Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families

by Pamela Paul

"Strips porn of its culture-war claptrap . . . Pornified may stand as a Kinsey Report for our time."--San Francisco Chronicle

Porn in America is everywhere--not just in cybersex and Playboy but in popular video games, advice columns, and reality television shows, and on the bestseller lists. Even more striking, as porn has become affordable, accessible, and anonymous, it has become increasingly acceptable--and a big part of the personal lives of many men and women.

In this controversial and critically acclaimed book, Pamela Paul argues that as porn becomes more pervasive, it is destroying our marriages and families as well as distorting our children's ideas of sex and sexuality. Based on more than one hundred interviews and a nationally representative poll, Pornified exposes how porn has infiltrated our lives, from the wife agonizing over the late-night hours her husband spends on porn Web sites to the parents stunned to learn their twelve-year-old son has seen a hardcore porn film.

Pornified is an insightful, shocking, and important investigation into the costs and consequences of pornography for our families and our culture.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Sexuality, Psychology, Sociology, Politics, Gender

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 11, 2005

About the author

Pamela Paul is the editor of The New York Times Book Review and oversees books coverage at The Times. She also hosts the weekly Book Review podcast. She is the author of six books, How to Raise a Reader, co-authored with Maria Russo, My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues, By the Book, Parenting, Inc., Pornified, and The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony. Prior to joining the Times, Paul was a contributor to Time magazine and The Economist, and her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and Vogue. Her next book, Rectangle Time, comes out in February. She and her family live in New York.

Reviews

[Books Ring Mah Bell · Rating 2 out of 5]

PORN PORN PORN PORN. The following review has very frank and obscene language. It is, after all, on the topic of porn. Reader discretion is advised.

What a topic for debate! In full disclosure, I don't like porn. I have not viewed much. The first one I saw was more sad than erotic. (I think it was called Beaver Hill or Beaver Mountain or something like that. Clever, yes?) Yes, I'm sure I'm not watching the right ones, but look, I just don't get non-participatory sex. A friend of mine saw I was reading this and said he likes porn. "How else would you learn to be kinky?" he asked. (!!!) What ever happened to good ol' imagination? Trial and error? We didn't get to a world population of 5 billion because of pornography.

The feminazi in me also finds much porn to be madly degrading to women. (The humanist in me can say it is degrading to men as well.) No, sex is not dirty. No, sex is not bad. Some women claim to play the system, be a star, be empowered - do porn to make the money. (The Suicide Girls are an example of this logic.) Maybe some women can do it, play a role and cash the check and laugh the entire eway to the bank. But the dead eyes on a woman giving a blow jobs to several guys in a row tells me otherwise. The author mentions a website that hosts "The Home of the Asshole Milkshake". Multiple men ejaculate into a woman's anus, and then force her to drink the semen. She sounds hella empowered to me. She also mentions the film Forced Entry, which simulates murder and rape of women. Sounds sexy.

I think the author could have talked more about the porn industry and the abuse there, and she never touched on human trafficking and sex slavery - HUGE indusrties and problems brought about in part by PORN.

I am in agreement with the author that it is pervasive - you don't have to look hard (heh) to find porn. It's on the top shelf at the video store (or in that room with the door). It is all over the computer. God forbid your grandma search for a Boston Cream Pie recipe with the safe search mode on off. Hotels are kind enough to offer guests a buffet of "sexy" videos.

And I have to agree with the author that if a person's first exposure to sex comes from porn... well, perhaps there can be some issues when in real life things don't look like/ behave as they do in the movies. Every woman must LOVE anal or being doubly penetrated or choking on jizz or being smacked and called whore... Every man must think what he saw in Forced Entry is how sex should be, right??

