Pornography has never been more acceptable

In other words, it has taken the market

so long to catch up with the zeitgeist

that it shows an inverse curve,

only this century registering a discussion

that has been raging for the whole of the last

Feminist protest against porn

has its own grey areas to wrestle over.

The rhetoric of objectification

relies on the idea that it's one-way traffic,

that only men objectify,

and only women are objectified

So, say women do objectify men

to the same degree, on the same grounds

as they themselves are objectified

How degrading is porn, then, and for whom?

Feminists claim the problem has always been male sexuality

Ha, if it wasn't for male sexuality none of us would be here.

They haven't worked out how to grow babies in vats just yet. The naked female form excites most men, always has and always will.

The naked female form during sex is even more exciting. This is why there is a market for porn, just like why there is a market for fast cars and expensive technology, it excites men.

Of course it excites some women as well but it's mainly men. Now unless you want to neuter men's desires for the opposite (or same) sex then you will not get rid of porn.

So stop moralising and accept sex as a necessary part of human nature and porn as an expression of that.

Oh and of course porn objectifies women. Most men do anyway. It's the difference between a one night stand and a relationship.

The latter is about finding the personality behind the object.

Yes I'm being deliberately provocative but honest too.

A Woman Responds

Surely I'm not the only woman who likes to watch a bit of porn, who finds the visual imagery arousing (yes we are visual too) and who finds that my partner is not made less imaginative, nor is our sex life made more boring by this.

Some of our practices are borne of our own imaginations, some ideas we get from mags and movies watched while having some good clean adult fun.

I have no qualms about going to a sex shop on my own and picking up some new toys or images to bring home when we're planning a "quiet" night in.

I do not feel less feminine or intellectually evolved because I like to watch human beings copulating. It is a human imperative and it turns me on greatly to watch other people doing it.

In fact the only kind of porn that I without question find offensive, is the soft porn stuff that doesn't feature actual sex (which is natural and makes perfect sense) and only features lone women holding open gaping vaginas.

And this is the stuff teenage boys are most likely to start with, which I believe is much more damaging that the idea that sex involves people pleasuring each other, not woman displaying themselves for men--that is real objectification.

If I had to spend a night in a hotel with porn channels and was unfortunate enough not to have brought a good book, as an intelligent, feminine, beautiful, confident, sexual woman, hell I'd be watching the porn, of course I would.

Anti-Porn Rhetoric Is So Conservative

I didn't know the Travelodge chain was known for its plentiful porn, but then I guess I'm not its core clientele, since as a lady I am filed under "family".

The chain, anyway, has decided to axe its pay-per-view channels, in a bid to make the hotels more family friendly.

Apparently it will cost the company millions in lost revenue, but it is thought to have weighed this against all the crystal meth, sorry, knitting patterns it'll flog to the new influx of mothers, and decided it was worth it.

The family "leisure" segment now accounts for 70% of Travelodge custom, having doubled since 2003.

It's the business share that watched the rude stuff, apparently - so even if the business travellers were all men, and this seems like a rash assumption in an age when women filch jobs even outside the arena of pornography, the men still don't dominate to the degree that their televisual preferences would automatically take precedence.

So, from a business point of view, this decision is pretty straightforward. From a cultural point of view, it's decades too late.

There probably hasn't been a time in history, no pause for breath in the segue from patriarchal considerations of decency to a feminist crusade against objectification, when pornography has been considered as acceptable as it is now.

Did lad culture make it funny? Does objecting to porn mean you have no sense of humour? At what point does it cease to be ironic?

If the irony is in the mindset of the beholder, does that make it a thought crime (you are not appreciating it ironically enough), and if so, is protest dated, insanely authoritarian, to the point of being meaningless?

Feminist remonstration has its own grey areas to wrestle over. The rhetoric of objectification relies on the idea that it's one-way traffic, that only men objectify, and only women are objectified.

Before you even consider where this leaves homosexuality, you can only accept this model if you take as a starting point that women have no physical imperative - or if they do, it's an imperative for cuddles - and while there is an alarming number of people calling themselves feminists who persist with such ideas, this area is at least now open to debate.

So, say women do objectify men to the same degree, on the same grounds as they themselves are objectified. How degrading is porn, then, and for whom?

Besides which, we can't ignore the way the mainstream has embraced pornographers themselves; the fact that the most despised aspect of a man like Richard Desmond is now his personality.

Suffice it to say, a discussion about the flaws of the business is mainly now about working conditions - are the participants willing, are they paid properly, does the taboo around the industry leave them unprotected by industrial standards?

The discussions are no longer about the ethics of the business itself. That's where the cultural curve is now.

Pornography has never been more acceptable. In other words, it has taken the market so long to catch up with the zeitgeist that it shows an inverse curve, only this century registering a discussion that has been raging for the whole of the last.

In its scramble for bland conformity, Travelodge has been so slow that it is actually swimming in the opposite direction. How delightfully ironic. If it were a lady, you could dress it in crotchless undercrackers and put it on the cover of Loaded.

People always present the market as without prejudice - the purity of its money imperative freeing it from bigotry.

There's a tacit credit given to capitalism as the real engine of beneficial social change, because in a cash nexus, gender and race fall silent and only cash speaks.

Who'd have thought you'd find the truth in a Travelodge, but here it is: the market is not unprejudiced.

It is incredibly conservative. And incredibly slow. And if it ever turns out to be on the side of right, it is probably by accident.

Zoe Williams @ CIF