Myth 3: Pornography is only about sex.

Pornography sells ideology together with sexual content. The non-sexual ideas packaged into pornography are dominantly misogyny and racism. By mixing sexual entertainment with women-hating and/or racist ideas, the producers of pornography makes it easy for the consumer to absorb these negative influences. There is nothing wrong with enjoying one's sexuality as long as one does not do so at the expense of others. Porn consumers are being conditioned to respond sexually to violent, racist or sexist situations. This can be likened to coating poison with candy.

...this theme of men taking pleasure in female vulnerability and pain appeared routinely. An example of this was in the New York video magazine Vol. 5 of Rick Savage ...In the scene she put on a blindfold ...Mary Ann appeared to be scared through all this, especially when the man she was supposed to have sex with (but whom she could not see) entered the room... During rear-entry vaginal intercourse with the man, who was physically large and heavy, Mary made sounds that indicated she was in pain, but the man did not stop... Part of the erotic charge of this scene was Mary Ann's fear and helplessness, her lack of control in a situation in which she could not even see the man...

In the 2 videos marked as Asian (3 men and a Geisha, and Girls of the Bamboo Palace), depictions conformed to the stereotype of the compliant Asian woman who lives to serve men sexually. Asian men did not appear in the videos ... the reporter eventually .. concluding it was natural for Asian women to perform sexual services... In addition to this stereotype, the Anglo men perform racist imitations, with accents, mispronunciations and a shuffling walk meant to depict Asian mannerisms and speech.

[Dines , Jensen, Russo 1998, p83-84]

Myth 4: Pornography treats men and women equally.

Although there is women-made porn, it is by far the minority in the market share. Pornographic images made represent the power of men and women unequally. Try counting images rodents or hairdryers shoved down men's orifices and compare it against the tally of films with live eels and bottles getting put into women. How many films involve men copulating with dogs and horses vs those involving women in the same acts?

Myth 5: There is pornography made by women/for women, by gay/for gays, so it should be OK for het men to have pornography made by het men/for het men.

Analogy: Some black people are prejudiced towards whites, or some black people are biased against other blacks. Does that make it OK for white people to be racist towards blacks?

Myth 6: Pornography does not hurt sex industry workers.

Deep Throat, told the story of her exploitation years after her escape from the porn industry. In her autobiography Ordeal, she described how her pimp/husband scripted her interviews with journalists to portray her as a willing porn queen. The truth is, she had been beaten, raped and tortured on a regular basis, so much so that she sustained permanant injuries. Peter Bogdanovich's biography, The Killing of the Unicorn (1984), documented Playboy's exploitation of women.

Myth 7: Pornography has no effect on women outside the sex industry.

The Minneapolis City Council held a series of hearings on how pornography contributed to sexual violence. One woman described her husband's use of pornography:

he would read me stories where women learned to like it... a lot of them depicting bondage and different sexual acts which I found very humiliating... things were getting really terrible and I was feeling suicidal and very worthless as a person, at that time any dreams that I had of a career in medicine were just totally washed away. I could not think of myself anymore as a human being...

A Native American woman testified she was raped by two white men claming to be influenced by a pornographic video game in which a white Army officer scores points by raping Indian women:

... It might surprise you to hear stories that connect pornography and white men raping women of color. It doesn't surprise me. I think pornography, racism and rape are perfect partners. They all rely on hate. They all reduce a living person to an object. A society that sells books, movies, and video games like Custer's Last Stand on its street corners gives white men permission to do what they did to me...

Myth 8: Porn is a marginal industry with little effect on mainstream society.

Most major hotel chains offer porn. All major cable networks carry porn. Most major bookstores sell porn. The porn industry makes more money than non-pornographic print and video publications put together. Pornographers are well-funded, well-connected and well-protected by the high and mighty.

Myth 9: The women in pornography are there by choice. There is no wrong in buying from willing suppliers.

There are women who chose to work in porn. Even so, we must still ask why there are not as many men as there are women making the choice to act in pornography? This reflects the power differential in society. For those women who are happy in their situation, there are many others who are not. Gail Dines speaks eloquently of these ironies in Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality

Academics ... speak about women in pornography as 'choosing' to fuck men, dogs, bottles, and hairdryers in a way that suggests some form of equality of choice... The women who have told me their stories did not make a choice to be in pornography. Being raped as a child and sold to the highest bidder does not constitute a life of choices. Running away from a sexually abusive home and being 'saved' by a pimp who turns you into one of his 'girls' is sexual slavery, not choice.

Myth 10: Porn is just a fantasy and does not affect one's daily life/actions/beliefs.

Men who think so are just kidding themselves. Women have been gang-raped by male 'friends' after watching pornography. Emergency-room doctors reported an increase in rape-related choking deaths following the success of Deep Throat. Lest we dismiss these as the isolated acts of a few perverse criminals, numerous women attest to being pressured to act out their male partners' favorite porn fantasies.

Myth 11: Pornography helps you have a healthier, happier sex life.

Jensen and Dines wrote in Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality:

A man who watched these porn videos to determine what women want sexually would have been disappointed -- everything a man did in the videos sparked an orgasmic response in the always insatiable women.

Jensen shares from his personal experience:

For me, pornography constricted, not expanded, my sexual imagination...helped keep me focused on sexual activity that was rooted in male dominance, and hindered me from moving beyond the ordinary misogyny of the culture

Myth 12: Anti-pornography feminists are anti-sex prudes.

Anti-porn feminists are not anti-sex. They are anti-oppression. The erotic nature of some entertainment is not the issue. The issue is how racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination are being eroticized for consumption.