8 ms·

Is porn good for us?

45 points by dirtbox 17y ago

mvandemar 17y ago
The only issue I contend with personally on porn is the number of women who create it in order to support a drug habit, thus removing a portion of the voluntariness from it. I know that factor does not apply to all women creating porn, not by a long shot, but by knowing the stories of women in the exotic dancing industry, where many porn actresses are recruited from, it's hard to ignore the reality once you become aware of it. Also, like any fantasy based pasttime porn has it's own addiction dangers that would not necessarily be considered 'healthy'. Although this of course would not apply to people who are not prone to fantasy addiction in the first place, there is a reason that internet porn is a multi-billion dollar industry. >Note: Just to clarify, I don't have any issues with the act of making, staring in, or viewing porn itself. I do watch porn. And I know that addiction occurs across all industries and walks of life. It does happen to have a higher occurrences in certain industries though, such as, for example, adult entertainment or telemarketing. I personally do not view porn as either bad or immoral.
- dirtbox 17y ago
  There's little doubt there's still a very seedy side to the business despite it being commercialised and regulated to a high extent. Although it's worth mentioning that a lot of the stars aren't your regular girl or boy next door types, they often have a troubled past and their own emotional luggage before they get into pornography. In many cases, the problems you outline are an extension of that.
- pavel_lishin 17y ago
  Couldn't that be an issue with virtually any job? Do you take issue with factory jobs, due to the number of alcoholics working there just to support their beer-purchasing habits? It is an issue for sure, but not one specific to pornography.
  - dgabriel 17y ago
    The social stigma applied to porn actresses is enormous. Working a factory job will not exclude you from other lines of work later in your life, nor is it necessary to hide former factory work from your parents or acquaintances. Even a brief stint in porn can cause long lasting deleterious effects in a woman's life.
    - marshallp 17y ago
      conversely, there are many people who look down their nose at you if you do a factory job, and many people who admire or desire women who worked in porn/stripping.
      - dgabriel 17y ago
        That argument doesn't hold. No one ever lost custody or a subsequent job because they were formerly a factory worker. A former porn actress is treated by the bulk of society much the same way a sex offender is treated.
        marshallp 17y ago
        I wouldn't go as far as sex offender. It's true among prudish areas of society there is stigma (but then would you want to deal with those type of people anyway). A lot of former porn actresses/dancers/strippers go on to marry wealthy businessmen, and many enjoyed their work. The same can't be said for factory workers.
    - pavel_lishin 17y ago
      I didn't see how this related to the drug habit for a second; you're saying that women turn to pornography in order to support their drug habit, not paying attention to the negative consequences, right? I want to make sure I'm understanding correctly before I reply and sounds like an idiot.
    - Jun8 17y ago
      I think that may be outdated. There are intelligent, interesting actresses that are covered in main stream media, best known current example is Sasha Grey but there are many others. How do you know that "even a brief stint in porn can cause long lasting deleterious effects", have you talked to them? As in any job, e.g. programming, IT, etc. there will be people who hate their job. I think the relevant question is whether someone is forced to a job they hate or has "deleterious effects"? The idea that all porn actresses are clueless feather brains who were tricked into this trade and continue to be victimized is condescending.
- Grinnmarr 17y ago
  I think your contention better supports an argument for the decriminalization of drugs than it does regarding the social ills of porn. As far as "voluntariness" goes I have known a number of high billing IT contractors over the years that work to support an expensive cocaine habit.
  - yters 17y ago
    We should just decriminalize everything, which would completely eliminate every legal problem on the books.
- Alex3917 17y ago
  "The only issue I contend with personally on porn is the number of women who create it in order to support a drug habit, thus removing a portion of the voluntariness from it." You could say this about any actor. I heard David Bowie didn't even know he'd starred in Labyrinth until he saw the video on sale at Blockbuster a couple years later.
autarch 17y ago
The problem with this article, and those that assert the opposite, is that it's barely science. There's no good control, and there are so many possible confounding factors that it's impossible to know what's really happening. Even worse, if you read the comments, it seems that people can't even agree on whether or not sexual violence has increased or decreased in the US over the past 40 years or so! Has anyone actually done any real science in this area? It seems like all we see are a bunch of ideologically motivated people selectively interpreting the data for their preferred viewpoint.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