Where I disagree with her... The author seems to hold the belief that porn lovers will fall victim to the law of diminishing returns. Say Bob is into women. He likes to oogle boobies at the beach and strip club. Then he discovers the internet where he can look at boobs all day, without risking sunburn, or having to stuff money into a woman's g-string. Plus, no one will laugh at his boner. The internet provides FREE boobies. But after a while of looking at soft core sexy stuff, he needs to step up the stimulation. Plain old boobs don't work for him anymore. Now he needs bondage with teens/milfs/grandmas/fat girls/anorexics/insert your fetish here. Before you know it, he's into farm animals banging chicks and snuff films and is back at the beach watching the girls with evil in his eye. I just don't buy that.

I think porn is like anything else, drinking, gambling, eating... some people can enjoy it responsibly (please note I don't find films like "Forced Entry" acceptable or responsible.) without it becoming a problem. Other people develop a need for it and it interferes with work and relationships.

One thing is for sure, it is not going away anytime soon.

Might be a good book club book to those open for debate.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I liked this book generally, and the ideas that it espoused with what was obviously not a little research, I had to take about a two-week break from it halfway through because it was seriously depressing me. I'm almost twenty-eight years old, and according to Pamela Paul's research, I can expect the men in my age group to be addicted to porn to such a degree that it will ruin both relationships and mens' expectations of my looks and behavior, and not to mention ruin their idea of me as a human being and an equal. (Of course, this does not apply to all men, and mileage may vary for the ones to whom it does apply.)

Pornographers have done an excellent job of convincing us that porn is a free-speech issue, which has never really sat well with me; for one thing, what is this "speech" saying exactly? Is there an artistic statement in a bukkake shot? Is there social merit and educational value in a DVDA/bondage rape scene? Is what would normally be considered exploitation and illegal prostitution granted legal sanction because it's been recorded onto an artistic medium (film, video, etc.), thus granting it the protection of "speech"?

The eye-rolling argument/defense I've heard most from male friends, and one that features prominently in Paul's book, is that "boys will be boys" (heard often after teenage athletes gang-rape someone) or that "men are hard-wired to look at women." Oh, the evolutionary psychology defense...the one that takes all of our existing prejudices against the sexes, and works backwards to find reasons for them. Yeah, not buying that one, Counselor.

There are some pretty horrifying case studies of pitiful porn addicts whom Paul interviewed. Lost jobs (due to poor work performance from hours wasted on porn websites), blown marriages (again, from hours wasted on porn sites, taking away from time spent with the family - and years of built-up resentment from wives' knowledge of husbands' porn usage), and in several cases, obsession with porn leading to molestation of vulnerable, younger female relatives.

So, yes, not a cheerful read. I haven't yet crossed over to where I believe pornography should be banned; I realize that would drive the trade underground, where women are likely to be treated worse in the business than they probably are now. However, it would be nice if more men would realize the harm they are doing to themselves, their significant others, and their families with heavy and long-term use of pornography, and it'd be even nicer if porn hadn't entered the mainstream as heavily and as easily as it has. No putting that back in Pandora's box, I guess.

[John Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently in doing some research for an article, I read Pamela Paul’s Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families. The book is four years old and the situation has grown much worse, but it points out how devalued and objectified women are now because of the sex industry.

The media exploits women everywhere: in fashion magazines, television programs, billboards, social networking sites, motion pictures, music videos. But the chief factor in accelerating the lusts of males has been the pornography industry.

Subsequently, how men and women relate — or fail to relate — has fundamentally changed. Girls and women are involved in a never-ending effort to try to please males, who by repeated exposure to porn have unrealistic expectations of what females should be and do. So women dress provocatively, buy breast implants, consent to participate in “sex tapes” and have abortions, all to no avail. Porn is the reason behind unbridled lust and sex trafficking exploding around the world.

Paul’s book points out how pornography has convinced males that anal sex and more bizarre behavior should be expected from a female, even on a first date. Pornified shows how many males can no longer function in a normal sexual state because they’ve been so warped by images of group sex and other sinful activities.

“Many men don’t even realize that what they’re asking for is degrading or unpleasant to women,” Paul writes. “But the costs to our relationships, our families and our culture are great, and will continue to mount.”

