Women Are Female

Over 80% of English vocabulary comes from old French. However, when you look at the most commonly used words in English, you have to look well outside the top 100 before you find the first word that doesn't come from Old (pre Norman conquest) English.

This is because the most basic words, the ones we use most often and which describe the most fundamental concepts, tend to remain very stable over the long term.

You can see the evolution in the meanings of words such as "terrible", "awesome" and even "gay" in relatively recent history.

Generally, when the meaning of a word evolves, it is because we no longer have much use for the old meaning, or because the same word can have different meanings depending on the context, without causing confusion. (Take the word "sole", for example, which can mean a type of fish, the bottom of a shoe, or "only". Nobody is ordering sole in a restaurant and expecting to be served a shoe on a plate.)

None of this applies to the word "woman", which is about as basic as it gets. Both "woman" and "man" come from Old English and have been used consistently for over a millennium to mean, respectively, "adult female human" and "adult male human". These words haven't evolved because the original meanings are no longer relevant. We still need to be able to identify and distinguish between female people and male people as much as we ever did. Nor are they the type of words which can comfortably support different meanings.

If the word "woman" can mean either "female person" or "male person who identifies as the opposite sex", how are we supposed to understand which group of people we are discussing? And more to the point, "women" is a category word. In order for a category to exist, all the things or people in it need to have something in common. If what women have in common is being female, changing the definition to include male people makes it a meaningless word for a non-existent category of people with nothing in common.

So yes, "language evolves". But certain words do not, because our need for these words remains the same over time.

Until about 10 years ago everyone agreed that women are female people. Most people still do. And we definitely still need a word for female people that doesn't include male people.

If you redefine "women" to include male people then you no longer have a word that just means female people.

Thirteen Things Womanhood Is Not:

A sliding scale where some women are more or less womanly than others

A welcoming open door club that anyone can claim membership to

A special exclusive club full of wonderful privileges whose existing members decide who does and doesn’t belong

Wearing long hair, makeup, dresses or otherwise performing femininity

Being good at feelings and domestic tasks and bad at driving and math

Acting cute, seductive, giggly, sexy, coy, submissive or flirty

A soft, warm, sensitive, nurturing, emotional or moody personality

An interest in cute, pretty, soft, frilly or sparkly things

A certain mindset, outlook or way of thinking that’s naturally ingrained in all women’s brains

A magical mystical undefinable state of being or sense of “sisterhood”

A special feeling or instinct that comes from deep down in your soul that you “just know”

A costume for men to wear

An identity for men to claim

Two Things Womanhood Is:

A biological fact

The state of being an adult female human who was born into a female human body

Studies of men who buy sex (punters) show that they are significantly more likely than other men to rape and engage in all forms of violence against women. A US study found that punters were nearly eight times more likely to rape than other men.

We should not be surprised therefore that there was a marked increase in male violence against women and children after they introduced the full decriminalisation of the sex trade in New Zealand – even though it coincided with a general decrease in crime overall.

For a discussion of the data this assertion is based on, see Meme about rape in New Zealand since the full decriminalisation of the sex trade.

You try to reason with them by saying "I believe in premise Y and premise X, therefore I come to conclusion Z" and they respond with "actually that's not a valid conclusion because premises A, B, and C would contradict that" and no amount of explaining can get them to understand that those are their premises and I don't subscribe to them. They assume their beliefs are universal, I think because they have to. Because to admit that others are allowed to not believe would be to give themselves permission to not believe as well.

and even the informed consent paperwork lists atrophy as a side effect of testosterone. why would that be a painless experience? if your arm or your lungs started to “atrophy”, to become weaker and smaller, couldn’t they also start to hurt?

trans guys take testosterone for the systemic, permanent, whole-body effects, right?… and you don’t believe people when they say “this drug has systemic permanant effects, all throughout the body”?

Here and here are some reddit screenshots both from r/detrans and r/ftm.

Here is my master spreadsheet of reddit testimonials which is currently sitting at 89 entries (don't think I've been sleeping on it! And don't think I haven't started archiving the posts ;)))) they're there forever bb :)))) .

