Modern Pornography is Empowering for Women

Pornography certainly leans heavily on the depiction of sexual content (otherwise it wouldn't be pornography); however, this is a debate about the industry, not the content. I will contest that your generalization of people who masturbate as a male who is "non active somewhat socially awkward masturbating in his bedroom" is horribly inaccurate and invalid. If you look at Kinsey Institution data (http://www.kinseyinstitute.org...) you'll see that more people masturbate or have masturbated than not. Masturbation is natural. After all, the only mammals that have sex for pleasure are human beings and dolphins. The sexual content of pornography does not empower someone to masturbate. Pornographic content leads to arousal, which makes the individual wish to achieve a sexual climax. To say that the women alone will be the content which sparks this arousal is unsupported, and does not take into account for other factors of pornographic content that may cause arousal. For example, a woman watching heterosexual pornography may be aroused primarily by the man in the film. Your second argument is much more convincing and intriguing and should really be the center of your argument as a whole. Still, I refute it. Although erotica has created much more depth in storyline, it has not removed all storyline from pornography. Many pornographic films contain story lines, although erotica is typically a better place to find them. However, this does not affect the vulgarity or exploitation of the industry or content. It really depends on the category. As there are humiliation genre that serve to do not much more than humiliate women, there are genre such BDSM in which women are portrayed in the dominating role. If a particular pornographic film dives straight into the sexual acts, which, I agree, portrays the performers as not much more than sex machines, wouldn't the image of men also be ruined? However, back to my main point on the industry itself, rather than just the content: It is commonly known that women make, on average, less than men per dollar (this varies from 77 cents to 96 cents on the dollar). Either way, women are not getting equal treatment for equal pay. However, in the pornography industry, women have a considerable amount of power. Women make a considerably greater amount of money than their male counterparts (Seidman, Steven, Nancy Fischer and Chet Meeks. 2011. Introduction the New Sexuality Studies: Second Edition). Additionally, women take an active role in negotiating this salary, whereas less than a third of women negotiate their salaries in other fields of business (Babcock, Linda and Sara Laschever. 2007. Women Don"t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation and Positive Strategies for Change.) For some performers, pornography is an occupation that allows them to escape poverty and receive an education (Mireille Miller-Young, "Empowering to the Women on Screen"). Clearly, all these factors empower women to break traditional norms of workplace interaction and wage disparity. Perhaps more importantly, pornography allows women to express their sexuality. American culture has a strict double standard on promiscuity. Men are championed when the sleep around; women are shamed. Women are expected to limit their sexual experiences and ideally remain a virgin until marriage at the cost of being able to express herself sexually or being able to acquire sexual satisfaction with another human being. The pornography industry empowers women to express their sexuality freely, despite social pressures to remain modest, innocent, and pure. It is important, and empowering, for women to abolish these social norms that have for too long attempted to repress the sexuality of women.