The book left me sad at how debased we have become, and how harmful and corrosive pornography is. I apologize to women for buying into this dysfunctional view of sexuality and my role in exploiting you.

[Peacegal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book after having a discussion about the subject with my significant other. I have difficulty understanding the appeal of pornography, and I figured this book may give me some insight to this multibillion dollar industry.

The beginning of the book did a very good job of explaining what men seem unwilling or incapable of doing: just what exactly is the appeal of viewing these images and videos. The author also correctly points out that pornography is no longer a musty stack of magazines under a bed; these days, it's high-speed Internet video images that often depict the extreme and bizarre.

However, toward the middle of the book, the author starts running out of steam. She gets bogged down in describing men who become addicted to pornography or get mired in illegal activities. She seems to be more focused on advancing her own anti-porn argument than looking at the issue with clear eyes. She also assumes--unfairly--that women in relationships with men who use porn feel jealous, inadequate, and neglected. The author goes on to laughably imply that most men who use pornography feel guilty about it and have to hide it from their partners. (I honestly don't know what sort of people she interviewed for this book.)

She completely lost me when she stated that many male heavy users of porn aren't interested in "starting a family" at all. As if those who reject the American Dream life script are somehow just bogged down by pointless pleasures.

Needless to say, there are some true serious issues with pornography--such as what happens when minors use it or the fact that quite a bit of it portrays women being degraded. The author made some valid points when discussing this aspect. It's her at times insulting assumptions about porn's affect on relationship dynamics that capsizes this book.

[Mid Fimbulwinter · Rating 1 out of 5]

I worry at times that my non-fiction reading is an echo chamber where I just read books that reinforce my pre-existing biases. So, I figured I'd read something I expected to disagree with - Pamela Paul's Pornified - and later read Anne G. Sabo's retort in After Pornified. I have come to regret this decision.

Pornified is the Reefer Madness of sexuality books. I thought I'd be getting updated 2nd wave radical feminist arguments against porn. What I got was disingenuous and surprising avoidance of what I think of as radical feminist thought - which is to say, feminism that operates from the premise of the existence of the patriarchy.

The difficulty of women's body image, for example, is one of the classic problems with patriarchal oppression. Performing femininity for the male gaze, evaluating one's self against an unobtainable beauty ideal is a symptom of the pervasive system of values that make society unequal and unfair. Or, if you go with Pamela Paul, the problem is just that porn is presenting that image, and if we get rid of it, body image issues will go away, too.

I was expecting an update on Dworkin and MacKinnon, and instead I got lines like this: "Pro-porn feminists battled it out with anti-porn feminists while most men observed the catfight in delight or ignored it altogether". Which manages to be insulting to both feminists and men, I think. The only direct callback is to borrow MacKinnon's definition of porn vs. erotica, which boils down to "if it's gross sex stuff, it's porn. If not, it's erotica". (And yes, that is unfair paraphrasing on my part)

The structure of the book is largely quotations and paraphrases from interviews with people on the subject of porn, often with a line or two of editorial snark afterwards. By selecting and editing the words of her interviewees, Paul is able to imply the points she wants to make without having to state them outright, and without having to provide backing evidence.

Things implied by Pornified:
* Male fondness for large breasts is entirely caused by porn. No man would have a breast size preference without porn.
* Masturbation is infidelity
* If you look at porn, you will naturally progress to child porn and then abusing actual children.
* Pedophiles only abuse children because they look at porn first.
* If a women says she likes porn, she is only doing it to please men.
* Things no real woman would ever want to do: "anal sex, double penetration, or multiple orgasms". These are things that are manufactured porn desires that don't exist absent porn's influence.
* When someone buys a minivan with a DVD player in it, it's so they can watch porn while driving.
* Without porn, all men would be easily monogamous, and never have lustful thoughts about women other than their wives.
* Porn also causes impotence
* Porn causes men to be violent towards women

The interviewees were a troubled bunch, but it seemed to me that their problems were not caused by porn. These folks all seem to have serious issues with sex, sexuality and gender. Eradicating porn isn't going to make those problems go away.

