Katlaughing wrote: "You can damn well bet there is some man, maybe more than one, who has encouraged this woman, maybe even coerced AND, in the matter of the surgeons, actually proceeded with the deformation of her body. Yes, she apparently wanted to do this, but why? If you think it was on her own with no input from others, particularly a man, maybe you should read Happy Hooker and see just how influential men can be. Women can be, also, but with something like this, there is almost always men involved".

I'm on record already in this thread as saying I've wanting to punch two men guilty of exploiting these women. I'm not keen on people exploiting others generally, even more so if women are coerced in some way to go to extremes of plastic surgery.

However, I'm not sure what you're saying is quite as true as it once was and whilst Happy Hooker probably reflected much of the reality of the porn industry the best part of 40 years ago, I think over the last 10 years or so, the nature of pornography has changed. Yes, the same kind of things are still being sold and in a lot of cases people are genuinely being exploited - often, but not always, by men but I honestly don't believe it's as cut and dried any more.

Whilst it's widely accepted that pornography has shaped the internet (it's been massively influential in driving a lot of technological advances) I think often it's missed that the internet and related technology has also shaped porn. A technological platform that's allowed and encouraged all manner of self-publishing has also allowed 'skin self-publishing' where people are now producing pornography that can cut out the traditionally exploiting middle-man, in much the same way that many musicians &c. utilise the platform.

Also, the WWW part of the internet exploded after various cultural trends broke in many parts of the world. The UK saw 'Ladettes' and 'Girl Power' for example. Britain now has a culture where glamour models are something to aspire to and have celebrity status. Now it could be argued as to whether any of this was as empowering as some of the women involved actually thought it to be, but the fact remains, many women are now getting naked not because some man is telling them to, but because 'they want to' and 'it's their body' and so on.

The last ten years or so has seen things like 'cam whores' appearing where women either strip or perform - of their own volition, with no exploiting middle-man - for things like items off 'wish lists' on commercial sites like Amazon or for payments directly into a paypal account &c. In these kinds of scenarios, it's hard to see who exactly is being exploited here, if anyone.

You've also seen trends in pornography that buck particular stereotypes as to what women and women in pornography should look like. Whilst there are still a lot of women that feel pressured to look certain ways in order to sell 'product' - and often get plastic surgery in order to do so - the truth is the market for pornography is so diverse now that a woman with any kind of look, fashion or bodyshape could find a market to suit: it's not just women with freakishly big plastic tits or women who look like Barbie dolls.

I'll admit that a lot of what I've mentioned here I really don't understand in that I'm not wholly comfortable with or don't actually agree with. For example, whilst if a woman wanted to become a glamour model, I've never looked down on it I struggle with the idea that society has allowed it to become a good thing in that it's something to aspire to rather than, say, a doctor/nurse/teacher &c. I'm not comfortable with young girls and teenagers having appropriated iconography like the Playboy logo, for example which I've seen on the clothing of pre-teen kids before now.

However, as much as I don't like these things, perhaps I've got to admit that, in 2009, I'm one of those out of step now. I don't know!