Stats, United States

How much pornography is produced each year?

Each year, a minimum of 14,000 new pornography films are produced in the USA and distributed via the internet, DVD, and pornographic theaters. This total does not include still photography or global statistics.

Hollywood, by comparison, produces and distributes around 600 films per year. In 2014, 1,363 non-scripted and 352 scripted series aired on television.

In terms of sheer scale, pornography is by far the most concentrated producer of media on earth. With its normalization and increasing accessibility, the number of pornography films made each is increasing.

sources

Japan, United States

Where is most pornography produced?

Upwards of 89% of all pornography (digital and physical) is produced in the United States, leading global production by a significant margin. Following the USA in quantity of pornography produced are the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands.

It is noteworthy that approximately 90% of all the pornography produced in the US happens in the hills just outside of Hollywood, California, in the San Fernando Valley (aka “Porn Valley” or “Silicone Valley” or “San Pornando Valley”). Hollywood is, of course, the film capital of the world. That the porn industry is situated here is by design: Hollywood regularly attracts young women (and men) from all over the world who are desperate to “make it” and “become a star.” The pornography industry understands that the vast majority of these women, however, will not “make it,” and misleads many of them via “modeling” gigs and “auditions” into performing sexually on camera. With an unending supply of these women, the San Fernando pornography industry has been able to create hundreds of porn videos a day, every day, for years.

Though the San Fernando Valley has been the hub of pornographic production since the 1970s, it is believed that the industry will eventually relocate to Eastern Europe. Legal pushes for mandated condom use (largely due to the efforts of the AIDS healthcare foundation) have forced the porn industry into a position on which they refuse to negotiate. A move to Eastern Europe (in which some locations have a history of being socially, politically, and economically anti-feminist) would assure the porn industry another unending supply of economically disadvantaged women.

sources

Child Abuse, Exposure, Image-Based Culture, Vocabulary

What is an “image-based culture” and what are its consequences?

An “image-based culture” is used to describe a society in which imagery has taken the place of spoken and / or written word as the major form of communication. With the proliferation of television, magazines, and online visual media, the world is exponentially becoming more image-based.

There is one major through line of our image-based culture: the sexualized and youthful female body. In billboards, magazines, movies, video games, and so on, women are depicted regularly as sexual objects. This is done by emphasizing their bodies, depicting them in sexually explicit visuals, framing them as sexually submissive to men, adorning them in revealing clothing (if anything at all), all as a means of catching the eye. When people grow desensitized to the imagery at hand, it cyclically forces producers to use increasingly shocking, or pornographic, visuals in their advertising. With each successive campaign, “edgier” imagery is used so as to stand out.

Though the sexualized female body is often used in the interest of selling a product, the imagery has become normalized to the degree that mainstream media now regularly depicts scenes as explicitly as softcore pornography did two decades ago. It is reasonable to assert that it is literally impossible for many people to go grocery shopping without exposing themselves to this imagery in some form.

The cumulative effect of sexualizing women on this massive a scale is propagandist: by regularly telling a story that depicts women as primed-for-sex, straight, and submissive, the collective understanding of that message is that women – including lesbians – desire submitting to men for sex. This ideology has cascaded outwardly into men and women alike, many of whom have internalized the notion that women exist for male pleasure. Not one image alone causes a pathology of men-as-dominant and women-as-sexually-submissive, but that is exactly how propaganda works: not by a single voice but by a collective one all saying the same thing. When 94% of the violence in pornography is perpetrated against women, the logical outcome is that the men masturbating to these scenes (and thus reinforcing associations between violence and orgasm via the limbic system) will very likely be thinking about violence the next time they are intimate.

Sexual imagery, presumably meant for adults, affects children as well: there is evidence that exposure increases bodily dissatisfaction, the risk of eating disorders, self-objectification, disruption of psychological development, increased likelihood of sexual abuse, and slowing cognitive development. There are documented cases of boys younger than ten forcing girls to perform oral sex on them, increasing rates by which teenagers are raping girls in groups, and the massive success of the “teen” porn sub-genre. Needless to say, the consequences of appealing to the sexual interest of adults in public spaces extends to everyone, including those who literally do not have the capacity to emotionally process sex.

As humans, we rely on storytelling to relate our experiences of living and collectively shape our understanding of the world. We are capable of reflection, of creativity, of remorse, of compassion, and so much more. That the landscape men have created, globally, does not in any way reflect one of our potential as humans is devastating. This is why it is imperative to stop looking at the sexualized images that litter our world. This is why it is imperative to start creating new ones.

sources

What do you want to know about pornography? Just ask.