jessriedel 17y ago
"Despite the widespread and increasing availability of sexually explicit materials, according to national FBI Department of Justice statistics, the incidence of rape declined markedly from 1975 to 1995. This was particularly seen in the age categories 20–24 and 25–34, the people most likely to use the Internet." The article is filled with statements like this without telling us if researchers controlled for any of the infinite possible confounding factors. This may be just a bad article, and the research may actually support the hypothesis of a causal link (perhaps even through a controlled experiment, rather than a statistical survey). But as it is, there's really no strong evidence at all in this article. Unless someone writes a more competent article, one would need to go read the actual studies. EDIT: Wait, they are giving the internet credit for reducing rape between 1975 and 1995? The first graphical web browser, Mosaic, wasn't developed until 1992. OK, this article is total baloney.
- epochwolf 17y ago
  After reading the paper, I find it just as bad as the article. (The article is a surprisingly good summary of the paper)
- yters 17y ago
  Also, why do those metrics matter? We could dramatically decrease the murder rate by removing everybody's limbs.
  - _pius 17y ago
    They matter because anti-pornography activists typically cite these statistics as proof or supporting evidence for the negative impact of pornography.
    - yters 17y ago
      Sure, I can see that, but not every modes ponens is a modus tollens.
- wooster 17y ago
  VHS was released in the mid-1970's. Betamax was released in 1975. They are widely considered to have popularized (or been popularized by?) video porn.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
breck 17y ago
Google thinks so. > adheresToDontBeEvil("incognito mode") > true
chasingsparks 17y ago
No correlation has been found between exposure to porn and negative attitudes towards women. As other commenters have stated, it is really difficult to conduct a good experiment given the difficulty controlling for other variables. However, I'm not even sure it is the right question. I'd be more interested in men's attitudes towards themselves given habitual exposure to porn. The same experimental difficulty exists, but I think it is more "upstream" from negative attitudes towards women. That is, in the course of the hypothesized man turned sexual predator, there is probably a period of sexual frustration that may be exacerbated by the non-reality of porn. This then develops into the deviant.
mo34 17y ago
Posing such a rhetorical question merely underlines the rationale as to why civilized society is not governed by young men in their twenties and thirties.
TechStuff 17y ago
no
lotharbot 17y ago
The question in the article's title is "is porn good for us?" That's not the question they actually answer. The question they actually attempt to answer is "does porn availability increase sex crimes or lead to unhealthy attitudes about women?" Their answer is that it actually improves both situations, though it's poorly supported by the data. (As others have noted, it's a mere statistical survey with no good control and many confounding factors.) If they wanted to answer "is porn good for us", they'd have to investigate a number of situations -- porn use within a relationship, for example. I suspect they'd find it has some serious downsides.
- drunkpotato 17y ago
  I suspect they'd find it has some serious downsides. Gaaah, this comment was so good until you whiffed at the end! You point out that their methodology was sloppy, that the title is not apropos, and then assert your own unfounded opinion right at the end.
  - lotharbot 17y ago
    I've done enough marriage counseling to know of the existence of serious downsides to pornography, which is all I asserted. This is not an unfounded opinion. Had I expressed some statistical conclusion (say, that the downsides outnumbered the upsides, or that under some particular weighting scheme the downsides were 62% worse than the upsides) your criticism would be valid.
ErrantX 17y ago
The only thing I think anyone can tell you about porn for certain is that it is, literally, everywhere (I'd say around 95% of the computers I poke around inside of contain porn).
j_baker 17y ago
The idea that pornography only objectifies women is inherently sexist. There are men in porn too. I think people take this point of view out of some antiquated notion of chivaly: women need to be protected because they obviously can't do it for themselves.
- dgabriel 17y ago
  The vast majority of porn is created for men, and the men in these films are not objectified in the same way women are. This has nothing to do with chivalry.
  - marshallp 17y ago
    Secretly, most, maybe all, women like be objectified to an extent, it's part of their dna. Find me a woman who says they wouldn't secretly like to show a bit of flesh in a magazine and i'll show a liar.
    - crux_ 17y ago
      I don't know about any of that stuff, but I think you've successfully shown me a sexist.
      - sliverstorm 17y ago