There are a lot of problems with the modern porn industry, and how porn is woven into our society. Pornified manages to miss most of them, instead calling for a ban on things that are gross. This was an awful book, and I am very glad to be done reading it.

[courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

i am only into the third chapter and i feel kind of overwhelmed -- pamela paul is very clear and fairly simplistic in her writing style which makes her easy to understand, but somewhat redundant. she tosses a lot of figures around: according to one poll, this, and according to another poll, that. and according to her own interviews, something similar, but not exact. what is really fascinating are her interviews and her transcriptions of porn chat-room conversations. in the interviews, men (and some women) point to the benefits of porn -- that it diffuses male sexual desire and protects women from the brunt of his sexual aggression, that it is educational, teaching men how to behave in intimate situations with women (!), and that it is natural for men to "spread the seed" and rather than have sex with many many women, he can masturbate to the images of many many women. paul refers to the celebration of the beauty of the woman's body many porn users attest to, but her transcribed chat room dialogue paints a decidedly different picture. paul has discussed the ways that users of porn -- who might have been satisfied with playboy images as teens -- need increasingly more explicit and more shocking images in order to achieve arousal. the incidence of violence in pornography has increased exponentially as the internet has become an easy, anonymous, safe place to acquire porn. rather than having a handful of magazines, with a limited number of images, porn users now have nearly unrestricted access to free and increasingly shocking sexual images. and this saturation of porn, the legitimization of porn in nearly all aspects of our lives, has some undeniable effects on its users and the people in their lives. most of the men interviewed view themselves as smart enough to know that porn is fantasy and that women aren't really THAT eager to please, or THAT hungry for sex. but they still offer really awful statements about the women in porn. one guy said that he would never bring home a porn star to meet his family, another said that if his daughter were to consider posing for photos, he would advise against it because the men who would look at her wouldn't see her as a real person. and another man said that women who are involved in porn are usually damaged emotionally or psychologically and that not a lot of doors are open to them... the women in porn, according to these men and others quoted in the book, remain sub-par -- they are not "nice girls" or worthy of attention outside their images. funny, then, that men who consume porn regularly lose interest in "real sex" and fail to become aroused by their "real" partners. those real partners become sub-par as well, usually older, maybe flatter, fatter, far more talkative and opinionated, less willing to satisfy... for those men who use porn frequently enough to achieve this double-bind, no woman is good enough.

[Daniel Grey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I understand that pornography is a controversial subject. As someone who considers himself liberal when it comes to internet censorship and pornography, I must state that I did not let my personal beliefs bear any effect on me while reading this book. In fact, I was looking for a well-articulated, clear, succinct opposing argument in this book. Instead, the author presents a few couples' situations and dealings with pornography. While it is entirely possible for a person to become addicted and lose himself in porn, I feel that the author took a few of these situations and insinuates that they are representative of every viewer of porn. She supports her arguments by using "statistics," but they are not necessarily causative or even corollary. Besides not presenting a clear or well-reasoned argument, the author also is repetitive, redundant, and the book is as a result quite boring. The book ultimately serves as a poorly veiled scare strategy to keep our noses and other body parts out of porn.

[Brent L Lubratich]

A real eye opener!

This was a very well written book that was hard to put down. Pamela Paul did a ton of research and covered absolutely every reason of why porn is bad from a non religious viewpoint and gave examples of how it destroys our relationships, our marriages, and even when you think about, our humanity. Bottom line: Porn objectifies women and also supports the use of violence in a place it doesn't belong...

[Skylar Burris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is written by a female journalist who did not initially have much of a problem with pornography, but whose research brought her to question if we have allowed our society to become far too “pornified” and what kind of action we can take to at least stem the tide. The book is subtitled “How pornography is transforming our lives, relationships, and families,” but I don't think she spends enough time discussing those things; there’s a great deal of time spent discussing how much pornography (both in terms of accessibility and degree---what was once hard core, for instance, has become soft core) has changed over the past forty years and why people (do or do not) consume it.

