The following was originally posted to my blog .
I just finished reading a book about pornography, and how it affects our culture, which I read while alternately sneering in disgust and nodding my head rapturously. Pornified, How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families, authored by Pamela Paul, was a book that raised as many valid points as it did absurd. I strongly urge anyone with either an anti or pro pornography viewpoint to check this one out, as it is intriguing and at least somewhat informative for both sides.Published in 2005, Pornified is a book I am a bit late to read, but the points and questions raised are still fully valid, especially as Internet porn usage has only increased in years since. From 2005 to 2006, Internet porn revenue jumped from 2.5 billion to 2.84 billion. Normally 0.34 is not significant, but when you are discussing 34/100ths of a billion, it sure the fuck is.
Initially, I was quite disdainful of what Ms. Pamela Paul had to say. It is difficult to expect an author to be open minded about their topic when page one recounts her defensiveness to others who learned what she was researching. It is also more than apparent that the true testimonials about the negative impact of porn were cherry picked to align with her views against porn. Pages and pages of men with sexual issues, anger towards women, and addictive personalities lamented their sexual perversions, all blamed on Internet porn, interspersed by depressed and rejected wives telling the reader how all of the men they date have pornography addictions, oh the epidemic! I am walking counter argument for these people. As noted several posts earlier, I have dated quite a few people. Since my first unofficial, unauthorized dates at fourteen, until just over a year ago when I finally settled down for a while, I have dated many different men and boys, from all walks of life. I have dated the preppy boys from 'good' families, and the stoner boys who were in and out of foster homes and juvenile detention centers. I have dated the stereotypical womanizing band guys, and I have dated the quintessential nice guys. I have been friends with an even broader spectrum of men. Somehow, I have had the miraculous fortune to never encounter men like the ones featured in Pornified. Perhaps it is just luck, or maybe I have an innate, yet subconscious adverseness to such qualities, but statistically, if everything Paul seems to believe is accurate, it seems I should have encountered it somewhere among the hundreds of guys that I have known (Clarification: "Known" does not denote the biblical definition.). No, it seems to me that Paul chose the worst case scenarios, and chose to ignore the men who enjoy pornography in moderation, and not as a supplement, nor as a replacement, but as just an 'extra', of sorts. Paul seems loathe to consider that these people whom have such dark and harrowing tales to tell about pornography are perhaps people with already existing behavioral or social issues, and that these continuously jilted wives and girlfriends may just be women who are a poor gauge of character. Certainly porn can exacerbate the problems of these people, whom are already prone to succumbing to addiction and control issues, to exhibiting anti-social or hateful behavior, and so on, but it's one of those things where the root is the real problem, regardless of how it manifests itself.
I also noticed a distinct amount of sexism and double standards coming from Paul. The women/wives/girlfriends that she spoke to who tolerated their man's/men's porn viewing habits, or, *gasp*, actually had the nerve to say that they too enjoyed watching porn, were quickly discredited by Paul, who repeatedly states that these women are only trying too hard to be "open-minded", "sexy", and "forward thinking". This just irritates the shit out of me. As a woman who fully enjoys pornography, often more than my boyfriend, I can fully assure Ms. Paul that women are fully capable of enjoying porn without some ulterior motive to be seen as "cool" or "edgy". There are no references to women experiencing issues with pornography addictions, either. It's as if us sweet little women, as hard as we may try to be enticing to men through feigning an interest in pornography, could never actually like it enough for it to become an addiction, the way all of those naturally dirty, sexual, virile men do. Ugh. I would have liked to hear more on the subject of women experiencing pornography addiction, sexual deviation as a result of pornography, and so on. Paul didn't dip in to this arena at all, however.