Sources:

Japanese Cartoon Porn Helped Me Understand My Trans Identity by Samantha Riedel

Masculinity, anime, and gender dysphoria by SocialJusticeWizard

The Year When My Husband Started to Act Like a Tsundere Teenage Girl to Get My Attention by Anonymous

Just How Damaging Is Hentai?: A response to "The Year When My Husband Started to Act Like a Tsundere Teenage Girl to Get My Attention." by Katharine Dee

When Sons Become Daughters, Part V: The Links Between Trans Identity, Gifted Minds, Categorical Thinking—And Anime by Angus Fox

Hentai and the Pornification of Childhood by Gail Dines and Mandy Sanchez

White Sexual Imperialism by Sunny Woan

Why Guys Like Asian Girls by Anna Akana

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o2jT9i_yJI46mRpHqawt2Ej7Zjs0xBMTszTNof_8SvM/edit?tab=t.0

The myth of a transgender Stonewall.

(Bay Area Reporter, 7 March 2002)

by Dale Carpenter 

The recent death of Sylvia Rivera, an activist drag queen who threw quarters at the police during the Stonewall riot, has prompted much guilt-laden commentary about how the gay civil rights movement has pushed aside "the people who started it all." The commentary is wrong as a matter of history and unsupported as a matter of policy. 

Here is the standard story: "On the night of June 28, 1969, the New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar that included a mix of drag queens and lesbians. Led by the drag queens, the patrons fought back, igniting the gay civil rights movement. Yet the new movement soon became overly image-conscious and pushed these brave heroes to the back of the bus. It's high time we repay our debt by fully including transgender issues in gay causes, including proposed legislation."

This fictionalized account of Stonewall and its aftermath has been repeated so many times by gay and transgender activists it now goes almost unquestioned. 

Typical ol the genre is a recent Village Voice column by Riki Wilchins, executive director of GenderPAC. Wilchins describes the Stonewall Inn in 1969 as a "sanctuary" for "gender queers," who were "unwelcome at the city's tonier gay bars." 

Wilchins asserts Rivera "helped [give] birth" to the gay movement at Stonewall. Similarly, in his book The Gay Metropolis, Charles Kaiser says Stonewall was "sparked by drag queens." Despite these contributions, transgender causes are now excluded from the movement because, as  Wilchins puts it, gay organizations are "determined to project an image of normalcy."

This is politics-by-guilt-trip, and it has been undeniably effective in redirecting many gay groups' priorities. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has even withdrawn its support of the only federal legislation that would prohibit anti-gay employment discrimination because the bill does not include "gender identity" within its protections. 

The standard tale is error piled on error. First, it exaggerates the undeniable importance of Stonewall as a catalytic event. As the careful work of numerous historians has demonstrated, there was an active gay civil rights effort under way long before Stonewall. Gay activists had organized the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles in 1950, and in other cities later; had supported openly gay candidates for public office; had fought the closing of gay bars; had founded a national magazine, the Advocate; had marched in front of the White House for equal rights; and had picketed businesses that discriminated against gays. 

Outside of New York, according to Stephen Murray in his book American Gay, gay activists initially paid little attention to Stonewall. Even in New York, a police raid on a bar called the Snake Pit later in the summer of 1969 generated more organizing than Stonewall did. The founding of the Gay Liberation Front followed the Snake Pit raid, not Stonewall. 

Only through the annual Pride parade commemorations that began to spread significant-ly in the mid-1970s did Stonewall take on the singular importance in gay history it now enjoys. At the time it happened, however, the event simply did not carry the incredible motivating force we now attach to it. 

Second, the centrality of transgenders to Stonewall is exaggerated. It is wrong to characterize the Stonewall Inn as having been a sanctuary fo genderqueers, as Wilchins and others do. Murray writes a "men familiar with the milieu then insist that the Stonewall clientele was middle-class white men and that very few drag queens or dykes or nonwhite were ever allowed admittance" 

But don't take Murray's word for it, consider what Sylvia Rivera herself told the historian Eric Marcus for his book, Making History. "The Stonewall wasn't a bar for drag queens. Everybody keeps saying it was. … If you were a drag queen, you could get into the Stonewall if they knew you. And only a certain number of drag queens were al-lowed into the Stonewall at that time." 

If Rivera is right, it seems likely the Stonewall patrons who rebelled that June night in 1969 included many (perhaps mostly) middle-class white males. A description of the riot as an uprising of drag queens may be more politically correct, but as history it seems partial. This criticism does not deny that drag queens participated in the riot. It only makes the point that their centrality to the event likely has been exaggerated, probably for ideological reasons. 

Finally, these historical disputes have no bearing — either way— on whether "gender identity" ought to be included in gay civil rights legislation. Even if Stonewall was the single casus belli of the gay struggle, and even if transgenders were the only people there kicking shins and uprooting parking meters, so what? 

