Olivia: Okay, Jackson. Five-word review of this book. Jackson: Wow. Everything is a product. Olivia: Mine: "Your sexuality has been outsourced." Jackson: Oof. That hits hard. And that's exactly what we're getting into today. It feels like we're talking about something that's supposed to be deeply personal, but has been completely co-opted. Olivia: Precisely. Today we’re diving into Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality by Gail Dines. And Dines isn't just an author; she's a professor emerita of sociology and a radical feminist who has been researching this industry for over twenty years. She’s even gone undercover to porn conventions to understand it from the inside. Jackson: Undercover at a porn convention? That's some serious dedication. It tells you she’s not just theorizing from an ivory tower. Olivia: Exactly. And her core argument frames this not as a moral issue, but as a public health crisis. Jackson: A public health crisis? That's a heavy claim. I think for most people, the idea of porn started with something that seemed way more… tame. Like those old magazines tucked away in a drawer somewhere. How did we get from that to a public health crisis?

Olivia: That's the perfect question, because Dines argues it was a deliberate, industrial process. It started with magazines like Playboy. Hugh Hefner was a genius, but not just at selling naked pictures. He was selling a lifestyle. In the post-war 1950s, he targeted upwardly mobile men who felt trapped by the pressure to get married and live a quiet suburban life. Jackson: Right, the whole "Playboy Philosophy." It was about the cool apartment, the fancy stereo, the right cocktail, and oh, by the way, the women who came with it. It was aspirational. Olivia: It was. And by wrapping the pornography in this sophisticated, consumerist package, he made it "tasteful." He got mainstream advertisers and distribution. He built an empire with a monthly circulation that hit over 4.5 million at its peak. But then came the competition. Jackson: The magazine wars. I feel like I've heard about this. Olivia: It was a classic market battle. In the late 60s, Bob Guccione launched Penthouse. His strategy was simple: be more explicit than Playboy. He showed pubic hair, which was a huge deal at the time. Playboy resisted, focusing on their "girl next door" look, but Penthouse's circulation soared. Jackson: So it was a race to the bottom, basically? Or a race to more explicitness, anyway. Olivia: Exactly. Hefner eventually caved, and the two magazines went back and forth, pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable in mainstream print. But then came the real disruptor: Larry Flynt and Hustler magazine in 1974. Jackson: Ah, Hustler. That one had a very different reputation. It wasn't about being tasteful at all. Olivia: Not in the slightest. Flynt's whole brand was being tasteless. He famously said, "Anyone can be a playboy and have a penthouse, but it takes a man to be a Hustler." He targeted working-class men who couldn't afford the Playboy lifestyle. His magazine was no-frills, hardcore, and often featured cartoons with shocking themes like torture and murder. Jackson: That sounds incredibly dark. But did it work? Olivia: It was a massive success. Within four years, Hustler had a circulation of over 3 million and was making millions in profit. Dines' point is that this competition between the three giants—Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler—eroded the cultural, legal, and economic barriers. They groomed the American public to accept increasingly hardcore content. Jackson: So they created the market. They built the roads, so to speak, for what was coming next. Olivia: They built the roads, the distribution networks, and the legal precedents. And they showed that porn could be big business. Dines points out how these companies became deeply integrated with mainstream corporations. We're talking major cable providers, hotel chains like Marriott, and even Rupert Murdoch's media empire profiting handsomely from selling hardcore films. It moved from the backstreet to Wall Street. Jackson: It's fascinating how it all started with this idea of a sophisticated lifestyle and ended up as this raw, industrial machine. But even with magazines and hotel pay-per-view, it feels like a different universe from today. The internet must have been the real game-changer. How did the industry go from being in magazines to being… everywhere? How did it become 'cool'?

Olivia: That's the next critical step in the hijacking. Dines calls it the "pornification" of culture. The internet made porn infinitely accessible, but the industry still had an image problem. It was seen as "dirty." So, they launched a brilliant PR campaign to sanitize it. Jackson: Sanitize it? How do you sanitize something that is, by its nature, explicit? Olivia: You rebrand it. You strip away the "dirt" and reconstitute it as fun, edgy, chic, and even empowering. Dines uses the case study of Girls Gone Wild to show how this worked perfectly. Joe Francis, the creator, didn't market it as pornography. He marketed it as spontaneous, reality-TV-style fun. Jackson: I remember those commercials. It was always spring break, parties on the beach, and it was framed as girls just letting loose and having a good time. It felt like a cultural phenomenon, not a porn product. Olivia: And that was the genius of it. Dines describes how the GGW teams would create a party atmosphere, use peer pressure, and flatter young women into performing for the camera. The company's president even said GGW was a "socially acceptable adult product" because it seemed "very innocent." But Dines points out that these videos were then sold on hardcore porn sites, and many of the women involved suffered immense shame and trauma. It was exploitation packaged as entertainment. Jackson: It blurred the lines completely. And I guess the rise of porn stars as mainstream celebrities was part of that too. Olivia: Absolutely. Jenna Jameson is the prime example. She was the first porn star to become a household name. She wrote a bestselling autobiography, appeared on talk shows, and had advertising deals. The media presented a sanitized version of her story, focusing on the glamour and success. Jackson: But a lot of people, especially women at the time, saw figures like her or even shows like Sex and the City as empowering, right? A form of sexual freedom? Olivia: Dines tackles that argument head-on. She says that this idea of "empowerment" is the industry's most successful marketing trick. She quotes Jenna Jameson herself describing the brutal reality for most women entering the industry: they start in "gonzo" films, in a "crappy studio apartment... penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her name is Bitch." They go home and pledge never to do it again, but the tape is out there forever. Jackson: Wow. That's a world away from the glamorous image. So the "empowerment" narrative is a facade to hide a much darker reality. Olivia: According to Dines, it's a new twist on a very old theme. It's a hypersexuality that is still defined by men, for men, but sold back to women as their own choice. It's not genuine liberation; it's a pre-packaged, commercialized version of it. Jackson: That idea of it being a package sold to us is powerful. It suggests that these images and ideas don't just stay on the screen. They must affect how people think and act in the real world. Olivia: And that brings us to the most controversial, and perhaps most important, part of Dines' argument: the claim that these images don't just stay on the screen. They leak.