I wish she had expanded the chapters on relationships and families and had used more statistical information. The book is very highly anecdotal, taking us through the stories of several individuals, some of whom are extreme cases. Although she does draw in several studies and polls and did conduct a massive joint poll of her own, we don’t get much information about sample, methodology, or even detailed results; rather, a statistic is thrown in here and there throughout the commentary and anecdotes. So, for instance, she might say that for many men, pornography usage leads to sexual performance issues, but then she will use a single story as a support rather than drawing in any kind of statistical evidence about what percentage of pornography users suffer these problems, and how frequently they consume pornography. If you are trying to persuade anybody of anything, it helps not to refer to Joe Smith’s personal experience but instead to present an accumulation of evidence. When she does bring in statistics, sometimes they are a little confusing. For instance, she will say 50% of women X, and 1/4th of women not X. Well, what happened to the other 1/4th, given the only choices appear to be X and not X? Did 1/4th say “I don’t know”?

The book is essentially rather depressing, especially if one is raising a son or daughter in today’s “pornified” culture. The accessibility and degree means that early exposure is likely, and how does that affect the forming conscious of a young girl or boy, and how will they see sex in the future? Her leanings are clear enough, but she doesn’t take extreme positions and she doesn’t omit the counter arguments. And the argument against pornography, she concludes, ultimately need not be either religious or feminist, but simply practical. Pornography “has a corrosive effect on men’s relationships with women and a negative impact on male sexual performance and satisfaction.”

Interestingly, the percentage of liberals and conservatives who are in favor of regulating pornography are about equal, although they often have different motives. And of course you have your anti-porn feminists and your pro-porn feminists. One interesting “solution” is to propose criminalizing the giving and receiving of payment to perform sexual acts, which would make the laws against many forms of pornography (and of course strip clubs) consistent with the prostitution laws. It’s an interesting theory; after all, the line that divides a strip club from a brothel is at least somewhat arbitrary (you may go this far legally and no farther; you may touch here but not here; you may be touched here in this way but not there in that way; you must wear this much clothing but may take off this much clothing while touching…the government becomes the arbiter of baselines and the definer of what is not too sexual and what is too sexual, and often society’s mores follow). The author, however, ultimately favors a censure and not a censor solution. Fighting supply is ultimately futile as long as there is a large demand for something. Changing people’s demand is a cultural (and ultimately a spiritual) issue, not a legal one. You can’t legislate the desires of the heart, but cultures can (and do) vary on which behaviors they deem acceptable and which they deem dishonorable and/or disgusting, and the messages a culture sends affects the way people behave. When it comes to sexual behavior, our own culture, over the last forty years, has greatly expanded what it considers acceptable and greatly reduced what it considers dishonorable, and there have certainly been negative consquences to this. The trick is finding a happy middle ground between oppression and libertinism, and it's a difficult trick.

One warning: be aware that some of this book is quite graphic, with transcripts from chat rooms.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very enlightening book. It will leave you dismayed and worried for the future of our boys.

I went into Pornified with the opinion that looking at pornography is an itch that men sometimes need to scratch. I believed it was something that should be controlled and never indulged. But that it is just one of those things that "happens" now and again. I also believed that women who got hysterical over it were being unreasonable and needlessly dramatic.

Reading this book changed my mind a lot. There is a distinct difference between a man occasionally flipping through a Playboy and the uninhibited consumption of internet porn. This book made me realize that the days of the occasional Playboy are long behind us. The anonymity, availability and abundance of online pornography is dangerous (to say nothing of the horrific content). Especially at risk are our young boys who are being raised in an "anything goes, stop being a prude" culture without the ability to apply context or critical thinking to what they are consuming.

I liked Ms. Paul's approach to the subject. She chronicled the personal experiences of several men and included research data to support the effects seen in the case studies. And, while fact based non-fiction, it is an engaging interesting read. Ms. Paul's bias is obvious, especially in the later portions of the book. However, I think her bias is justified and helps her succinctly convey her message.