If we learned the Stonewall police had busted up a meeting of gay white racists, instead of drag queens, we wouldn't say that should make us more attentive to the concerns of racists. These matters rise or fall on their own merits, not on the relative role groups played in distant and disputed events. 

And speaking of the merits, drafting legislation is an immensely complicated task that involves putting together a coalition of supporters. Gay civil rights legislation would be stalled or effectively killed in many places if transgenders were included. The ones between a more inclusive bill that goes nowhere and a less inclusive bill that actually becomes law. 

These are hard realities. We should not feel guilty because we want to make progress, least of all because someone is telling us fairy tales about our past. • 

Dale Carpenter is a law professor. He can be reached at [email protected].

==

Trans-revisionism and gender loonery has been going on longer than you think. Gay men and lesbians fought for their own rights.

I am an organ donor but I wonder if there is some way to legally ensure that upon my death my uterus does not go to a male. Frankly I don’t really want it to go to anyone for religious purposes but the idea of it going to a male literally makes me want to vomit.

Do you have any info on whether those procedures are being performed in the US or how to ensure only some organs are donated after death?

The best way to stop your organs from being misused after your death is to withdraw yourself as an organ donor and to have a very clear and explicit will that forbids your body from being used in such a way.

An MTFs body would not only have to accept an entirely unnatural foreign organ, which is already a low chance, but then bear a genetically incompatible baby. All the way to viability.

The actual success rate of MTF pregnancy is highly unlikely to ever rise above a terribly low percentage for all of these reasons.

I would also say that the female body is uniquely equipped to undergo the process of expanding and reorganizing other organs during pregnancy, through precise and naturally occurring varying levels of hormones which allow for ligaments to loosen etc, blood volume to significantly increase, breasts to develop towards lactation.. there is also a shifting center of gravity, a difference in shape of the peritoneal cavity, a difference in colon placement, and you cannot alter the male pelvis to allow for natural birth, plus males will never possess a natural muscular vagina but a manmade tube composed of scar tissue, which would disallow for natural delivery in all cases.

“The men struggle to distinguish porn scripts from real sexual assault situations. One observes, ”That feels like a sexual assault.” Another speculates that the situation before him is a #MeToo story. At the conclusion of the video, it is revealed that all of the scenarios were taken from pornography.”

Advertising companies wouldn’t spend make any money if advertising didn’t work. The human brain is like a sponge, constantly absorbing messages subconsciously. And an orgasm is a very powerful psychological conditioning tool. Porn use does in fact impact people.

Here, have some research:

Porn use:

There are over 420 million pages of pornographic material online worldwide. (IFR)

72 million searches for porn are logged monthly. (IFR)

25% of all daily search engine requests are for pornography (68 million searches daily) (IFR)

42.7% of internet users view porn (IFR)

100,000-plus websites are devoted to child pornography. There are over 116,000 daily requests for this material. (IFR)

20% of men admit to accessing pornography at work (IFR)

35% of those purchasing online porn make $75,000-plus annually. (IFR)

The United States is the top producer of pornographic web pages with 244,661,900, or 89 percent (IFR)

Worldwide revenue from mobile phone pornography is $1 billion-plus and growing (Bryan-Low, Cassel and Pringle, David. “Sex Cells: Wireless Operators Find That Racy Cellphone Video Drives Surge in Broadband Use.” The Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2005)

Ex-porn star testimonies:

Corina Taylor: ”When I arrived to the set I expected to do a vaginal girl boy scene. But during the scene with a male porn star, he forced himself anally into me and would not stop. I yelled at him to stop and screamed ‘No’ over and over but he would not stop. The pain became too much and I was in shock and my body went limp.”

Jenna Jameson: ”Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films – in which they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her name is Bitch.”

Alexa James: ”The first shoot I did was with a man who was probably 40 and he was as thick as a soda can. He held me down and shoved it in me with no lube tearing my vagina. When I started to tear up and cry he flipped me over and continued from behind be so they wouldn’t get me crying on film. He pulled my hair and choked me over and over again even when I told him it hurt and I could barely breathe.”

Linda Lovelace: ”My initiation into prostitution was a gang rape by five men, arranged by Mr. Traynor. It was the turning point in my life. He threatened to shoot me with the pistol if I didn’t go through with it. I had never experienced anal sex before and it ripped me apart. They treated me like an inflatable plastic doll, picking me up and moving me here and there. They spread my legs this way and that, shoving their things at me and into me, they were playing musical chairs with parts of my body. I have never been so frightened and disgraced and humiliated in my life. I felt like garbage. I engaged in sex acts for pornography against my will to avoid being killed.The lives of my family were threatened.”

