Why I stopped watching porn: Ran Gavrieli at TEDxJaffa

Ran Gavrieli lives in Tel Aviv and studies gender at Tel Aviv University. He works with youth and adults all over the country in sex and gender studies and in building positive self image in a world inundated by sexual imagery with negative connotations. Ran writes and lectures about emotional and physical safe sex; porn and porn-influenced cultural damages; gender and power relations; and sex and intimacy.

I stopped watching porn
for two reasons basically.

The first one was that

porn brought so much anger and violence
into my private fantasies.

And these were anger and violence that
were not there originally to begin with.

And I did not want it for me anymore.

This was not me and,
I decided to just put an end to it.

Easier said than done...
I got it later, but...

The second reason was
that I became to realize...

I came to realize that
only by watching porn

I take part in creating
a demand for filmed prostitution

because that's what porn really is:
filmed prostitution.

"Pornē" stands for prostitute,
"graphia" stands for documentation.

Prostitution was
nobody's childhood dream,

it is always a result
of trouble and distress.

Now, I became aware of that gradually,
when I was volunteering

with men and women in prostitution,
some of them victims of human traffic,

serving aid in brothels,
under the bridge and street corners.

But you don't really need to do all that
in order to understand

how this mechanism of porn
and prostitution works.

Because porn is a genre - it's not about
erotica or healthy sexual communication.

It's all about male domination of women,
subordinance of women.

Not only the sexual practice,
but as a way of being,

as a genderial hierarchy in this world.

If we would ask porn,

how does it define something as sexual?

What qualifies, what defines
something as sexual?

Porn would laugh in our face.

What defines sexual?
Whatever men find arousing...

Men find it arousing to choke a woman?

To have a brutal sex without one
touch, hug, kiss, tender caress?

Well then it is sexual.

It arouses men to see
a woman or child cry?

It is sexual.

It arouses men to rape a woman,
well, then it is sexual.

In every mainstream
porn gallery on the web,

we can find the rape category side by side
with the humiliation category,

abuse category, crime category and so on.

And this is all as if this regular porn
is not already filled with these motives.

Even in its mildest version,
the mildest version of porn,

what porn is showing us like,
I know, 80%, maybe 90% of the time

is actually sex with no hands involved.
This is not how we authentically desire...

Sorry, I'll repeat that, I see your look.
Sex with no hands involved... okay.

If you and I are not going
to give up watching porn

the next thing you do watch
just you just notice that

porn cameras have
no interest in capturing

any normal sensual activities
such as petting, caressing,

making out, touching,
hugging, kissing... No...

What porn cameras are into
is the penetration.

So normally the composition
will be a man and a woman,

hopefully just one, okay...
so, one man and one woman...

His penis is inside her.

It doesn't matter where inside.
Somewhere inside.

His penis is somewhere inside her,
okay?

And in order not to block the camera

for doing this extreme close up
on the penetration,

he's standing with his hands
behind his back most of the time.

And the woman is in this...
uncomfortable position

and she needs to handle
the penis inside her

without damaging the hair
or make up or look down on her

because that's money invested
and time invested in her.

Without disturbing his aggressive movement
and mainly without blocking the cameras.

So the result is that we got
two people having sex

different shapes and acrobatics
or something... but they're having sex

when the only body parts
that actually touch each other

are the penis
and the part being penetrated.

No hands involved.

I talked, I don't know, 250-300 times
a year, soldiers, students, pupils...

No one has ever come up to me and say

"Ran, you know that part
with sex with no hands thing

that was my authentic desire,
like when I was 11 or 12

I never wanted to kiss
or touch anybody.

I was not curious about that.
It was all the penetration to begin with."

No one has ever said that...
-- before porn.

After porn...

In my private fantasies
before watching porn,

there was always a very strong narrative

and the narrative was
of sensuality and mutuality.

Which means that I always imagined
what I would say to her?

What would she possibly answer?

What options do I have to respond?

In real life it never worked
like I planned,

but it was important in my mind
in term of arousal

the build up, the location,
the setting, where will it be?

What are the circumstances of me and her
being all alone all of a sudden.

