I'm sure there was a point in there somewhere, Fly, but I'm damned if I can work out what it was... If you'd care to expand on your train of thought and make it a little clearer it would help.

Now, I don't want to come over as being "anti" in any way.... that's not where I'm coming from. I am trying to be objective in this discussion....

However, I recall a conversation I stood by and listened to between my (then) girlfriend and a psychology prof back in our uni days. She needed some background on a criminology essay she had to write. He told her (as accurately as I can remember), that a lot of men are willing to believe that a majority of females go into the sex industry willingly because it's a necessary presumption to enable the male to enjoy the act.

Even though pornography is much more accessible, and acceptable, these days, many men still have lingering inhibitions from adolescence when there was more of a stigma attached to masturbation (which, after all, is one of the things pornography is useful in achieving). Many is the adolescent male who experienced feelings of shame about masturbation and by association, his use of pornography.

He (the prof) said that an adult man of today may be able to brazen out his attitudes to pornography more openly now, but inside the psyche there may still be a lingering inhibitiion which the individual may need to reconcile to his own feelings of self worth. One way in which this can be achieved is to see the female as a willing participant.

For a normal, well adjusted male to watch a pornographic video, and think that the female(s) were co-erced into the act or were acting against their will, can cause those feelings of shame to surface which, of course, negates the pleasure of the sexual experience. If, however, he can see the female as a "willing participant", then that makes the act consensual and therefore OK.

He likened it to the "Firing Squad Syndrome". When a firing squad takes place, one of the rifles is loaded with a blank round. None of the squad knows who has it, but the fact that one weapon has a dud bullet means that every man has plausible deniability..... he can tell himself that HE had the blank round and therefore his conscience is clear. So it is with pornography; Men know that women are co-erced into sex, but because some do act willingly, men tell themselves that the ones they are looking at are the willing ones. It assuages the conscience.

Does all this make sense...? Hey, I'm not making this up, that's pretty much how I remember his words and as I recall my girlfriend got a good mark for her essay so it can't all be rubbish, can it..?

Some may call this "psychobabble", but there is a reason for all things and it would support what one writer (can't remember who) once said:

"When you use a prostitute you pay for the sex, but deep down inside you're buying the smile".


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