Do you get to chose what degrades you?

Good question!

For the most part, I would say it is up to the individual person that is doing the porn. Some may like it now, and be ok with it. But I think the real question of feeling degraded will come in 10 or 20 years for now, if the person has any regrets or sees things differently, after the end of the porn career comes, and what they think then- do they have any regrets, or anything like that,

The passage of time has a way of changing our opinions & feelings on a lot of situations that we see one way today that may have a different impact on our life in the future.

I do not think it's a choice but I do think there is a strong individual component to it. The concept of "degradation" has both objective and a subjective aspects to it: there is the idea a certain act, experience, portrayal, or treatment would be degrading to anyone - or at least to anyone within a particular cultural milieu. And there is the idea of "feeling degraded".

People don't choose to feel degraded but it is nevertheless an individual thing: one person may feel degraded where another would not. This is no more voluntary than embarrassment - a somewhat related feeling. But, like embarrassment, people vary in their responses.

Our idea of degradation has aspects that are more or less universal, aspects of human nature, as well as aspects that are very culture bound. A Muslim might find something degrading that a Japanese would not. A 20th century American woman might feel degraded by things a woman in Colonial America would not, AND vice versa.

Many women in porn will deny being degraded by it, although it serves to provide them with a living even though its a health risk in many instances for them.

A good proportion of sex workers were sexually assaulted as young children or raped or molested before they were ten or so years old. So, is this choice that women and men make to work in the sex trade a full and free choice? No, its not.

Given other options, education, they would choose the other options. People who say they love to work in the porn industry are not only in denial, they lie to themselves. It's often to support a drug or other substance abuse problem, or in a situation where the person believes that the only asset they have is their body.

If for whatever reason someone comes to *expect* degrading treatment from another person(s) then they may become desensitized but it doesn't mean the treatment ceases to be degrading.

As to the specifics of making porn or dancing/prostitution I can't comment very much because it's a judgment call but suffice to say I am sure the idea of degradation is wrapped up in her feelings about herself as well as the intentions of those around her (good or bad/protective or exploitative).

My sister in law found bartending degrading whereas I didn't. So sometimes it is subjective though not necessarily a choice though I am sure we can *work* on what we feel degraded by and I think every (wo)man has his price.

My mum has been in porn for few years. Firstly, it's all for living indeed. But after earning heaps of money, she said she could not stop the scenes as she really enjoyed different sex with different men/women. The weird and pervert scene turned her on. Whether she degrade herself or being degraded by others, all these made her very involved.Sometimes, when she did rape scenes, being fxxked rudely can let her come many times during the scene; when she did the gangband, she's feeling herself a evil animal to be finished by many shoots. She enjoyed that feeling which would not be experienced in the real-life. She also told us the hornnny and sluttty bitttch be her job to provide pleasure....never be our nice mum at home!!!

While I like very much the equal concern being expressed toward men in this usually double-standardized issue, I do have to agree somewhat with the sex-negative feminists as far as certain porn being ethically questionable on the grounds of exploitation.

The issue for me is that some 'choice' isn't really much choice at all. The obvious analogy is sweatshop labor: while workers in a sweatshop economy do usually have the choice not to work in the sweatshops, generally they're only really given the choice between a rock and a hard place (e.g. work in horrible conditions at location A, work in differently horrible conditions at place B, or just don't work and starve). And in many places (not so much in the US and similar economies), women who work in porn do so out of lack of reasonable alternatives.

So while I think an American woman (or, say, a Canadian woman, or British woman, or Japanese woman) who works in the sex industry has very little to complain about in terms of exploitation, when we start looking at porn coming from more severe economies, we have to start thinking seriously about the ethics of the stuff, and how much real choice the actors had as far as finding other lines of work.

It's definitely a matter of opinion. Lets take another example to avoid the morality issue. Farm work. Some people would consider manual labor beneath them and feel degraded if they had to do it. Others would feel it's a good honest days work and might even look down on people who work behind a desk all day.

It Only Degrades Them if They feel degraded. If they're strong willed enough to do internet-movie porn. Then other peoples opinions shouldn't matter and they are the ones making bank.

Yes, you do. The generalisation that "porn degrades women" is hyperbolic sensationalism. Having said that, however, some makers of porn degrade some women, but this is not representative of the main stream industry.

Working in sex industry is a personal choice every one of them makes for themselves. So, if she did make that choice at some point of her life, she must have felt comfortable with it. And if she had changed her mind about being comfortable about it, she can always quit and change her occupation. Now, job does not define any individual, our character does. So, taking cheap shots at people you don't know is the most hypocritical preoccupation of painfully inhibited and conservative lovers. The real reason for their resentment and disgust of porn industry workers is that these people look a lot better than they ever could and they actually take pleasure in sexual activities they participate in. How dare they break all the rules? Who do they think they are?