Andi Anderson: ”After a year or so of that so-called “glamorous” life, I sadly discovered that drugs and drinking were a part of the lifestyle. I began to drink and party out of control! Cocaine, alcohol and ecstasy were my favorites. Before long, I turned into a person I did not want to be. After doing so many hardcore scenes I couldn’t do it anymore. I just remember being in horrible situations and experiencing extreme depression and being alone and sad.”

Alexa Milano: ”My first movie I was treated very rough by 3 guys. They pounded on me, gagged me with their penises, and tossed me around like I was a ball! I was sore, hurting and could barely walk. My insides burned and hurt so badly. I could barely pee and to try to have a bowel movement was out of the question. I was hurting so bad from the physical abuse from these 3 male porn stars.”

Jessie Jewels: ”People in the porn industry are numb to real life and are like zombies walking around. The abuse that goes on in this industry is completely ridiculous. The way these young ladies are treated is totally sick and brainwashing. I left due to the trauma I experienced even though I was there only a short time.”

Genevieve: ”I had bodily fluids all over my face that had to stay on my face for ten minutes. The abuse and degradation was rough. I sweated and was in deep pain. On top of the horrifying experience, my whole body ached, and I was irritable the whole day. The director didn’t really care how I felt; he only wanted to finish the video.”

Jersey Jaxin: ”Guys punching you in the face. You have semen from many guys all over your face, in your eyes. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never ending.”

Elizabeth Rollings: ”I didn’t want to feel the pain of penetration from an over average sized man, being told to freeze in a position until the camera man was happy with his shots was very painful. I had peoples body fluids forced on my face or anywhere else the producer pleased and I had to accept it or else no pay. Sometimes you would get to a gig and the producer would change what the scene was supposed to be to something more intense and again if you didn’t like it, too bad, you did it or no pay.”

Lucky Starr: ”I was worried about my first anal scene for quite a few days … then the big moment arrived. It REALLY hurt! I almost quit and said, “I can’t do this”. When it was all over, I was so happy and relieved I was able to do it…”

Ashlyn Brooke: ”I honestly felt that if I had to have another strange man in my face, his hands (God knows where they’ve been all over me) him calling me his baby and having to exude some sort of forged passion for the world to see, I probably would have exploded. And what would have been stuck to the walls would have probably been nothing, just pieces of skin, bone, the brain of a robot, and what would have been left of what would have existed once as a huge and warm heart.”

Roxy: ”After only 30 movies I caught two sexually transmitted diseases. Herpes, a non-curable disease and HPV, which led to cervical cancer where I had to have half of my cervix removed. Porn destroyed my life.”

Anita Cannibal: ”Yeah, there are a lot of cover-ups going on. There is a lot of tragedy. There are a lot of horrible things.”

Tamra Toryn: ”As for myself, I ended up paying the price from working in the porn industry. In 2006, not even 9 months in, I caught a moderate form of dysplasia of the cervix (which is a form of HPV, a sexually transmitted disease) and later that day, I also found out I was pregnant. I had only 1 choice which was to abort the baby during my first month. It was extremely painful emotionally and physically. When it was all over, I cried my eyes out.”

Jessi Summers: ”I also did a scene where I was put with male talent that was on my no list. I wanted to please them so I did it. He put his foot on my head and stepped on it while he was doing me from behind. I freaked out and started balling; they stopped filming and sent me home with reduced pay since they got some shot but not the whole sce

porn trends:

“teen” is the most commonly searched porn term

child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online.

how pornographers feel about women:

“I’d like to really show what I believe the men want to see: violence against women. I firmly believe that we [pornographers] serve a purpose by showing that. The most violent we can get is the cum shot in the face. Men get off behind that, because they get even with the women they can’t have. We try to inundate the world with orgasms in the face.” -  Bill Margold, porn industry veteran, quoted in Robert J. Stoller and I. S. Levine, Coming Attractions: The Making of an X-rated video; 1993.

“There’s nothing I love more than when a girl insists to me that she won’t take a cock in her ass, because — oh yes she will!” -Max Hardcore, interviewed in Hustler (June 1995).

“My whole reason for being in this Industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t much care for women and want to see the men in my Industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up. I strongly believe this… so we come on a woman’s face or somewhat brutalize her sexually: we’re getting even for their lost dreams. I believe this. I’ve heard audiences cheer me when I do something foul on screen. When I’ve strangled a person or sodomized a person, or brutalized a person, the audience is cheering my action, and then when I’ve fulfilled my warped desire, the audience applauds.” - Bill Margold, porn industry veteran and Free Speech Coalition board member.

