"Porndemic" - 2 Apr CBC Doczone

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Premiering On: Thursday April 2, 2009 at 9 pm CBC-TV

 

 

"Porndemic puts faces and personalities to the extraordinary profitable business of pornography today. Porn has quietly reinvented itself on the world-wide-web, becoming more mainstream and culturally embedded every day.

 

After starting with a visit to the old guard, the besieged Larry Flynt in his penthouse perch, Porndemic drops in on a Gen-X new-porn mogul on his multi-million-dollar ranch, and on an upstart one-man operation in the seamy side of town.

 

The camera searches out a backstreet bondage superstar, some ordinary working girls in Montreal who run an internationally successful webcam site, the king of porn-actress pimps in San "Pornando" Valley, and the millionaire pioneer of the future of porn - virtual on-line sex - in Vancouver.

 

Porndemic examines an "epidemic" of porn addiction, including teenage cell-phone users, and an oil executive from Western Canada who belongs to the fastest growing substance-abuse community in the world: Sex Addicts Anonymous. Porndemic also speaks to law-and-order experts who think that obscenity on the internet is out of control and beyond the law, and to the blandly confident businessmen who are the new face of corporate, mainstream porn."

 

Promo (3.56 min):

 

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2009/porndemic/index.html

[Carrie Moon 68826]

ooo cool! thanks for the tip!

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Just bumping this back up the "latest posts" list, in case anyone who's interested missed it. The show's on tonite.

[Carrie Moon 68826]

I was very disappointed.. it really only showed the negative aspects of porn. Several months ago on Oprah they mostly showed the positive including the fact that 25% of porn was now bought by women.

 

The end of it seemed to be mostly dedicated to a commercial for redlightcenter virtual meeting place.

 

One thing that really irked me was the statement that the reason people get addicted to porn is because they aren't satisifed by it.. does that mean that's why we eat every day???

[Carrie Moon 68826]

"Moses freed the Jews, Lincoln freed the slaves...and I'd just like to free all the neurotics..."

 

"They need to get a life, and that life consists of human sexuality."

 

"The Genie is out of the bottle. I don't think they can put it back. I think they're just going to have to live with it."

 

Larry Flynt on last night's porn documenatary.

[thetiminator 100]

How did I forget to watch this? Does anyone know if it's online on the Mother Corp. in its entirety?

[Carrie Moon 68826]

How did I forget to watch this? Does anyone know if it's online on the Mother Corp. in its entirety?

 

Nope but I still have it on my PVR.. we could book an hour session and watch it during.. ha ha.. jk.. not very sexy.

[A***** A***** 510]

Well I tried to tune in last night, and all they had on was the documentary about the earth quake in china last year (not that it wasn't important) I was looking forward to watching the porn :smile:

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

One thing that really irked me was the statement that the reason people get addicted to porn is because they aren't satisifed by it.. does that mean that's why we eat every day???

 

Ha! That's precisely when I threw my bowl of popcorn at my TV screen, and "psychosexual therapist" Frances Emelius took the unpopped kernels right on her virtual schnoz. "Men keep going back to it because it isn't working, because it doesn't satisfy" -- huh? The fault, dear Frances, lies not with the porn, but with the human brain.

 

(The following is strictly my own layman's half-assed opinion. It is not necessarily reflective of the views of anyone who might actually know something about the very serious subject of addiction:)

 

I have myself been a consumer of porn (various media, obviously) for over three decades. I know only too well that what floated my boat 30-odd years ago, would put me to sleep today. What was exciting at first, has now become boring ... through familiarity and repetition. So, I'm always on the lookout for something I haven't seen before, something different or more "extreme", if you will. This process is ongoing and, near as I can tell, will be never-ending. Everyone builds up tolerance to anything they are exposed to. I also love ice cream, as another example. I deliberately choose to not eat ice cream that often, though. If I ate it all the time it would cease to be special, because I would build up a "tolerance". Then what could I do to get the same ice cream kick? Either eat a bigger bowl, or pour chocolate sauce over it. And then ... what's the next step? -- if you're an addict you can't stop the cycle, and the next thing you know, the fire department has to use a crane to evacuate you from your house because you're too fat to stand on your own.

 

Addicts do what other people do, the difference being that they do way too much of it. (Although, personally, I find that "way too much" porn is just enough, lol). Addicts build up a tolerance for whatever it is that they are addicted to, and over time must increase the level of activity to achieve the same degree of satisfaction. This build-up of tolerance is like everyone else ... except that the addict is unable to stop him/herself from continuing the behaviour, and it becomes self-destructive. Addiction to anything winds up sucking the juice out of a person's real life.