Finally, I agree with the quote on the front cover, "Paul has stripped porn of it's culture war clap-trap..." This is true. Trite labels like, "prude" or "right-wing religious zealot" have been used to discredit those who oppose pornography while terms like, "liberated and enlightened" are used to describe those who are pro-porn. This book sets those aside and looks objectively at the impact of porn on those who consume it and as well as their families and society in general. It also discusses the pervasiveness of "acceptable porn" in our society. (For example, porn stars as main-stream celebrities, children wearing thongs and the prevalence of playboy symbols in popular clothing/decor.)

This is a great book everyone should read. My only disclaimer: Porn is discussed in a very frank manner. Some might be offended or get squeamish.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is chalk-full of statistics, studies, polls, and more information than you'd ever imagine on the world and business of Pornography and our changing society. Although I had done research through University on the subject of Pornography, rape, degradation of women, women's roles and depiction in society, the information was still shocking and depressing to me. Unfortunately, due to the sheer amount of statistics and interviews loaded into one book, I don't think it is accessible to much of the population, or even those who probably should be reading it... The information is important and presented well, but it can be overwhelming to read.

My blood was definitely pumping while reading this one and I felt the desire to share the information with others after absorbing the content of each study, poll, or statistic. I found the interviews to add a personal touch which held the book together nicely.

[Kimberly Winters · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give this book more stars, but due to the subject matter it is very graphic and so I can't recommend wholeheartedly to everyone I know. Still, for those who want to understand porn and what it is actually doing to real humans, this book is for you. Paul does an excellent job of giving us a sincere distaste for our porn culture and its contributing factors by sounding an alarm without being "preachy." Her writing style definitely fit the way I read - and by the end of the book I really liked her more than I thought I would. I especially liked the way she pulled off the lid and exposed the contents of something quite frankly I prefer to keep stuffed under someone else's bed. Reading this book will forever change the way you view anything that objectifies humans - and hopefully, it will lead you on a path toward valuing souls over bodies. Enjoy!

[Bullet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an eye-opener. I was unaware of the prevalence of "hard core" pornography so readily available now, and this had very little opinion on the subject. Although this is probably classified in women's studies or feminism, I thought that it was as unbiased as possible, since it consisted mainly of interviews from people- mostly male porn addicts.
I'm really disturbed by the material in this book and I agree that things need to change in the way we view sex in order for women (and men) to move forward. I highly recommend this book, and I find myself referencing it often, as it applies to other addictions as well.

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started reading this book because it had some fresh research on the detrimental effects of pornography. I am so against pornography on both religious and feminist grounds. But this book had some good answers to the libertarian free-speech type defenders of pornography. However, I was not able to stomach the book. I stopped early and don't plan to finish reading it. The message is good. But in describing what is wrong with pornography, she sometimes described pornography in more graphic ways than I would have liked. I don't need that in my life.

[Alicia · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you are looking for a one-sided review of the effect of pornography then this is your book. While the author had the capability to utilize primary research , the interviews were scattered only to make specific points. Questions were loaded, and particpant backgrounds were used to discredit sources in opposition to the author's viewpoint. A disappointing attempt to discredit liberal viewpoints on pornography. Instead it is mired down in sensaitionalism and cover up much like the media today.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much-needed, almost academic look at the deleterious effects of the onslaught of porn in today's society. The author, relying heavily on surveys and interviews, illustrates how porn destroys relationships and debases the culture. Good examination of a relatively unspoken problem. Debunks the myth that porn is harmless.

Not the easiest of reads (lots of percentages and repetitive quotes from surveys), but certainly worthwhile.