“It might promote violence against women in the United States, but I say, ‘Good.’ I hate those bitches. They’re out of line and that’s one of the reasons I want to do this … I’m going through a divorce right now. … I hate American women.” - What pornographers really think of women (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 14 October 1999)

2010 study on popular porn films:

88% of scenes contained physical aggression, including spanking, gagging, and slapping.

Women were overwhelmingly the targets of aggressive acts, and men the perpetrators.

Following instances of aggression towards women, in 95% of cases the women expressed pleasure or neutrality.

cases of porn leading children to commit sexual assualt IN THE UK ALONE:

February 2014: A 13-year-old boy told a UK court that he raped his 8-year-old sister after viewing pornography at his friend’s house.  The teenager told police he “decided to try it out” on his sister because she was small and “couldn’t remember stuff,” reported the Lancashire Telegraph.

November 2013: A different 13-year old UK boy pleaded guilty to raping an eight-year old girlwhen he was 10. A pornography addiction since age 9 was said to have played a significant role in his crimes.

March 2013: Two boys aged 14 and 15 admitted to a British court that they were re-enacting scenes witnessed in violent online pornography when they beat, brutalized, then raped a 14-year-old girl they had tied to a chair.

March 2013: A UK report found that thousands of British children had committed sexual offenses. In all, 4,562 minors – some as young as five – committed 5,028 sexual offenses over a three year period from 2009-2012. Experts blamed “easy access to sexual material.”

January 2012: Children’s aid and sex abuse organizations in Australia largely blamed 414 cases of children sexually abusing other children on the explosion of pornography made accessible to children.

August 2012: A 13-year-old Canadian boy pleaded guilty to repeatedly raping a 4-year-old boy who lived in his foster home. The boy said the idea came from watching “gay porn” on his foster parents’ home computer.

April 2012: A child therapist reported a case of a 13-year-old boy who raped his 5-year-old sisterafter developing a “complex fantasy world” warped by “two years of constant porn use.”

racism in porn:

Latinos and Hispanics: Pornography tends to stereotype Hispanic women as feisty, “hot and spicy Latinas”, sexy Señoritas, with a high sex drive and low impulse control. Many are portrayed as maids, illegal immigrants to the United States, or unfaithful wives. Since Latinos and Hispanics can be of any race (many are white Hispanic Americans, Mestizos etc.), cultural characteristics are sometimes portrayed via iconic items like South and Central American national costumes, sombreros, maracas, or Mexican dresses.

Asian women: Are viewed as sexually willing or submissive. Asian men are hardly portrayed in pairing with white women and not as common compared to white men with asian women porn. Asian women are mainly portrayed as the: “Dragon Ladies”, as servile “Lotus Blossom Babies”, “Innocent School Girls” in private school uniforms, “China dolls”, “Geisha girls”, war brides, or prostitutes. Japanese media have also at times sensationalistically promoted the stereotype of Japanese women overseas as “yellow cabs”.

Black performers: Large penis size in Black men is consistently emphasized in pornography, often by exclusively casting actors with larger than average penises such as Lexington Steele, Kid Bengala, Jack Napier and Mandingo. Men are often treated to stereotypes of gang affiliation, working class labor, and are overrepresented in gang rape fetish films. Also, they are represented as overly aggressive and demanding, and are performing with white women. Similarly, black women are often portrayed with large breast and buttocks, or ‘booty’. They normally play a submissive role while performing with a white male.

Kid’s access to pornography:

Youth who look at violent x-rated material are six times more likely to report forcing someone to do something sexual online or in-person versus youth not exposed to x-rated material. [12]

Middle-school aged boys who view X-rated content are almost three times more likely to report oral sex and sexual intercourse than boys who do not use sexually explicit material[13]  

A study in the southeastern U.S. found that 53 percent of boys and 28 percent of girls (ages 12-15) reported use of sexually explicit media. The Internet was the most popular forum for viewing. [14]

The words “sex” and “porn” rank fourth and sixth among the top ten most popular search terms. [15]

Roughly two-thirds (67 percent) of young men and one-half (49 percent) of young women agree that viewing pornography is acceptable.[7]

Nearly 9 out of 10 (87 percent) young men and 1 out of 3 (31 percent) young women report using pornography.[8]