        'Sexist' is thrown about too much, imho. To some circles, you're sexist if you believe men and women are different at all. I call bs, we are inherently different in some ways. call me sexist if you like. To the rest of the circles, you're sexist if you put any stock in any of what are usually considered negative stereotypes about women. (the key being for example if you believe women are more kind than men, that is not branded sexist!) This is ridiculous as well, imho. It's like the stereotypes about blacks and guns. Some rapper was arrested a few years ago for having a bunch of guns in his car, and he screams 'you racists'. Dude. You had guns in the car, if anything you're literally living up to the stereotype you're complaining about. You can't complain about being profiled in regards to 'riding dirty' if you were in fact 'riding dirty', imho. I'm usually pretty bad at illustrating this half of the argument, but as unpopular as it may make me I believe many stereotypes are based on a truth. To apply them to ALL MEMBERS of the group is folly, but the inverse is also true- to assume that it applies to NO MEMBERS of the group, or even ALMOST NO MEMBERS of the group, is folly as well. I should perhaps start constructing a counter-offense argument... after all, have you considered that the belief that women as a rule do NOT like being a little bit exhibitionist could also be considered sexist?
erickerr 17y ago
"As the use of porn increases, the rate of sex crimes goes down" This is a perfect application of "Correlation does not imply causation". It's very likely that over time (during which internet porn has skyrocketed and made consumption frictionless) the awareness for supporting victims of sexual assault as also gone up.. from completely unrelated trends like rises in feminism and an overall decrease in crime over the last 15 years. Source 1995: http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/Cius_97/95CRIME/95crime3.pdf http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/Cius_97/95CRIME/9... 2008: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_25.html http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_25.html
brianobush 17y ago
I am on the pro-porn side since my job and company is built on its existence. Luckily, our technology works well and if you don't like pornography, you can easily buy products/services that will block porn (and other harmful content, e.g., hate, drugs, abortion, etc). Leveling-up I see pornography as content that will exist irregardless of laws, restrictions, etc. It is human nature that is simply exploiting the Internet medium to the fullest. I.e., it won't go away that easy.
- jrockway 17y ago
  Legal rights protected by the supreme court are "harmful content" now? I didn't get that memo.
  - brianobush 17y ago
    Well, as a parent, I want to protect my children from seeing the Internet in the raw form. Seriously, look at the content on the Internet. There is an amazing amount of content, not all of it is safe for children to view. Heck sometimes I see stuff that I would rather not. Don't confuse the issue here - it has nothing to do with rights.
    - jrockway 17y ago
      There's really nothing on the Internet I feel would damage children. Life sucks, get a helmet.
    - Jun8 17y ago
      Can you define "child"? At what age is it safe for a child to see a soft porn act, a hardcore one? Who makes up these rules? If you say every parent should make up the rules for their own family I'd support that; sadly, in real life it seldom works like that, e.g. see the recent misguided Australian attempt to ban access to porn for everyone.
      - jrockway 17y ago
        Hey... if God had intended for us to see each other naked, we wouldn't have been born with clothes.
jackfoxy 17y ago
It's interesting how much of HN comments are devoted to media criticism, often focusing on the sad state of science journalism. Maybe with the demise of Editor & Publisher there's room for a start-up here.
bd 17y ago
"According to the conservative media watchdog group Family Safe Media, the porn industry makes more money than the top technology companies combined, including Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Amazon." No way. Let's keep things in perspective. These four companies had combined revenues of almost $150 billion (2009). All porn total revenue estimates are maximum in single digit billions. Even the smallest company in Fortune 500 had at least $18.5 billion revenue. Despite appearances, porn is niche.
rogermugs 17y ago
And in every region investigated, researchers have found that as pornography has increased in availability, sex crimes have either decreased or not increased. ridiculous
Jun8 17y ago
I would recommend photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders's book, "30 Porn-Star Portraits" (http://www.amazon.com/XXX-Porn-Star-Portraits-Timothy-Greenfield-Sanders/dp/0821277545 http://www.amazon.com/XXX-Porn-Star-Portraits-Timothy-Greenf...) to gain a better understanding of how and why people choose to work in the porn industry. In addition to nice photos (of course) it includes essays by porn workers, e.g. Nina Hartley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Hartley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Hartley) and biographical information. This comes in handy next time you encounter someone who claims all porn actresses are drug addicted victims who are either brainless or over-sexed.