 

I had a (wine-fueled) conversation a number of years ago with a Psych PhD who had been hired by the provincial government (Nova Scotia) to study gambling addiction in relation to VLT's. He explained how a particular pattern of "unpredictably intermittent reward" held great power to induce gambling addiction. Combining my own porn-consuming experience with this outline of the mechanics of gambling addiction, I can imagine at least the potential parallels between gambling addiction and an addiction to surfing webporn:

 

On the web, one can view a practically unlimited number of images of different models, poses, and activities. In the beginning, certain specific models and activities will be novel and exciting to the viewer. Then, the viewer becomes used to these familiar types of images, and will need to surf further and wider and longer to find images that depict unfamiliar models or novel activities, so as to generate the same kick or level of excitement as before. The more that has been viewed, the more there is that is familiar and not as exciting as it once was. The addictive pattern, mentioned in the gambling study, of "unpredictably intermittent reward" takes over, as more and more images that are viewed during web surfing inevitably are "losers" (in the sense of being old-hat and ho-hum), and fewer and fewer are new and exciting "winners" thus carrying with them that little jolt of pleasure and reward as they appear on the surfer's screen. The addict ... can't stop this chase.

 

It is only in this sense that "Men keep going back to it because it isn't working, because it doesn't satisfy." This build-up of tolerance is a symptom of addictive behaviour in general, not specifically of the porn itself.

 

(My half-assed opinion, anyway...)

[Carrie Moon 68826]

not all porn viewers are addicts.. and I like your example of ice-cream because you are correct a food addict will eventually need a crane or at least a diet or gastric bypass. Not all who gamble become gambling addicts and I'd hazard a guess that just as many people are addicted to facebook/myspace/dating sites on the internet or gaming as are addicted specifically to internet porn. It was weird how the show was slanted to the evils of porn.. child porn, a porn addict, some teenagers in hamilton acting out porn acts on their babysittees whilst babysitting... and then when it came to the cybersex site they tried to make it look like the use for it was so enriching to marriage. A man away in the armed forces could keep relations up with his wife at home so that their marriage wouldn't suffer.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

It was weird how the show was slanted to the evils of porn ... and then when it came to the cybersex site they tried to make it look like the use for it was so enriching to marriage.

 

Yes, interesting point! The show was constructed like a fairy tale:

 

The role of the evil step-mother was played by "regular" webporn. It was caricaturized as stealing the user's time, which time might otherwise have been "better" invested in the user's real relationships. Much gloom and doom. Then ... the Knight in Shining Armour rides in at the end of the show -- in the form of the Red Light Center "metaverse" that is supposedly being so virtuously used to reinforce real relationships. (Jeez Louise! How can a person who is busy developing something called "tele-dildonics" ... also say with a straight face that porn is "not really what we are about"?)

 

So the show was a tidy little story, woven with a nice little simplistic moral.

 

In real life, though, the heroes and villains (if heroes and villains we must have) are seldom quite so easily distinguishable one from the other.

[suburb1 153]

Seems its a tempest in a teapot. The public eye is turned on the business of sex, doesn't mean it an epidemic, just good marketing from the networks to pull viewers. Heck, the balanced portrayal below published by one of Canada's prestigious papers could also be taken as a sign of societal maturity, while the Canadian legal system hangs back in antiquity.

 

 

Doc shocks with startling Canadian facts

 

 

On the Globeand mail March 27, 2009

 

Like everyone else, we are feeling the pain of living in an economic dustbowl. Canadians are buying fewer big-ticket items such as cars and big-screen TVs, and pinching pennies on essentials such as groceries. In fact, the only recession-proof businesses appear to be drive-through coffee shops and prostitution. Somehow Canadians can always find money for donuts - and sex.

But is paying for sex breaking the law? The Business of Sex (tonight at 10, CTV) provides a primer on the current state of the sex trade in this country. Written and directed by veteran journalist Robert Duncan, the new documentary will likely shock some viewers, though not with scenes of gratuitous nudity or graphic sex talk - there's neither. Instead, The Business of Sex shocks with startling but true Canadian facts.

Did you know, for example, that prostitution is not actually against the law in Canada?

As explained patiently in the film by attorney Clayton Ruby, Canadian bawdy house laws prohibit prostitutes from having a regular place to conduct business, among other astounding vagaries; the act of money exchanging hands for making whoopee is not illegal.

 

 

Our government does not condone prostitution, though it does acknowledge its existence: the film points out that sex-trade workers have their own category on the Canadian tax form.

"Isn't that amazing?" says Duncan, who previously took the Canadian health-care system to task in the documentary Medicare Schmedicare. "That might be one of the most staggering pieces of information in the entire program. On one hand the government is castigating the sex business, on the other hand sex workers are getting a tax number. It's pretty remarkable."

A fast flip through the back pages of some free newspapers is evidence the sex trade is booming here. The Business of Sex focuses on the biggest markets in B.C. and Ontario, which combined provide gainful employment for an estimated 20,000 sex workers, almost all women.

