Gail Dines

 ( 1958 Births ) 

The author of two books, including Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked our Sexuality (2010), Dines has also written for a variety of journals and newspapers, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, and The Guardian. She is a founding member of Stop Porn Culture, co-founder of the National Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement, and founder of Culture Reframed, which aims to have pornography recognized as a public health crisis.

Dines's view of pornography is that it distorts men's view of sexuality, and makes it more difficult for them to establish intimate relationships with women. The violence and cruelty found in modern pornography is unlike earlier forms of soft-core pornography with which the general public may be familiar, Dines writes, and it degrades the position of women in society. She also views the prevalence of hardcore pornography as a contributing factor in increasing "demand" for sex trafficking.

In February 2011, Dines was invited, with fellow anti-pornography activist Shelley Lubben, to debate Anna Span, a pornographic film director, at the Cambridge Union, when it proposed the motion: "This house believes that pornography does a good public service." Dines did not sway the house, which decided 231 in favour to 187 against, with 197 abstentions. Dines said her opponents won because the chamber consisted mostly of "18–22 year old males who are using pornography on a regular basis".

Dines expressed opposition to the academic journal Porn Studies when it was founded, arguing that the "editors come from a pro-porn background where they deny the tons and tons of research that has been done into the negative effects of porn," and that they're "cheerleaders" for the porn industry.

Robert Jensen reviewed the book favorably, saying it describes how "porn culture has been a setback to gender justice" and that while "the worst racist stereotypes have been eliminated from mainstream movies and television, they flourish in pornography". Robert Muller in Psychology Today says that her historical survey of the porn business is well researched, but that her connecting pseudo child pornography and actual child molesting in particular uses bad research, and concludes "Despite a bent toward sensationalism, the book will help female and male readers question their beliefs about sex and also question where those beliefs come from."

In 2007, Dines wrote an article about media sensationalism related to the Duke lacrosse case after appearing on a CNN interview. After receiving vulgar hate mail, Dines addressed the media's failure to appreciate the complexity of sexism and racism in the case, writing, "This obsessive focus on the woman is not particular to this case; routinely the media focus on the women victims, with a certain prurient interest. Instead, we should put some of the focus back on the men in this case, as we know much about their behavior that night that is not under dispute. They saw the hiring of two black women to strip as a legitimate form of male entertainment. They didn't see the commodifying and sexualizing of black women's bodies as problematic in a country that has a long and ugly history of racism." Writer Cathy Young criticized Dines' comments in an op-ed piece for Reason Magazine suggesting there existed a double standard, i.e. that "the same feminists who rightly tell us that a rape victim should not have to be an angel to deserve support apply such a different standard to men who may be falsely accused of rape".

"Dines’s words describing these men worryingly echo the justification that Elliot Rodger gave for his killing spree and the discursive patterns found in the analysis of r/incels."