Why Are So Many Women Searching for Ultra-Violent Porn? | Hacker News Reader

Why Are So Many Women Searching for Ultra-Violent Porn?

vice.com

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> However, says Dr Dines, one thing's for sure: "If these women [who watch violent porn] have been abused, [they] are actually digging the trauma further into the firing and wiring of [their] neurones, driving it further into their limbic systems, and porn delivers a massive hit to the limbic system because you're watching someone going through the same trauma you did."

I'm not a Dr of any kind, but I think this is only true if they are associating the things that are happening in the porn with something negative when watching it. The whole theory behind EMDR [1], as far as I understand it, is that you can re-associate negative memories with more neutral (or positive) feelings. That might in fact be what some of them are doing: re-associating a negative memory with something positive, which might have a therapeutic effect.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_a...

> Dr Gail Dines, professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College, Boston, and a prominent anti-porn campaigner.

> Until we [...] have actual empirical evidence

So she claims shes a scholar, and shes calling for empirical evidence. This piqued my interest, she's probably worked on some papers in this area - why doesn't she have empirical evidence? Is there a good reason it is hard to come by?

I looked to her website [1] and then through google scholar, and turned up nothing. She's written a ton of books in which shes expressed her opinions but I can't find her producing any work that isn't reading and spinning others' research - if she has then promoting the fact is far from the top of her agenda.

As it is I'm disappointed. There's an interesting effect at work yet neither of the experts Vice have had comment on the issue have experience with it and have just spouted off their media lines.

[1] http://gaildines.com/

Well, I found this:

http://www.laurakkerr.com/2015/09/16/sexual-fantasies-of-rap...

Professor Chivers theorizes the prevalence of rape plays a role in the divide between subjective and physiologic arousal in women. Women who experience physiologic arousal when sexually threatened, and thus produce genital lubrication, are less likely to be physically injured by aggressive penetration. She theorizes that arousal during sexual violence likely evolved “to reduce discomfort, and the possibility of injury, during vaginal penetration. . . . Ancestral women who did not show an automatic vaginal response to sexual cues may have been more likely to experience injuries during unwanted vaginal penetration that resulted in illness, infertility or even death, and thus would be less likely to have passed on this trait to their offspring.”

I personally feel a separation of what someone's fantasies are is completely separate from what they would enjoy in real life. An example might be violent videogames - sometimes going on a murder spree is fun, but that's completely sickening to me in real life. Similar with pornography. I would think the majority of cases here would be a similar situation.

A side note, I first read the title as "Ultraviolet" porn and was incredibly confused.

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