Free Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry by Melinda Tankard Reist, Abigail Bray Page B

studies and findings can be found in Bridges et al. (2010).
5     Theories developed and made popular by Ivan Pavlov (1927/1960), Burrhus Skinner (1953) and Alan Bandura (1977).
6     Of course, the signs of approval are required of the women appearing in pornography.

Meagan Tyler
Pornography as Sexual Authority: How Sex Therapy Promotes the Pornification of Sexuality
Pornography is increasingly infiltrating various aspects of our lives. Most often in discussing this ‘pornification’ (Paul, 2005), we raise examples that we can easily see and recognise: fashion, art, advertising, television shows, movies. But pornography is also infiltrating areas which are not so obvious in everyday, public life, from the business practices of global corporations (Davies and Wonke, 2000; Lane, 2000; Rich, 2001) to the sex practices of our intimate relationships (Dines, 2010; Häggström-Nordin et al., 2005; Paul, 2005; Tydén and Rogala, 2003, 2004). These public and private processes of pornification not only involve the increasing exposure and influence of the pornography industry but also its increasing legitimacy. One of the most prominent ways in which pornography is now presented as legitimate is in the area of sex therapy. In sex therapy today, pornography is deemed to be not just an acceptable part of everyday sexual practice, but an ideal model of sexuality for people to imitate. This is pornography being presented as the ultimate sexual authority and it poses serious harms to women’s equality.
The recommendation of pornography can be found in many sex self-help books, even those written by well-known and respected sex therapists (see for example Heiman and LoPiccolo, 1992; Morrissey, 2005; Zillbergeld, 1993). Pornography is most often recommended as an aide for couples. According to therapists Striar and Bartlik, writing on the use of ‘erotica’ in sex therapy, pornography should be seen as a way of “adding diversity to a monogamous relationship” (Striar and Bartlik, 1999, p. 61). In particular, they state that it can be beneficial for “couples with incompatible sexual fantasies” (p. 61). This is one of the most common ways in which pornography is introduced as part of sex therapy. Pornography is used “to introduce a partner to a new mode of sexual experience that he or she might find otherwise distasteful or unacceptable” (p. 61). In cases such as this, pornography, under the guidance of therapists, is promoted as a tool to be used when trying to convince an unwilling partner to perform a sex act that they do not wish to engage in.
The idea that women should ‘experiment’ and perform sex acts that they do not want to has become a popular model for women’s sexual behaviour in heterosexual relationships since the ‘sexual revolution’ of the 1960s. It is an idea frequently reinforced and legitimated through sex therapy (see Jeffreys, 1990). Women are still encouraged by therapists to sexually fulfill their male partners, even if they have no desire to do so, or experience pain or discomfort (Tyler, 2008). For example, in the widely recommended self-help manual for women Becoming Orgasmic , therapists Heiman and LoPiccolo encourage women to try anal sex (an increasingly ubiquitous sex practice in pornography) if a male partner is interested in it. The advice from the therapists is: “If any discomfort does occur, try again some other time” (Heiman and LoPiccolo, 1992, p. 187). The central premise is that pain and discomfort for women are not acceptable reasons for discontinuing a sexual practice, but, rather, are reasons for women to undergo further ‘training’, ‘modelling’ and coercion. Instead of understanding that using pornography as a coercive strategy is harmful, sexologists extol pornography’s virtues, stating for example that it is useful for “giving the viewer permission to model the behavior” (Striar and Bartlik, 1999, p. 61).
Exactly what type of behaviour women are