Experts have warned that the rise in the viewing of pornography was implicated in a variety of problems, including a rise in the levels of STDs and teenage pregnancies.  Additionally, males aged between 12 and 17 who regularly viewed pornography had sex at an earlier stage in life and were more likely to initiate oral sex, apparently imitating what they had seen. [9] [10]

Internet pornography was blamed for a 20 percent increase in sexual attacks by children over three years.[6]

One out of three youth who viewed pornography, viewed the pornography intentionally.[1]

Seven out of ten youth have accidentally come across pornography online.[2]

Nearly 80 percent of unwanted exposure to pornography is taking place in the home (79 percent occurs in the home; 9 percent occurs at school; 7 percent other/unknown; 5 percent at a friend’s home).[3]

Kids experience unwanted exposure to sexual material via:[4] A link came up as a result of an innocent word search (40 percent), Clicking on a link in another site (17 percent), A pop-up (14 percent), Other (13 percent), Misspelled web address (12 percent), Don’t know (4 percent), Pictures involving animals or other strange things (10 percent)

Type of material youth encounter when unwanted exposure to pornography occurs:[5] Naked people (86 percent), People having sex (37 percent), Violent pictures (13 percent)

Nearly 74 percent of pornography websites surveyed display adult content on their homepage (accessible to anyone) before asking if the viewers are of legal age. [11]

American children begin consuming hardcore pronography at an average age of 11

Four out of five 16 year-olds regularly access pornography online

Findings from the Youth Internet Safety Survey indicate that 15% of 12-17 year olds have purposefully looked at x-rated material online.

Data from the PEW Internet and American Life Project suggest that 70% of 15-17 year old internet users accidently view pornography “very” or “Somewhat” often.

Child Pornography

Child pornography is a $3-billion industry. (Top Ten Reviews)

Child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online, and the content is becoming much worse.  (Internet Watch Foundation)  Internet Watch Foundation confirmed 1536 child abuse domains in 2008.

The fastest growing demand in commercial websites for child abuse is for images depicting the worst type of abuse, including penetrative sexual activity involving children and adults and sadism or penetration by an animal.  58% of child sexual abuse images depict this level of abuse. (IWF, 2008)

69% of all victims in child abuse images are between the ages of 0 and 10 years old. (IWF, 2008)

In a study of arrested child pornography possessors, 40 percent had both sexually victimized children and were in possession of child pornography. Of those arrested between 2000 and 2001, 83 percent had images involving children between the ages 6 and 12; 39 percent had images of children between ages 3 and 5; and 19% had images of infants and toddlers under age 3 (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Child Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings fro the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study. 2005).

Your brain on porn:

further decline in dopamine levels

further decline in opioids and endorphins

drop-off in GABA, which is an anti-anxiety neurotransmitter

rise in brain stress hormones CRF and norepinephrine

elevated dynorphin which inhibits dopamine and lowers your pleasure response

one week after quitting the reward center sprouts new nerve cell branches, which correlate with cravings to use

More sources on addiction to porn

Common porn addiction withdrawal symptoms include:

Anxiety

Restlessness

Irritability

Insomnia

Fatigue

Headaches

Poor concentration

Depression

Social isolation

Loss of libido (Can take days to manifest, and last a long time)

Adult (>18 years old) exposure to pornographic media is connected with:

Believing a rape victim enjoyed rape

Believing women suffer less from rape

Believing women in general enjoy rape

Believing a rape victim experienced pleasure and “got what she wanted”

Believing women make false accusations of rape

Believing rapist deserve less jail time

More acceptance of the rape myth

More acceptance of violence against women

More likely to go to a prostitute and to go more frequently

Increasing their estimates of how often people engage in sex with violence

More self-reported likelihood of forcing a women sexually

More self-reported likelihood of rape

Creating more sexually violent fantasies to get aroused

Engaging in more sexual harassment behaviors

More likelihood of forcing a woman sexually

More likelihood of future rape

Using physical coercion to have sex

Using verbal coercion to have sex

Using drugs and alcohol to sexually coerce women

Having engaged in rape

Having engaged in date rape

Having engaged in marital rape

Being an adult sex offender

Being a child molester

Being an incest offender

Engaging in sexual abuse of a battered spouse

More willingness to have sex with 13-14 year olds

More sexual attraction to children

Having sexually abused children

Life and death of a porn star:

all the women who don’t make money from the porn industry.

the women who are kidnapped, tortured, and forced into snuff films.

the skeletons that NAFTA keeps hidden in cobweb-ridden closets on the U.S.-Mexican border.

their average career length is 3 months. [x] [x]

If you don’t feel like reading:

Shelley Lubben: Porn as a driver for prostitution and sex trafficking, (Vimeo)

Cindy Gallop: Make love, not porn (Adult content)

“They call it fantasy,“ - Andrea Dworkin

Ex-Pornstar Jan Villarubia tells her story

Dr. Gail Dines addressing porn culture and rape culture’s intersecting roles in patriarchy

“Two Ex-Porn Stars Uncover The Truth About Porn.”