Less than 15 per cent are street hookers, which leaves the rest to work the safer, and more lucrative, field of private escorting. The escorts interviewed in the film instantly dispel any pre-existing notion of the trashy streetwalker.

"There are no stereotypes in the sex business today," Duncan says. "We expected to meet these bimbos with serious psychological issues, but the women we talked to were very reasonable. Just nice, intelligent women, getting through life their own way."

Women like Ironica Lamour (not her real name), who works as a private escort in Vancouver: The very normal-looking Lamour has been in the sex game five years and seems to enjoy it. Like most escorts today, she books the majority of her clients through her website. "The Internet is the new version of the pimp," says Duncan.

In a reenactment, Lamour details the accepted transaction ritual that takes place between escort and clients; the money is discreetly left in an envelope and then counted in the bathroom. A little chit-chat, and on with the deed.

The Web has also boosted the client list for Belle, who works as a private escort in the Niagara region (the single mother of four wears a gaudy mask to shield her face in the interview).

Belle charges $180 an hour and estimates she pulls in $180,000 a year turning tricks. Last year, mom's part-time job took the family to Disney World for 10 days.

Belle says she went into the business as a personal experiment, and specializes in middle-aged and elderly men. "Belle was quite emotional about what she does for a living," says Duncan. "She really believes she's providing an important service."

The program interviews one of Belle's regular customers, called Simon (not his real name). Simon also wears a mask, and alters his voice, very likely because he's an ordained minister. Known in the trade as a hobbyist, Simon is also married and estimates he spends around $10,000 a year on sex. And if the missus found out? "She would lynch me," he says.

For a different perspective on all this, the film visits Germany, where brothels are legal and apparently pull in more than 40 billion Euros each year. The cameras go inside Berlin's infamous Artemis brothel, a newly built sex palace where men pay 70 Euros to enter and walk around in bathrobes, then work out private deals with prostitutes. Mondays and Tuesdays are half-price days for cabbies and seniors.

A tacky business, to be sure, but prostitution presumably fills some sort of public need, and are casinos any classier? The film goes into the ongoing efforts of Canadian sex workers to establish legal brothels in this country. The arguments remain the same: Government-run brothels would provide a cleaner, safer environment for sex workers, and nobody would be standing under streetlights.

The film's most spirited pro-brothel proponent is Toronto lawyer and law professor Alan Young, who is mounting a challenge to the law prohibiting legal brothels. Young decries the current law as arbitrary, and says it does more harm to society than good.

"He makes a very good argument," says Duncan, whose production offices are situated in the middle of downtown Vancouver's notorious Eastside, where street hookers roam day and night.

"In making the film I've become a supporter of legalized brothels, just on the basis of safety. I wouldn't want any of my daughters to become hookers, but if they did, I'd want them to be safe."

[YoungStud 468]

I agree. The logic seemed muddled from time to time. They seemed to have a thesis they couldn't quite support with interview material, so there was much more weight on the narration to carry the POV, rather than having it evolve from the first person material. Robin Benger has been making docs for more than 25 years here in Canada. Usually he does a better job.

 

I was very disappointed.. it really only showed the negative aspects of porn. Several months ago on Oprah they mostly showed the positive including the fact that 25% of porn was now bought by women.

 

The end of it seemed to be mostly dedicated to a commercial for redlightcenter virtual meeting place.

 

One thing that really irked me was the statement that the reason people get addicted to porn is because they aren't satisifed by it.. does that mean that's why we eat every day???

[Carrie Moon 68826]

][/b]

Doc shocks with startling Canadian facts

 

Somehow Canadians can always find money for donuts - and sex.

But is paying for sex breaking the law? The Business of Sex (tonight at 10' date=' CTV) provides a primer on the current state of the sex trade in this country. Written and directed by veteran journalist Robert Duncan, the new documentary will likely shock some viewers, though not with scenes of gratuitous nudity or graphic sex talk - there's neither. Instead, [i']The [/i]Business of Sex shocks with startling but true Canadian facts.

Did you know, for example, that prostitution is not actually against the law in Canada?

 

Yes. I enjoyed this doc way more but even that was half-assed. It should have been much longer!

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

How did I forget to watch this? Does anyone know if it's online on the Mother Corp. in its entirety?

 

According to the CBC website, "Porndemic" is being rebroadcast tomorrow:

 

Saturday April 18, 2009 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld.

 

(and they'll probably put it online after that, since most of the Doc Zones are online.)

[A***** A***** 510]

According to the CBC website, "Porndemic" is being rebroadcast tomorrow:

 

Saturday April 18, 2009 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld.

 

(and they'll probably put it online after that, since most of the Doc Zones are online.)

 

Is that on the cbc newsworld channel, or the regular cbc? I missed it:roll:

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Is that on the cbc newsworld channel, or the regular cbc? I missed it:roll:

 

CBCNEWSWORLD this time:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/programguide/daily/2009/04/18/cbc_newsworld/