How will this bodily inflaming between us
will emerge step by step?

It was super important
...before porn.

After making a habit out of porn...

it conquers your mind
and it invades your brain.

And I lost my ability to imagine.

Which mean I found myself...
and I won't be too explicit,

but trying to masturbate,
just closing my eyes

trying to fantasize desperately
about something human

and not making it
because my head was bombarded

with all of those images of women
being violated and subordinated

and forced into pretending they
enjoyed diabolic sperm rituals.

So, this is pretty much the result.

We are all vulnerable to pornography.
It's not just young people...

We should be very careful.

Not only what we put into our bodies
in term of food and nutrition...

But with the nutrition of our mind.

Everything we watch invades us.

I'll give you a short example
from non-sexual areas.

I came the other night,
I came back home

and my beloved one was watching
some cultural junk.

She was watching a karaoke show audition,
the one with chairs spinning.

We don't have a TV set back home,

but only because it allows us
to falsely present ourselves

as deep and profound people.
(laughter)

I've never heard of that.

Mastectomy who? Angelina?
No, we don't have a TV.

We watch every cultural
junk possible, okay?

Neither me, nor her,
contemplate about existence.

We download stuff.
And we download all cultural junk.

I am watching this 20 minutes
karaoke show.

And it was so boring and tedious.

Two minutes talking,
four minutes blabbering.

I lost patience after 20 minutes
and I went off to take a shower

and the most interesting
part was in the shower.

Because what I found out there
was myself in most pathetic state ever...

I'm going to share it with you.

I want to feel that you
accept and love me,

so I will share my most pathetic moment
and you have to accept it now.

I don't know until I got over myself
if it took me five, seven, ten minutes

to realize that I am standing
under the water in the shower

pondering severely what would've been
my song for the auditions?

Deep and profound, mind you!

I won't be doing
this Rihanna or Lady Gaga's.

I will be doing Mercedes Sosa's
Como Un Pájaro Libre.

I'll be doing a cover for
Bob Dylan's Blind Willie McTell.

Ain't that deep and profound?

I had to realize that I'm an idiot
because I have no talent for music.

More than that, I never wanted to be

neither a musician
nor a singer or songwriter.

This was never a part of my
inner world of wishes, okay?

But I'm a human being.
What can I do?

I was watching that for 20 minutes
It entered my brain for a while.

So if we take this example
we can try to estimate

the impact of 20 minutes
of watching no matter what,

how it invades our mind
and conquers our wantings and desires.

Let's just try to imagine or
I can share it with you orally

what is the impact
of 20 minutes of watching porn

once or twice a week,
nothing unmoderated.

It's overtaking.

And porn is in our household,
whether we want it or not

and I believe that it does not agree
with our well being.

Because we have internet

in the western world all over the place
almost in every cellular phone now

we've got 90% of 12 year-olds
watching porn on a regular basis.

And it has both an addictive effect
and a paralyzing effect.

It's addictive, because it develops
somewhat of a dependency on porn.

And paralyzing because,
mainly for young boys and men,

porn is teaching us that
as a man you are solely valued in sex

by having a large penis
and an eternal erection.

According to porn,
being a valuable sexual partner

does not relate with being
sensual, passionate, attentive,

generous, well-coordinated.
None of the above.

It is all about large penis
and eternal sunshine,

which we don't possess.

So boys become paralyzed.

And if they don't become
paralyzed by watching porn

very often they turn into imitators
of what they saw,

which then means
they become aggressors.

Aggressors,
even when emotion is involved.

There is so much sexual abuse
going on nowadays

within the confines of what
we perceive from the outside

as beautiful teenage love stories,
or healthy adult relationships.

Because we don't really
talk about sex

we just see it all over,
we don't really talk about it.

So, what goes on in the confines
of a certain room

but these are all sexual mutations
that happen.

If we talk about women,
it's not only that,

but young girls even get the message
not only from hardcore porn

but from a porn influenced
main stream culture.

Have you seen any Miley Cirus,
Lady Gaga video clips or commercials?

That's porn with clothes on.

So girls get this notion that
if you want to be worthy of love

first and foremost you have
to be worthy of sexual desire.