This guy stopped watching porn — and he wants you to know why.

Facing Life Head-On: Satan’s Final Frontier—the Sex Industry

Dr. Gail Dine’s lectures on pornography on youtube (1, 2, 3, 4)

This video has footage the porn industry doesn’t want you to see. Women are abused, screaming, crying, raped and in pain on the porn set…No woman should have to go to work only to return home beaten and traumatized.”

On the show Date My Pornstar, porn fans get to interact and converse with their favorite pornstars about their experiences in the industry

The story of ex-pornstar ‘Sal’, (Pink Cross Foundation)

Porn actress Sierra Sinn Leaves Porn

On the Joni talk show, ex-porn actresses come forward to share their experiences on what drove them into the porn industry, how it impacted their lives and what drove them out.

Just links:

Here is a site that has testimonies from lots of porn stars. The site is run by an ex pornstar who has dedicated her life to helping the women in the industry.

Here is an article about Linda Lovelace, star of Deep Throat, basically the first pornography film, talking about how the film was her being raped, and the other atrocities she went through in the porn industry.

Here is a video of a talk show where three porn actresses speak out against the industry and tell their stories. I can assure you, these are not extreme cases. This is the average life of porn stars.

Here has great information on the porn industry, and if you scroll down to Porn and the Performer, you can read statistics about the porn industry and porn actresses and what they suffer through.

Here is some facts about porn from Shelley Lubbens website.

How porn harms the economy

How porn harms relationships

How porn harms gay men

How porn harms gay women

How porn harms POC

Stop Porn Culture’s FAQ

400+ dead porn stars obituaries

more databases on dead porn stars

More testimonies

100+ stories

anti porn documentaries

DianaRussell.com

Shelley Lubben.com (Ex porn-star helping other porn stars)

Shelley Lubben’s MySpace Website

List of Dead Porn Stars and How They Died

Where My Ladies At (About porn and it’s connection to hip hop and rap.)

Feminist Fred: A Place for Men to Learn about Feminism (Also home of Pornsick Pat)

Compulsion Solutions

Internet Pornography Statistics (InternetFilterReview.com)

Porn and Sex Industry Statistics (Enough is Enough.)

Pornography and Sex Trade Statistics (Most thorough and documented.)

PBS Documentary “Porn In America”. Full video and lots of information.

XXX Family Values: ABC Primetime Show about Porn Star Sunny Lane. (Sunny’s parents are her managers. Transcript and video clip at link.)

ABC Primetime Interview with Porn Star Belladonn (Tells the harsh truth about porn.)

Porn Profits: Corporate America’s Secret (ABC Primetime Show.)

Anti-Pornography and Prostitution Research Group (Japan)

Pornography: Creating Demand for International Sex Trafficking (By Shared Hope International)

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And also, have some testimonials from previous porn stars:

They have a few theories or strategies that are often in direct contradiction with each other, but they rotate between them every time they are being confronted about one, making it seem like the problem really is, every time, that you accuse them of beliefs they never even held in the first place (even if they literally JUST DID). And that of course you're not arguing in good faith.

Their first go-to strategy at the moment seems to be "gender not sex" and it's given as a response to criticism about transmedicalism and anything that even resembles that. If you say "I don't want children to transition", they say "they are not medically transitioning, it's their masc/femme gender identity that is affirmed". If you say "I don't think you can change your sex" they say "no one's sex is changed, it's just their gender that gets affirmed". If you say "I don't think sexed brains exist", they say "gender is obviously socially constructed, but we live in a society and we should be allowed to choose how we express ourselves within that construct". If you say "there are only two sexes", they say "we know that dumbass, it's GENDER that exists in a spectrum of feminine-masculine-other. Look at this trans woman right here, isn't it obvious that she identifies as a woman, in all that makeup/clothing, even if you knew she was a biological male?" This is all to say that they have never ever believed in transmedicalism despite all the evidence, and by implying that they do, you are creating a strawman that represents them unfairly.

