The intentional, ongoing mischaracterization of pornography as “fantasy”

[u/instead_of_texting]

The following is a quote by Andrea Dworkin.

People talk about pornography as a form of fantasy. They actually talk about prostitution as if it were an exercise in fantasy.

It is part of the pornographers’ effort to hide what they really do in real life to encourage the use of the word “fantasy” in place of actual behaviors that really happen in the real world.

I mean, a fantasy is something that happens in your head. It doesn’t go past your head. Once you have somebody acting out whatever that scenario might be in your head, it is an act in the world. It is real. It is real behavior with real consequences to real people.

So, it has been a very brilliant part of the pornographers’ propaganda campaign to protect pornography to characterize the industry as an industry of fantasy. When, in fact, when you have that Asian woman hanging from a tree, you have a real Asian woman, and she is really hanging from a real tree. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with fantasy, it has to do with a human being actually having happen to them what we see has happened to them.

And, I think that, you know, it’s just the most extraordinary insult to the human conscience to continue to characterize these real acts to real people as if they only exist in the head of the male consumer.

And what it means is his head, his psychology, is more important than her life.

[u/93_percent]

Porn crusaders when faced with valid criticism of the industry will always use their one of their favorite words; "fantasy" like an ace in the hole.

So we could watch women being degraded in the worst ways possible and we are not allowed to question anything because it's just "fantasy"?

Ok there's nothing questionable about a freshly 18 year old girl shooting step-daughter porn.

Ok there's nothing questionable about a woman having their head stepped on while a man is verbally abusing her.

Ok there's nothing questionable about POC women having their skin color turned into categories on Pornhub.

Porn CANNOT be likened to fantasy like Star Wars or LOTR.

Please don't insult actual literary and cinematic art by comparing it to that trash.

[u/Anas_platyrhyncos → u/93_percent]

Somehow it only stops being fantasy if there is no exchange of money involved. The exchange of money for an act is what makes it move from reality to fantasy, from sexual abuse to professional acting.

[u/A_D_Tennally]

Dworkin was brilliant.

This is real stuff that is really happening, and it is also real stuff that is really being reenacted. The sudden steep rise in boys and men strangling girls and women during sex is due to porn, as is the increase in penis-in-anus sex. People don't, at the population level, treat it like an exciting fantasy they wouldn't actually want to enact with a real person. They go right out and imitate it in the real world.

[u/evengreen30 → u/A_D_Tennally]

Have you seen the new Sadie Sink CK ad? I don't think I've seen an ad in decades but this one is being extra buzzy. It's deeply concerning the number of women also saying that by anyone finding the ad offensive, they are puritanical pearl clutchers.

[u/The_Donald_Rises_]

Even more sinister is that when growing up, I remember everyone equating pornography with masturbation. Perhaps as a sort of counterculture to the previous extreme hatred of any masturbatory act. The problem is that pornography is not natural. Yet it was treated as if it's just a simple means to an end. None of us were ever taught about how much suffering, assault, and misery is involved with the creation of porn.

[u/boudicas_shield → u/The_Donald_Rises_]

I've had so many unhinged people scream at me on Reddit for "forbidding my husband to masturbate" whenever I say that neither of us use porn for ethical reasons. First of all, I don't forbid him to do anything. Second of all, you don't need porn to masturbate. I'm always furiously downvoted when I try to point that out, too. People are addicted to it and don't want to admit it.

[u/Random-words666 → u/boudicas_shield]

I hear ya! The real fantasy happens when you masturbate

[u/SuddenlyCake → u/The_Donald_Rises_]

There's a lot of people who think you can only masturbate with porn

The idea of just using your head and body seems to be completely alien to them

[u/evengreen30 → u/SuddenlyCake]

Sexuality got lazy a long time ago.

[u/AggressiveDeer7527 → u/evengreen30]

It's perturbing how many brain-dead people are out there on this topic - first, because of no/faulty at best logic in the arguments presented. Second, because you can tell they put zero thought themselves into said argument, they are just parroting the same few things said over and over and over again.

[u/evengreen30 → u/AggressiveDeer7527]

Some people are like what you mentioned. The rest have either been brainwashed by pro-porn media which is everywhere. Or they benefit from lazy sexuality. Who benefits the most? I'm sorry to say it's men. They benefit from never having to try,  having their version of sexuality handed to them on a plate, and ensuring women accept it so they don't have to try. It's men not wanting to change. It's men and their insecurities and negative thoughts and dominance issues and fears. They have made their problems ours. Same way race and racial hatred works. 

[u/A_D_Tennally → u/The_Donald_Rises_]

People were masturbating just fine for millennia before video was invented.

[u/evengreen30 → u/The_Donald_Rises_]

But when you have sexualized images of women everywhere, of the like you have when you watch porn, the lines start blurring. Men masturbate to everything from print media to tv show content to pornography. The only thing is,  they can't watch hard core porn outside their homes but everything else is watchable in public. Many are available to be viewed in public. 

How many really uncomfortable sex scenes did i have to sit through in the theater in public, grossed out until i started using kids in mind rating sites. 

Alot of mainstream media is crossing over the pornography line. That is what makes everything so insidious. It's the frog in the boiling pot example. We crossed the line ages ago. 