Pornified was not entirely an exercise of self-inflicted disgust, however. The statistics and questions raised spurred conversation and debate between my boyfriend and I, teaching the both of us a bit about the other's reason for enjoying certain pornographic situations or fantasies. It was extremely intriguing to learn just how prominent some numbers for pornographic viewers were, despite the fact that Paul's most oft cited survey came from a survey that was largely based on responses from Elle, readers.... :-/
I think that the the most valid discussion about pornography being detrimental to our society came when Pamela Paul discussed the potential, and still largely unknown, effects of hardcore, kinky porn being viewed by young and impressionable children. While children of past decades may have stumbled upon Playboy at age nine or so, it's really just pictures of attractive naked women. It is possible that this encouraged some unrealistic expectations for women, the ease at which children today can find a huge quantity of video depicting everything from child porn to heavy S&M, to rape, to bestiality is extremely concerning. I don't thing it takes someone with a degree in child development and psychology to realize how potentially harmful such images can be to a young child. I also found Paul's opinions on the slippery slope to child pornography being aided by the range and quantity easily available to anyone with a computer and a Quest account. What starts out as barely legal school girls, and progresses to eighteen year-olds posturing as fourteen year-olds, which then leads to actual fourteen year-olds...It's a slippery slope that many would not pursue if they had to be public about their predilections. Looking at kiddie porn online is so much more simple and anonymous than having to ask for it at a sleazy video store. The sense of community and belonging that can be found among various online child porn aficionados and their groups and forums alleviates the sense of perversion and aloneness in that perversion...
Anyhow, I would love to hear your thoughts on pornography, how it impacts society in either a negative or positive way, and what your views on that sort of thing are. Also, if you are interested, check out Pamela Paul's book, as well.
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Thanks for the heads up, I look forward to reading this book! I just finished reading "America's War on Sex" by Marty Klein, who is a licensed sex therapist, and I was delighted with it. It raises some great questions about how our society deals with sexuality morally, legally, and in many other aspects of life. I have to say it is a bit left-leaning in its approach, but I'm a liberal person, and I tended to agree with many of the conclusions the author has drawn. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in a different take on the influence of porn on society and indviduals.
As part of the first generation to grow up with internet access in adolescence, and I always found the "young and impressionable children" defense in the name of censoring pornography as a bit silly. I was 11 or 12 when I first discovered porn on the web, and somehow, my young and impressionable mind managed to take it in without my head exploding (although i did spend lots of time on great health sites like GoAskAlice.com, which made understanding the things I saw alot easier) If kids want to find crazy, kinky S&M porn, they probably can; but whether we like it or not, kids are sexual beings as well. Maybe finding something like that would give them the reassurance that the desires they have aren't completely abnormal, and serves as an outlet to learn more about their sexual interests. (I am not saying all kids should have access to porn, nor should they be exposed to it before they are capable of understanding it. But if a 7-year old kid is exposed to porn, I can't help but wonder why the parent isn't monitoring their child's internet usage in the first place.) We always like to think of "the children" as this external helpless group who we need to watch out for, but I always feel the need to remind people that we were all kids at one time too, and we were all curious about sex in one way or another!
I can understand the slippery slope argument, especially when it comes to child pornography viewed by adults. I do not find it appropriate, and neither does our government, but the proportion of real, illegal child porn is quite a small percentage of porn available on the internet. My problem with it is that the "slippery slope" serves as a theory to censor what we are allowed to see as consenting adults. If a male (or female) likes looking at grown women in schoolgirl outfits, that doesn't mean the next logical step would be to look for actual prepubescent schoolgirls. It's the same argument people use against gay marriage, "First it's two men or two women, then its a man and a goat or a woman and her cat...it's a slippery slope." I think we can all agree that's absurd in this context, but yet we accept it when it comes to sex or pornography, whether it can be proven true or not. I think there is a lot of misinformation out there, as well as a serious lack of real scientific study of pornography. (Which is why I'm pursuing a career advocating the study of human sexuality!)
From a personal standpoint, porn has never damaged me mentally or emotionally, and it has been in my life since I had a crappy modem connection and used to read dirty stories on the internet because looking at pictures or movies would crash my computer. It has been a sexual aide for me personally and with my partner, and has opened up many different forms of sexual expression. Is it perfect? No. Could porn be more realistic and more female-positive? ABSOLUTELY! But we need to stop looking at those horror stories of "porn-addicts," and realize that it can have both positive and negative impacts on its viewing audience. Makes me want to write a book on all the marriages, partnerships, and indivduals whose lives were transformed in a POSITIVE way by viewing pornography. Does anyone have any of those stories they'd like to share?!?
That slippery slope into viewing child pornography argument makes me very uncomfortable. The only type of people who seek out that type of exploitative and disgusting material are people who are pedophiles. I doubt very much that your average porn viewer would suddenly start watching that. Also I think that the days of anonymously accessing child pornography are close to being over. The international policing community is doing their best to stem the flow of it and there have been many high profile cases in the last few years with attest to this fact.
