography involves an additional dimension compared to women seeking a way out of prostitution. Beyond the abuse they have endured, those who have filmed pornography must live knowing their abuse has been documented and likely will remain online indefinitely. How long will men continue to view their assault videos for sexual pleasure?
Meghan Donevan continues: “Pornography is nothing but virtual prostitution. It is sexualized acts for payment, but it is all documented and takes place in front of a camera.”
Pornography is also strongly linked to male violence against women and sex purchasing. Researcher Max Waltman emphasizes that “The causality between, on the one hand, increased pornography consumption, and on the other, increased sexual aggression, attitudes that promote violence against women, and sex buying, appears unequivocal in light of complementary research methods, all pointing in the same direction…”
Maria Ahlin, chairperson of Changing Attitudes, “an organization aimed at eliminating attitudes that lead to sex buying,” writes in her extraordinary chapter that “Pornography consumption increases the risk of buying sex. Given how hard we in Sweden have worked to establish our sex purchase legislation, which has also been adopted by several other countries, we must pause and reflect on how we view the fact that the pornography industry, which can almost be considered the world’s largest influencer, contradicts everything that sex purchase legislation stands for.”
Stora Porrboken is not just factual reading. On the contrary, I was deeply moved. The personal narratives and shocking insights into the pornography industry make a profound impact.
Stora porrboken – Nina Rung (ed.) Rebel Books, Stockholm 2021
Buy it here.
Further tips:
Issue 9-2021 of Läraren, the magazine, provides a series of articles on sex education in schools.
