Last night was both relieving and difficult and it would have been just relieving had I not watched that damned Diane Sawyer special on TV. I've had problems with porn almost the entire time we�ve been together and a big part of my dislike for the industry is just how much it victimizes women. It is because of these problems that I will not allow it in my house. It's something I will not change my mind about or turn a blind eye towards. These �filmmakers� send the cast to Prague so they can avoid the laws in this country and pay the �actresses� a flat fee. Said flat fee is just a miniscule fraction of what the movie will eventually bring in and what�s paid out is not nearly enough to make up for the abuses the �actresses� suffer.

There is no job in the world that pays enough to compensate for the employee�s having to dissociate from the situation. These poor women have names for it: the other half, leaving oneself, etc. In order to shield themselves from the trauma they�re experiencing, they have to mentally place themselves somewhere else. What�s worse is that often these women are victims of various childhood abuses, from molestation to incest and back again and the lure of the industry is the money. They figure they�ve been abused all their lives and they hate themselves to begin with, so why not get paid for the abuse and self-loathing?

I have issues with the eroticisation of a single, plastic body type that is unrealistic for real women to live up to. I don�t know a single woman who looks like a porn star. Actually, I don�t know a single woman who looks like a model or actress in mainstream media. This doesn�t mean that these women are not gorgeous, because they are. They�re women. Not tiny, hairless, breastless, children. Women have breasts, hips, bottoms, stomachs, thighs, everything that makes us sexy and worthy of worship right down to the cellulite. Showing men image after image of Barbieporngirl leads them to believe that the girls they are with are less than perfect, when it�s precisely the opposite. Barbieporngirl gets implants because she thinks her breasts are too small; she dyes her hair because she thinks it�s the wrong color; she cakes on cosmetics because she thinks she is ugly and she does these things because the industry relies on fantasy. Barbieporngirl has no right to be the ideal.

I do. I�m so smart it�s frightening; I�m wise, logical, friendly, and loving. These are all things that Barbieporngirl never has the chance to develop because she�s too busy worrying that her babysitter/uncle/neighbor is going to come in and violate her tiny defenseless body. Barbieporngirl does have the right to be safe in her own body, to respect it and love it and know that it�s hers.

Personally, I think that in order to stop the victimization of women and the erotcising of children we have to start teaching girls that they can be whatever they want to be and that they own their own wonderful bodies. That little bit of chub makes them individual and no less gorgeous than the little girl who resembles a stick. We need to teach girls to value themselves as individuals and not as objects worthy of abuse. Boys need to be taught to not only respect and value themselves, but also to respect and value girls. Boys need to be taught that violence isn�t going to fly, neither is sexual harassment and abuse and girls need to be taught not to let these things fly, to fight back and to let their voices be heard.