45 points by dirtbox 17y ago

The only issue I contend with personally on porn is the number of women who create it in order to support a drug habit, thus removing a portion of the voluntariness from it. I know that factor does not apply to all women creating porn, not by a long shot, but by knowing the stories of women in the exotic dancing industry, where many porn actresses are recruited from, it's hard to ignore the reality once you become aware of it. Also, like any fantasy based pasttime porn has it's own addiction dangers that would not necessarily be considered 'healthy'. Although this of course would not apply to people who are not prone to fantasy addiction in the first place, there is a reason that internet porn is a multi-billion dollar industry. >Note: Just to clarify, I don't have any issues with the act of making, staring in, or viewing porn itself. I do watch porn. And I know that addiction occurs across all industries and walks of life. It does happen to have a higher occurrences in certain industries though, such as, for example, adult entertainment or telemarketing. I personally do not view porn as either bad or immoral.

dirtbox 17y ago
There's little doubt there's still a very seedy side to the business despite it being commercialised and regulated to a high extent. Although it's worth mentioning that a lot of the stars aren't your regular girl or boy next door types, they often have a troubled past and their own emotional luggage before they get into pornography. In many cases, the problems you outline are an extension of that.
pavel_lishin 17y ago
Couldn't that be an issue with virtually any job? Do you take issue with factory jobs, due to the number of alcoholics working there just to support their beer-purchasing habits? It is an issue for sure, but not one specific to pornography.
- dgabriel 17y ago
  The social stigma applied to porn actresses is enormous. Working a factory job will not exclude you from other lines of work later in your life, nor is it necessary to hide former factory work from your parents or acquaintances. Even a brief stint in porn can cause long lasting deleterious effects in a woman's life.
  - marshallp 17y ago
    conversely, there are many people who look down their nose at you if you do a factory job, and many people who admire or desire women who worked in porn/stripping.
    - dgabriel 17y ago
      That argument doesn't hold. No one ever lost custody or a subsequent job because they were formerly a factory worker. A former porn actress is treated by the bulk of society much the same way a sex offender is treated.
      - marshallp 17y ago
        I wouldn't go as far as sex offender. It's true among prudish areas of society there is stigma (but then would you want to deal with those type of people anyway). A lot of former porn actresses/dancers/strippers go on to marry wealthy businessmen, and many enjoyed their work. The same can't be said for factory workers.
  - pavel_lishin 17y ago
    I didn't see how this related to the drug habit for a second; you're saying that women turn to pornography in order to support their drug habit, not paying attention to the negative consequences, right? I want to make sure I'm understanding correctly before I reply and sounds like an idiot.
  - Jun8 17y ago
    I think that may be outdated. There are intelligent, interesting actresses that are covered in main stream media, best known current example is Sasha Grey but there are many others. How do you know that "even a brief stint in porn can cause long lasting deleterious effects", have you talked to them? As in any job, e.g. programming, IT, etc. there will be people who hate their job. I think the relevant question is whether someone is forced to a job they hate or has "deleterious effects"? The idea that all porn actresses are clueless feather brains who were tricked into this trade and continue to be victimized is condescending.
Grinnmarr 17y ago
I think your contention better supports an argument for the decriminalization of drugs than it does regarding the social ills of porn. As far as "voluntariness" goes I have known a number of high billing IT contractors over the years that work to support an expensive cocaine habit.
- yters 17y ago
  We should just decriminalize everything, which would completely eliminate every legal problem on the books.
Alex3917 17y ago
"The only issue I contend with personally on porn is the number of women who create it in order to support a drug habit, thus removing a portion of the voluntariness from it." You could say this about any actor. I heard David Bowie didn't even know he'd starred in Labyrinth until he saw the video on sale at Blockbuster a couple years later.

