Scarlett Johansson: 'Porn can be productive to women'
The actress said porn can be beneficial to relationships
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Scarlett Johansson has spoken in favour of women enjoying porn, claiming it can be “productive for both men and women”.
Speaking ahead of her latest film, Don Jon, about a porn-obsessive, Johansson said she would be “flabbergasted” to discover her boyfriend was addicted to porn, but did not think it was bad thing.
She told Marie Claire: “I’m sure I should have some very well-developed view on [porn’s] effect on society, the ethics behind it and how it affects the kind of relationship between men and women and how it objectifies women. But I don’t really think about it.”
She added she thought porn might help both partners be less self-conscious about sex and satisfy some curiosity: “I think porn, like anything else, can be enjoyed. It can be productive for both men and women.”
The film, which sees Johansson play the love interest to Joesph Gordon-Levitt’s porn-obsessive character, is one of the latest movies to explore sex obsession and the porn industry, following this year’s Lovelace, and 2011’s Shame.
Speaking about her attitude towards porn, Amanda Seyfried, who starred in Lovelace as renown porn star Linda Lovelace, said she thought women "should be free to watch it and make it".
She said: “I think there’ still are a lot of people being objectified, a lot of people involved who don’t want to be. But there’s a lot of porn being made for women, written by women.
“It’s great, it’ self expression, people should be free to watch it and make it it’s just how it’s depicted.
"Sex shouldn’t be depicted as something that’s so terrifying. And the access to it is scary and there are a lot of fetishes, but each to his own. I can’t judge porn.”
Don Jon is released in cinemas on Friday 15 November.
The full interview with Scarlett Johansson features in the December issue of Marie Claire, out now.
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