But if you challenge them about those responses by asking them to define gender in a way that doesn't just reinforce harmful stereotypes, they suddenly jump forward to the second strategy which translates roughly to "woman is anyone who identifies as a woman". If you say "I don't think it's healthy to tell anyone to transition just because they don't fit into an arbitrary social role either", they say "they're not transitioning because of that, they just literally feel like the word "man/nonbinary/woman" fits them better". If you say "I don't think all cis people identify with femininity or masculinity the way you think they do", they say "oh but if they respond to she/he pronouns, then they identify as women/men by definition!" If you say "I don't think those trans women become women just because they are dressing femininely either", they say "not all trans women are feminine, some of them are butches!" If you say "okay but why would you claim the identity of womanhood if you do not mean to change your sex OR behave in a way that is associated with women then?" they say "well because they IDENTIFY as women, it's a subjective inner experience that they just have and can't help it!!!!" This is all to say that they have never ever believed in stereotypical depictions of women or men despite all the evidence, and by implying that they do, you are creating a strawman that represents them unfairly.

Then if you say "well, saying women are women because they say they are women is a circular definition that makes the least amount of sense", they move the goalposts once again, saying something along the lines of "why do you think you even CAN understand this topic in the first place, when you're not trans yourself?" This is just a silencing tactic, but it also holds the implication that gender is so complex that you couldn't possibly comprehend it, even though it concerns your identity as well. That in the end, your "cisness" directly prevents you from understanding the concept of gender incongruence and this is why trans people shouldn't even bother giving you a single explanation. That "you're not me, I am not you, why are we even trying to communicate?" Except that that's literally what they are desperately trying to do, what with the pronouns in bios and extremely public declarations of identities, shouted from the rooftops of public buildings. They very often also say that even small kids could understand gender, because those kids don't question them when they introduce themselves, so apparently, it's still quite simple.

And if you at that point decide that there's no evidence that any of these legislative or medical practices are necessary because these people are operating entirely on the subjective field of semantics, some activists go on to say "oh but you're so stupid to deny this has anything to do with material reality! Haven't you heard of intersex people? What about clownfish? Or brain studies that tell there's a difference between trans brains and cis brains? Don't you know that the biology class you took in elementary school was deeply outdated, flawed and incomplete? Have you looked at what's in people's pants? Have you karyotyped me? What do you even know about anatomy anyway?" Which... of course, if you follow that conversation to its logical conclusion, means that you're going to have to tell them that sex change among humans still isn't possible and that people with disorders of sexual development don't challenge sexual dimorphism, nor do they have any inherent connection to trans people. And that anyway, we don't use the brain studies of trans people as diagnostic tools to distinguish trans people from non-trans people, so that's a moot point.

They might even end up saying "oh, to hell with definitions, don't you see how HAPPY trans people are after transitioning? Who cares where that comes from, the rate of detransitioners is low and people who go out of their way to say they want those treatments almost always say they worked?"

Which, ok, sure, if you didn't also know that placebo effect is one hell of a drug, longitudinal studies about trans people and their feelings on transitioning don't exist, the true rate of detransitioners isn't clear to anyone because it isn't being studied almost at all and that it's pointless for a lot of people to detransition once they have made irreversible changes to their bodies, so even if they wanted to take it all back, they really can't. And of course, that some treatments shouldn't be offered regardless of the response of the patients, because it's just that much against the basic principle of medicine and healthcare, which is "do no harm".

Now if you say these things to them, they're most likely going to turn to "but gender dysphoria does exist and people are going to kill themselves if you don't let them do what they want so I think that's a much bigger medical priority!!!" This is an appeal to emotion much like the previous one... and very much a tool of the original transmedicalists who thought that dysphoria is a sign of a mismatch between your brain sex and your body that can't be corrected in any other way than medical transitioning. And so if you ask "how is it that the dysphoria alleviates simply by people using your preferred pronouns?" they will be forced to go right back to "gender not sex" and start again from there.

And on it goes, back and forth, them always saying they do not agree with beliefs other than the one they are currently defending. It's about the complexity of sex, until it isn't. It's about gender performance, until it isn't. It's about inner subjective gender feelings that don't translate to anything in the real world, until it isn't. It's about cis people not understanding the complexities of gender, until they find someone who apparently does. And if all else fails, it's "won't you think about the poor trans children who kill themselves" and "shut up you transphobic cunt!" Except when you accuse them of emotional manipulation and death threats, they say they wouldn't ever do anything like that. That you're strawmanning and lying and making them seem like bad people. Except when you deserve the death threats, of course. Then it's justified. But if they need to pretend they are on the right side of history, then, for the record, the death threats don't ever happen.