autarch 17y ago

The problem with this article, and those that assert the opposite, is that it's barely science. There's no good control, and there are so many possible confounding factors that it's impossible to know what's really happening. Even worse, if you read the comments, it seems that people can't even agree on whether or not sexual violence has increased or decreased in the US over the past 40 years or so! Has anyone actually done any real science in this area? It seems like all we see are a bunch of ideologically motivated people selectively interpreting the data for their preferred viewpoint.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

jessriedel 17y ago

"Despite the widespread and increasing availability of sexually explicit materials, according to national FBI Department of Justice statistics, the incidence of rape declined markedly from 1975 to 1995. This was particularly seen in the age categories 20–24 and 25–34, the people most likely to use the Internet." The article is filled with statements like this without telling us if researchers controlled for any of the infinite possible confounding factors. This may be just a bad article, and the research may actually support the hypothesis of a causal link (perhaps even through a controlled experiment, rather than a statistical survey). But as it is, there's really no strong evidence at all in this article. Unless someone writes a more competent article, one would need to go read the actual studies. EDIT: Wait, they are giving the internet credit for reducing rape between 1975 and 1995? The first graphical web browser, Mosaic, wasn't developed until 1992. OK, this article is total baloney.

epochwolf 17y ago
After reading the paper, I find it just as bad as the article. (The article is a surprisingly good summary of the paper)
yters 17y ago
Also, why do those metrics matter? We could dramatically decrease the murder rate by removing everybody's limbs.
- _pius 17y ago
  They matter because anti-pornography activists typically cite these statistics as proof or supporting evidence for the negative impact of pornography.
  - yters 17y ago
    Sure, I can see that, but not every modes ponens is a modus tollens.
wooster 17y ago
VHS was released in the mid-1970's. Betamax was released in 1975. They are widely considered to have popularized (or been popularized by?) video porn.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

breck 17y ago

Google thinks so. > adheresToDontBeEvil("incognito mode") > true

chasingsparks 17y ago

No correlation has been found between exposure to porn and negative attitudes towards women. As other commenters have stated, it is really difficult to conduct a good experiment given the difficulty controlling for other variables. However, I'm not even sure it is the right question. I'd be more interested in men's attitudes towards themselves given habitual exposure to porn. The same experimental difficulty exists, but I think it is more "upstream" from negative attitudes towards women. That is, in the course of the hypothesized man turned sexual predator, there is probably a period of sexual frustration that may be exacerbated by the non-reality of porn. This then develops into the deviant.

mo34 17y ago

Posing such a rhetorical question merely underlines the rationale as to why civilized society is not governed by young men in their twenties and thirties.

TechStuff 17y ago

lotharbot 17y ago

The question in the article's title is "is porn good for us?" That's not the question they actually answer. The question they actually attempt to answer is "does porn availability increase sex crimes or lead to unhealthy attitudes about women?" Their answer is that it actually improves both situations, though it's poorly supported by the data. (As others have noted, it's a mere statistical survey with no good control and many confounding factors.) If they wanted to answer "is porn good for us", they'd have to investigate a number of situations -- porn use within a relationship, for example. I suspect they'd find it has some serious downsides.

drunkpotato 17y ago
I suspect they'd find it has some serious downsides. Gaaah, this comment was so good until you whiffed at the end! You point out that their methodology was sloppy, that the title is not apropos, and then assert your own unfounded opinion right at the end.
- lotharbot 17y ago
  I've done enough marriage counseling to know of the existence of serious downsides to pornography, which is all I asserted. This is not an unfounded opinion. Had I expressed some statistical conclusion (say, that the downsides outnumbered the upsides, or that under some particular weighting scheme the downsides were 62% worse than the upsides) your criticism would be valid.

ErrantX 17y ago

The only thing I think anyone can tell you about porn for certain is that it is, literally, everywhere (I'd say around 95% of the computers I poke around inside of contain porn).

j_baker 17y ago

The idea that pornography only objectifies women is inherently sexist. There are men in porn too. I think people take this point of view out of some antiquated notion of chivaly: women need to be protected because they obviously can't do it for themselves.