As a "late bloomer" (aka not very sexually experienced person) I feel that porn has given me the opportunity to explore my sexuality in a safe and nonthreatening way. I have found it to be a very empowering experience. Like any form of culture such as music, art or literature there is misogynistic and sometimes just flat out boring, or unattractive porn. You just have to search until you find something that is of interest to you.
Also I would have absolutely no problem having a boyfriend who watches porn. Usually when people watch porn alone it is for masturbatory purposes. This is completely natural and understandable in my eyes. I bet that Paul's sample of women would also be women who find the subject of male and female masturbation uncomfortable or repulsive. I can't say this for sure having not read the book, but it's just a hunch.
It sounds like the sample of men that she has taken for her book have problems that extend beyond pornography. If a man or woman is watching so much pornography that it interferes with their daily lives, jobs and relationships that is a sign of addiction, much like people can become addicted to drugs or alcohol.
The way in which I feel pornography does impact society is through the unrealistic and unnatural body types and shapes that are perpetuated in most mainstream pornography. These unrealistic ideals affect both men and women whose bodies do not match these heavily augmented and perfectly toned and waxed bodies. This can be seen directly in the rise of laibiaplasty surgeries to make the vagina more aesthetically pleasing. Yet these unrealistic ideals of beauty cannot be blamed solely on the pornography industry. Flip open any women's magazine or turn on the television and you will be bombarded with advertisements and articles which aim to correct and perfect the body. These types of attacks on women and women's bodies definitely predate the entrance of pornography into the mainstream.
Well I'm an adult (36) male, I've seen/been exposed to various degrees of pornographic or sexual imagery since I was quite young: divorced parents both had a pretty profound inability to hide magazines; mom read "Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal" which was a very sexually graphic sci-fi fantasy illustrated mag, she also read National Lampoon which had a lot of sex and nudity and dad read the standard Penthouse/Playboy stuff. Plus the rise in ownership of the VHS and various porn tapes getting passed around through middle-school/HS.
Probably the longest break I've ever had from at least some exposure to porn was when I was in the Army (didn't own a TV, never really liked magazine/static porn after watching it on video).
So I've been exposed to a lot of porn during my "formative years". No real ill-effects, at least not the creepy assaulting women or kids kind of stuff. In fact, barring some experimentation and a couple of pretty "regular" peccadilloes I'm pretty "vanilla" sexually. I've certainly never wanted to have sex with a presexual human or look at images of that. About the grossest thing I've ever looked at in the realm of porn was either bestiality or that two girls one cup video, but not for my own sexual gratification but in the same way one watches random nut-shots on AFV. I think if you're not a pedo then no amount of exposure to adult consensual sex is going to make you a pedo, even really kinky adult consensual sex.
It's also never really harmed any of my relationships, this is probably because I'm pretty open about all of my "nasty habits" so it never comes as a surprise to a girlfriend or a lover that I like porn, and most of the women I've dated have expressed their own interest in pornography (usually with different taste in it than I have, although I've only dated one woman who actually owned porn in the form of video tapes).
I do have a pretty huge collection of the stuff on an external hard drive (I used to have a lot of it on VHS, but I threw it all out when I discovered how easy it was to get online and how much more convenient), but I don't actually look at it that much. I have a touch of OCD, so I tend to grab everything within a somewhat broad category and spend a lot of time filing and categorizing it, sometimes using video editing tools to trip files down or split larger ones up. I'll D/L something like 30-60 gigs every couple of weeks, and after editing it I'll end up keeping 2-4 gigs.
I don't, and never really have wanted to, use porn as part of my sexual life with a lover/partner. If I'm with a woman and we want to fuck each other the porn seems kind of stupid. If one of use needs to look at some third party to get into it, then it's time to call it off. This is not to say that porn has not sometimes been an inspiration to try things I've never tried, but not something that is playing in the room during sex or whatever and most of the stuff done in porn movies is simply not realistic or even comfortable in real life, IMHO.
I've also managed and been entertainment at a "real-life" swingers club, and have friends who are active in various aspects of the sex industry and support of the industry's workers (COYOTE) (male/trans/female/het/queer, you name it).
I know people who have been fucked over by porn/sex-work, people who were fucked up and got in to porn, and people who treated porn like any other job. Porn is like working the graveyard shift at Intel, mostly the people who end up doing it for long are weird or unconventional because of personal history or personality traits but they're not "bad" people, they are just people who figured out different survival techniques than the average person and had to come up with their own functional ethical guidelines.
The people who go on about how "degrading" pornography is are the ones who lend it an air of degradation as far as I'm concerned.