And now, the definition of sexual desire
almost equals: be like a porn star.

So I work in dozens and dozens
of high schools and junior highs.

In every single one
of these schools I find girls

that at a certain point agreed
to be documentedin an intimate situation

because they wanted to please some guy
that they had feelings for.

And this guy misappropriated their trust.
Always the same story.

So he sells it on WhatsApp application
or on the web, on the internet.

And normally nobody even
addresses him in terms of moral.

But it is always girls that suffer
from shaming and mortification.

They can change the school...
they drop out normally.

They can move to another city
and still be haunted on social networks.

They develop clinical depressions,
severe eating disorders,

as if we don't have enough reasons in
our culture to develop eating disorders.

They become so isolated socially.

So some of them - like Amanda Todd,
rest in peace... -

some of them actually commit suicide.

Because they find no more value
in life or in themselves.

So, porn is not only in our house.
It is a capital case.

It is not a minor phenomenon
in our society.

It is a question
of life and death sometimes.

It is mainly a question of life and death
for the people who participate in porn,

because porn is not an embodiment
of freedom of speech,

freedom of occupation, blah-blah... No.
It's an embodiment of sex-exploitation,

working side-by-side with human traffic
raping, pimping, solicitation.

For every one porn star
with a book contract

or a production company,

we've got hundreds of
thousands of women and girls

who do not survive out there.
Literally, they just don't make it.

The sex industry just chews them up
and spits them back

into brothels, into hooking in the street,

escorting, massage parlors
with happy or unhappy ending

depends who you ask.
And I am not joking.

This is the whole
spectrum of prostitution.

So many of them do not even
make it to the age of 50.

I am talking about countries
that the life expectancy

is at 75, 76 years now.

They don't make it to the age of 50.
4 reasons mainly.

Drugs, STD - Sexually
Transmitted Diseases

being murdered by a john,
a pimp, a boyfriend

and the fourth reason
is suicide once again.

Because if you are a prostitute,
on camera or off camera,

you are in the situation that
we can refer to as social death.

We have all sat on the dinner table

with people who probably
consumed prostitution

that have been to a brothel
once, twice at least.

We never sit down
to the table with a prostitute.

Not with a declared one.
So that's social death.

It is not glamorous. Not at all.

And when I sit in the privacy of my room
and watch porn, even without paying...

No need to pay, it's free.

I hope you know that,
if you're still consuming...

Whatever I am watching
is creating a demand.

And wherever there is a demand,
there will be a supply.

There is a correlation.

If I watch pornography of black,
older women,

somebody is going to go out
and pimp black older women.

Asian minors? Somebody is
already trafficking Asian minors

in order to film them.

Israeli women, Palestinian women
WASP, all American college girls.

It's a strong in the last few years
it's a very upcoming category.

The scum of the Earth
are already out there

trying to solicit and prostitute
these women on camera.

So, I stopped watching porn
for my personal well-being.

My intimate communication,
my private erotic life.

Reclaiming control
and responsibility over my mind.

But by doing that,

I actually stopped contributing
to this horrible sex industry.

That's a good thing to do,
I believe.

And I would really like
to propose that notion

of physically and emotionally-safe sex,
emotionally-safe sex.

It does not mean going back to be
conservative or unliberated sexually.

I am all for sexual freedom.

It just means that we need to put
genderial hierarchy aside,

subordinance aside.

And bring back in...
let's just say, "laughter"

as a critical method for intimacy.

Two souls, two humans,
two souls alone in private,

can they please have a laugh together?

Whether they know each other
for a decade or for an hour...

If two souls alone in a room
do not manage to have a laugh together,

what good could possibly grow there?
Sexual and non-sexual.

That's emotionally safe sex.

I've got so many things
I want to share with you

but I feel like my time
is almost up, so...

I just really want to ask for us
to speak about these issues more

because I strongly feel that our history
of silence never did us any good,

because silence
only perpetuates more silence,

when talking normally
gives birth to more talking,

more sharing, more identification,
more awareness, more change.

A small change,
we have a small humble life.

But a real change, a true one,
emotionally safer.

Thank you for listening.