dgabriel 17y ago
The vast majority of porn is created for men, and the men in these films are not objectified in the same way women are. This has nothing to do with chivalry.
- marshallp 17y ago
  Secretly, most, maybe all, women like be objectified to an extent, it's part of their dna. Find me a woman who says they wouldn't secretly like to show a bit of flesh in a magazine and i'll show a liar.
  - crux_ 17y ago
    I don't know about any of that stuff, but I think you've successfully shown me a sexist.
    - sliverstorm 17y ago
      'Sexist' is thrown about too much, imho. To some circles, you're sexist if you believe men and women are different at all. I call bs, we are inherently different in some ways. call me sexist if you like. To the rest of the circles, you're sexist if you put any stock in any of what are usually considered negative stereotypes about women. (the key being for example if you believe women are more kind than men, that is not branded sexist!) This is ridiculous as well, imho. It's like the stereotypes about blacks and guns. Some rapper was arrested a few years ago for having a bunch of guns in his car, and he screams 'you racists'. Dude. You had guns in the car, if anything you're literally living up to the stereotype you're complaining about. You can't complain about being profiled in regards to 'riding dirty' if you were in fact 'riding dirty', imho. I'm usually pretty bad at illustrating this half of the argument, but as unpopular as it may make me I believe many stereotypes are based on a truth. To apply them to ALL MEMBERS of the group is folly, but the inverse is also true- to assume that it applies to NO MEMBERS of the group, or even ALMOST NO MEMBERS of the group, is folly as well. I should perhaps start constructing a counter-offense argument... after all, have you considered that the belief that women as a rule do NOT like being a little bit exhibitionist could also be considered sexist?

erickerr 17y ago

"As the use of porn increases, the rate of sex crimes goes down" This is a perfect application of "Correlation does not imply causation". It's very likely that over time (during which internet porn has skyrocketed and made consumption frictionless) the awareness for supporting victims of sexual assault as also gone up.. from completely unrelated trends like rises in feminism and an overall decrease in crime over the last 15 years. Source 1995: http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/Cius_97/95CRIME/95crime3.pdf http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/Cius_97/95CRIME/9... 2008: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_25.html http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_25.html

brianobush 17y ago

I am on the pro-porn side since my job and company is built on its existence. Luckily, our technology works well and if you don't like pornography, you can easily buy products/services that will block porn (and other harmful content, e.g., hate, drugs, abortion, etc). Leveling-up I see pornography as content that will exist irregardless of laws, restrictions, etc. It is human nature that is simply exploiting the Internet medium to the fullest. I.e., it won't go away that easy.

jrockway 17y ago
Legal rights protected by the supreme court are "harmful content" now? I didn't get that memo.
- brianobush 17y ago
  Well, as a parent, I want to protect my children from seeing the Internet in the raw form. Seriously, look at the content on the Internet. There is an amazing amount of content, not all of it is safe for children to view. Heck sometimes I see stuff that I would rather not. Don't confuse the issue here - it has nothing to do with rights.
  - jrockway 17y ago
    There's really nothing on the Internet I feel would damage children. Life sucks, get a helmet.
  - Jun8 17y ago
    Can you define "child"? At what age is it safe for a child to see a soft porn act, a hardcore one? Who makes up these rules? If you say every parent should make up the rules for their own family I'd support that; sadly, in real life it seldom works like that, e.g. see the recent misguided Australian attempt to ban access to porn for everyone.
    - jrockway 17y ago
      Hey... if God had intended for us to see each other naked, we wouldn't have been born with clothes.

jackfoxy 17y ago

It's interesting how much of HN comments are devoted to media criticism, often focusing on the sad state of science journalism. Maybe with the demise of Editor & Publisher there's room for a start-up here.

bd 17y ago

"According to the conservative media watchdog group Family Safe Media, the porn industry makes more money than the top technology companies combined, including Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Amazon." No way. Let's keep things in perspective. These four companies had combined revenues of almost $150 billion (2009). All porn total revenue estimates are maximum in single digit billions. Even the smallest company in Fortune 500 had at least $18.5 billion revenue. Despite appearances, porn is niche.

rogermugs 17y ago

And in every region investigated, researchers have found that as pornography has increased in availability, sex crimes have either decreased or not increased. ridiculous

Jun8 17y ago

I would recommend photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders's book, "30 Porn-Star Portraits" (http://www.amazon.com/XXX-Porn-Star-Portraits-Timothy-Greenfield-Sanders/dp/0821277545 http://www.amazon.com/XXX-Porn-Star-Portraits-Timothy-Greenf...) to gain a better understanding of how and why people choose to work in the porn industry. In addition to nice photos (of course) it includes essays by porn workers, e.g. Nina Hartley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Hartley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Hartley) and biographical information. This comes in handy next time you encounter someone who claims all porn actresses are drug addicted victims who are either brainless or over-sexed.