Leszek Sulich Sulich itibaren Shendi, Maharashtra, India itibaren Shendi, Maharashtra, India

A world of no.

I read this book on an airplane and during the four hour flight, there was a little TV on the seat in front of me that played ads the entire time. You couldn't turn it off, so I was just forced to glance at car commercials the entire time. The situation was frighteningly relevant since this book is about the slow creep of hypersexuality into our media and it actually did scare me a little bit to think about how we can barely control the images we're exposed to on a minute-by-minute basis just living an average life in America. That's sort of the point of the book--constant exposure to pornified women and porn itself shapes the way we think about gender and sex in our daily lives, whether we like to admit it or not. I could have done without the in-depth descriptions of gonzo child porn, (but then again, how would I have known such a terrible thing exists in this world?) but the parts that fascinated me most were when Dines talks about how porn works in concert with other sexist imagery in magazines, television and movies to promote a cohesive sexist narrative that we all have to live inside of. Pornland is a good beginner's book for delving into porn/porn culture because Dines spends so much time just basically describing porn and its vile aspects, including the hidden business side. I could not disagree more strongly with people who accuse Gail Dines of being anti-sex. I think that it's part of the broad liberal identity to be pro-porn these days. What Millenial woman has not been taught to think, "Oh, that's cool that every man I've ever befriended or dated masturbates to porn daily. That's completely normal?" But the point that Dines makes is that to be be pro-amazing, individualized and creative sex is to be anti-porn, and I think she does a great job at that. I'm left curious about the idea/reality of sexual freedom and its relation to women's empowerment in a broader context now, which I would have loved to hear Dines address further.