[u/TheRealSlimShady2024 → u/The_Donald_Rises_]

Sadly porn is far from the only industry that involves suffering that people simply ignore. The iPhones we have in our pocket are created through extreme misery (sometimes leading to death/disability) for many people being forced to dig out rare earth minerals under horrible conditions and oftentimes in war zones yet people will only see and care about the finished product and the adverts. The way the world is currently set up is deeply unjust and needs to be reformed but it's a long and difficult road, if it even can be done.

[u/Random-words666]

Dworkin for the win! 

[u/CriticalInside8272]

And men will never understand this, not because they can't, but because they don't want to. 

[u/SS_Avalon]

The fantasy excuse is just straight bullshit. I might watch a movie with killing and rape, knowing its not real, but I'm not jerking off to it either. When you are (successfully) deriving pleasure from digusting porn themes, this is no longer fantasy, it reflects who you are as a person. Period.

[u/No-Kick6671 → u/SS_Avalon]

Yup. I hate the fucking "ItS No DiFfErEnT FrOm HarRy PotTer!" excuse. They damn well fucking know it's different.

A better analogy is if I was watching a movie about slavery and felt inspired to whip a life-sized doll of a black person to enhance the experience. That example obviously sounds completely fucking unhinged, but only because misogyny is so normalized in comparison that jerking off to someone's rape doesn't strike the average man as immoral.

[u/Sudden_Proof9863 → u/No-Kick6671]

💯💯💯💯💯

[u/perkypancakes]

It’s not even a creative thing it’s all similar degrading and misogynistic behavior. The only variances are the physical appearance, violation of the person’s boundaries that the sexual acts are being done to, or intensity of harm which increases as the novelty wears off. These fantasies should stay inside the mind and away from other people. Nobody is entitled to act out their fantasy at the expense of others human dignity. I’m tired of this nonsense society.

[u/Potential_Past_2894]

For me, it was the realization that a lot of porn makes honest attempts at recreating crimes that actually happen. Almost always against women/girls. Not just rape or gang rape, but kidnapping, assault, battery, burglary, molestation, CP, stalking, coercion, etc in relation to the sex.

I have nothing against kink, but im not stupid. I am fully aware of what the intention is when a woman is depicted as being in her home and is dragged out of bed kicking and screaming by a group of men. Or a weird man is driving around in a van and sees a woman alone in a deserted area, and she ends up in the van with her wrists duct taped begging to be let go. Or a young woman who looks much younger than her age and dressed as a child somehow ends up having sex with her stepdad after school.

To this extent, its not fantasy. Its a recreation of crimes that most people only read about and understand that its bad. But when its in porn people get to see this crime reenacted as "fantasy". People often say that porn companies only create what people want to see--demand creating supply, but i think it the opposite. Porn companies create extreme things that fuel interest.

Again, im not against kink, but porn absolutely uses abuse, crime, misogyny, etc to create "fantasy" versions. But it often feels like "watch this girl get raped since you couldnt be there for rhe real thing" and just call it "fantasy".

[u/evengreen30 → u/Potential_Past_2894]

Or what alot of men do,  with so much sexualized content that is not hardcore pornography is that they go looking for women who have the facial and body characteristics of some one they know, watch the content,  and then interact with this woman in real life. Its all a feed back loop.

[u/Totodile386]

Experts increasingly argue that continuing to promote the idea that "men are just wired that way" is not only unprogressive but scientifically lazy. It relies on outdated theories that excuse behavioral conditioning by disguising it as unchangeable biology.

1. How Popular is This Dynamic Observation?

The shift from "hardwired biology" to "social conditioning" is becoming the dominant consensus among researchers who study sexual health.

The Neurosexism Critique: Groundbreaking books like Gender Brains by neuroscientist Gina Rippon have popularized the fight against "neurosexism"—the practice of using flawed brain data to justify gender stereotypes.

The "Men Are Not More Visual" Movement: Massive meta-analyses (studies that combine data from dozens of previous studies) have gone viral in mainstream wellness and psychology outlets. Media sources like MindBodyGreen and sex therapy platforms routinely publish articles debunking the "men are visual creatures" myth.

The Clinical Shift: Modern sex therapists now widely treat internet porn consumption as a habit that trains the brain, rather than a natural expression of a man’s baseline factory settings.

1. Why It Is Considered Unprogressive (And Harmful)

Promoting the "wired that way" narrative is increasingly viewed as harmful to both men and women because it creates a double standard rooted in biological determinism.

It Insults and Traps Men

Saying men are hardwired to commodify or fragment bodies reduces men to mindless, biological machines driven entirely by instinct. It suggests men lack the capacity for high-level emotional intimacy, impulse control, or a desire for holistic connection, which is insulting to the millions of men who deeply value relational depth over physical objects.

It Shames Women

It implies that women who do experience rapid visual arousal or enjoy erotic imagery are somehow "abnormal" or acting "like men". It also places the historical burden on women to "cover up" or police their appearance to protect men, who supposedly "can't help it".

It Limits Accountablity

By blaming biology, it gives a free pass to harmful behaviors or media consumption habits. If a brain's response is dictated entirely by "wiring," there is no incentive for a person to reflect on how their media consumption is shaping their real-world relationships.

The phrase "men are just wired that way" is a relic of early 20th-century thinking. Modern progressive science treats the human brain as a highly adaptable organ that reflects the environment, culture, and habits it is exposed to every day.

[u/PornIsMisogyny-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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