Jackson: Okay, this is the part where I think a lot of people would push back. The classic defense is, "It's just fantasy." People can tell the difference between what they see in porn and real life, can't they? Olivia: That's the central debate, and Dines argues that the "it's just fantasy" defense is dangerously naive. She calls it the "leaky images" effect. The idea is that the cumulative exposure to the narratives and themes in porn—especially the modern, extreme kind—shapes a user's entire worldview about sex, gender, and relationships. It's not one image that does it; it's the constant drip, drip, drip of a system of images. Jackson: So it's less about someone trying to directly copy a scene and more about it subtly changing their expectations of what sex is, what women want, what men are supposed to be like? Olivia: Exactly. It creates a sexual script. And Dines provides a chillingly real-world example of this. She was giving a lecture to a group of female college students and asked them about the trend of getting a full Brazilian wax. At first, the women were all enthusiastic, saying it was their choice, it made them feel "clean" and "hot." Jackson: I can picture that conversation. It sounds like a typical discussion about beauty standards. Olivia: It did, until one student quietly admitted that her boyfriend had complained when she thought about letting her hair grow back. And then the floodgates opened. Another said her boyfriend refused to have sex with her unless she was waxed. Another got a waxing kit from her boyfriend for Valentine's Day. Jackson: Oh, wow. So what started as a declaration of "my body, my choice" was revealed to be rooted in pressure from partners whose expectations were shaped by... Olivia: By a porn aesthetic where women are almost universally hairless, toned, and look like they've stepped out of a specific mold. The "choice" wasn't as free as they thought. The images had leaked from the screen into their most intimate relationships and even their own self-perception. Jackson: That's a chilling story because it feels so real. It's not about a direct, simplistic cause-and-effect like 'watch porn, commit a crime,' which is what the debate always gets stuck on. It's about something more subtle, like changing the very air we breathe. Olivia: That's the core of it. Dines argues that porn culture normalizes the dehumanization of women. It teaches that sex is about performance, not intimacy; that women enjoy degradation; and that men are entitled to a certain kind of sexual experience. These aren't just fantasies; they are powerful lessons being encoded into our culture, especially for young boys, for whom porn is often their primary sex education. Jackson: And when you frame it that way, you can see why she calls it a public health issue. It's affecting how an entire generation understands intimacy and consent. It's a massive, uncontrolled social experiment.

Olivia: It is. So we've traced this journey from a "tasteful" lifestyle magazine in the 1950s to a multi-billion dollar global industry that now provides the default sexual script for millions of people. Dines' ultimate argument is that this isn't sexual liberation; it's the industrialization of intimacy. Our sexuality has been hijacked, commodified, and sold back to us in a form that is often violent, misogynistic, and profoundly lonely. Jackson: It's a bleak picture. So what can we even do? It feels so massive and pervasive. Olivia: Dines is actually hopeful, but she's not naive. She says the solution isn't simple, but it starts with breaking the silence. Her final call to action is for a movement—a cultural conversation—that is fierce in its critique of sexual exploitation and determined to fight for what is rightfully ours. Jackson: What does she mean by "ours"? Olivia: An authentic sexuality. One that isn't produced in a studio and streamed to a laptop. One that's based on real connection, respect, and mutual pleasure. She ends the book with a powerful line: it’s about time we "wrested it back." Jackson: "Wrested it back." That's a powerful and challenging idea. It’s not about banning things, but about actively creating a healthier culture. It makes you think about what conversations we're not having with our friends, our partners, our kids. Olivia: And that's the starting point. It's a huge topic, and we've only scratched the surface. Jackson: We'd love to hear what you think. Does this resonate with your experiences? Is the "leaky images" idea something you've seen in your own life? Find us on our socials and let's continue the conversation. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.