[Ted N. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping to read about the effects of pornography, even among those that may not realize they've been influenced. What she chose to write about, instead, is the relatively small portion of society that has become hopelessly addicted to pornography. It's full of stories about people who are horribly addicted, but no stories about people that don't view porn at all. She wrote about a statistically very small portion of society.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very interesting. Considering that I consider myself a super liberal, a lot of the things said in the book make sense to me. There is a vast difference between some of the porn that I myself have even viewed and real, true, intimate sex. This book doesn't cater to the religious right, as I believed that it might. It provides reasonable and rational arguments for certain "conservative" ideas that I never thought I would agree with. I think it's hysterical it mentions the Suicide Girls, as this is really not as "hardcore" as one may be led to believe. The ability to find beauty in those who are different and real is a refreshing change from all of the signals and messages we receive in mainstream media of all kinds. I can see both sides of the argument, but as I said, the book presented it's argument in a more rational manner than I imagined it could.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book over a year ago. It is written by a journalist who started out with a completely objective attitude about pornography and who discovered that it is highly-addictive and that it has become pervasive and accepted in many aspects of our culture. She shares many case studies that convince the readers that we need to be more vigilant, educated, and aware of the dangers of pornography addiction--and its consequences--in our homes, neighborhoods, communities, and country. It reminds us that we can no longer remain passive or silent about pornography's serious threat to our children, youth, families, and cities.

[Casandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book brought to my attention the truly horrific and real consequences of a pornified society. I had never really understood the consequences that others' porn habits had on my life.

The discussion about porn is often sidelined with a larger discussion of sex, god, and religious views, but this book did a great job of avoiding those pitfalls. Regardless of what your views are about sex, this book gives you a sense of the societal consequences of pornography.

I recommend it to everybody. But I warn you, it's incredibly depressing.

[Fathom Panthere Iaguar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book with compelling evidence; Paul does not make an argument based on evidence - she gives the evidence and then creates a conclusion. But whereas many others would not be good enough writers to pull this off without the book becoming extremely dry, Paul manages to hold the reader's attention by intermixing the statistics and facts with her own interviews with various men and women.

Warning: may prove dangerous to Patriarchal buy-ins.

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some interesting anecdotes, and I certainly know more about the porn industry - specifically online - than I did before. But it was repetitive and seemed to lack a focus or even a thesis beyond "porn affects relationships". Well, yeah.

[Peter Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Pornified: How pornography is transforming our lives, our relationships, and our families,” by Pamela Paul (Times Books, 2005). Although Paul asserts that she is trying to write a balanced examination of the role of pornography in society, this is nevertheless a well-researched, heavily documented screed against the stuff. Before getting into details, here is an important problem: she never defines pornography, or examines how it has changed over decades, or even why it exists in the first place. And she makes no real attempt to distinguish pornography from erotica (although at one point she declares that men like porn and women like erotica). She never defines erotica, and what makes it different. Well, onto what the book does, not what I wished it did. Paul describes, often anecdotally but also based on published research, how pornography affects men, women, and children; how it distorts our understanding of sex and sexuality; how it has penetrated (!) all levels of society to the point where a tremendous amount of the culture is what she considers pornographic; pornography addiction (there are 12-step groups); how it affects families and intimate relationships (often by breaking them up). She describes, with barely hidden distress, how contemporary culture, advice columnists and therapists, supports pornogrification to the point of criticizing people who don’t like it. She describes the increasingly degraded activity which is so easily available online: women clearly being tortured or otherwise harmed (and some men, too); activities that are essentially indefensible, including bestiality and child porn. She spends time with porn-positive---if there is such a term---feminists, women who make pornography intended for women, though she thinks it is still mostly following male fantasy. But she doesn’t have any sympathy for them. Ultimately, however, she understands that, especially with the internet, there is no way to suppress it. Censure, not censure, is her final goal. Bring back shame. It may be, however, that there has been important change in the porn world since 2005, especially among women producers/directors/etc that might lessen some of her anger. But I do wish she had at least tried to present a psychoanalytic or psychological consideration of this immense interest in depicting sexual activity.

http://www.pamelapaul.com/book/pornif...

[Lindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Since reading Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture I have become interested in the connections between what Levy terms "raunch culture" (which includes the mainstreaming of pornography) and nationalism in post-9/11 America. With this mindset, I read Pornified because it was published in 2005 and features a star-spangled thong on the cover.

Aside from this short passage on page 240, it did not prove relevant to my initial thoughts at all:

In the United States, the outrage over the actions at Abu Ghraib was accompanied by a strange hush regarding the inspiration of those acts and images, which are perpetuated in pornography, in this country as elsewhere in the world, every day. Few people think to question,
let alone fulminate over, the messages sent by 'legitimate' porn.

In this book, Paul chooses to focus solely on consumers of pornography, as opposed to the workings of the pornography industry. She says that other people are already doing that research so she's not going to; I don't have a problem with this, but I wish I'd known that before I'd started reading. So basically it's a lot of interviews of people talking about how pornography use affects their lives. I liked that Paul commissioned a nationally representative poll about attitudes towards pornography for the book.

Paul does not write from a feminist perspective, but rather a general liberal one. In fact, she somehow manages to misrepresent both feminist anti-porn viewpoints and feminist pro-porn viewpoints, and never makes more than a half-hearted attempt to delineate either. Honestly every attempt to sum up theory in this book was a total mess.

The introduction makes it sound like there would be discussion of how pornography has come to influence other spheres of American life, but that never really came up.

[Ben Hinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pamela Paul tackles the effects of pornography in her book. It's a good insightful read, that will mean something different for each reader based on their value system and stage in life. The book goes into detail regarding the negative effects excessive use of pornography has on marriages, on relationships, on perception (how women view themselves/self esteem and how men view women/objectification/expectations) and so on. And many of the points are backed by interviews and studies. I do agree that excessive pornography use (like any addiction) can distort reality and harm relationships. And I do agree that the digital age and the easy access it provides to X-rated material is having a significant impact on the traditional family/marriage dynamic. However, I felt this book could have been alot shorter and to the point. Many of the points and examples were the same illustrations with different characters, and it began to get repetitive. Also, I felt the book was a bit one sided (much of the "negativity" around the subject was aimed at men). Overall, an insightful albeit laborious read.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was drawn in by the first part of the book, which looks deep into exactly why men are attracted to pornography, and provides a nice cross section of anonymous interviews to flavor the text and add texture to the statistics.

The latter half stops citing as many studies and takes a sharp turn towards the author's conclusion. I felt a bit robbed that we didn't delve into studies surrounding pornography's effects on marriages and families in more depth - there was some coverage, but not nearly as in-depth as the first half of the book - or more discussion and statistics around the women who are in the porn industry. I feel there were at least two sides to the story that were left out of the discussion here: women who are happy and enjoy their jobs in the porn industry, and those who are in (or were in) sexual slavery and want out.

As a result the final product feels unfinished, but I applaud it for taking a long look at a topic that rarely reaches the nonfiction shelves in bookstores and libraries.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book, and it accurately depicts what's out there and what people (usually men) can get themselves into. But I was looking for a more comprehensive study of how the sexual revolution, and the current trends toward accepting more and more extreme and disconnected forms of sexual expression have affected society as a WHOLE, rather than individual people. The book jacket was a bit misleading in that sense. Individuals have obsessions and mentalities that feed right into the anonymity of Internet porn. They may be laying waste to their lives and realize it, or not realize it. But for the larger world, including people who keep well away from porn, and even the mass-sexualization of our culture, there is still a cost to pay. We all have to live in the same world. Does anyone know of a book about that?

[Nderitu Pius · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book begins with a great revelation and ends with a call to action. GOD BE GLORIFIED.
Read this if you are trying to understand porn and the media and how we have become hoodwinked in the name of "sexual liberalization"
GOD STILL SAVES AND HE IS CALLING YOU TOBE TRANSFORMED IN YOUR MIND BY THE RENEWING OF THE WORD - Romans 12:2

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

Biased and inaccurate conclusions.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent compendium of how pornography affects lives