I’ve spent a long time and maybe more energy than I should trying to fully develop a comprehensive opinion on porn. Perhaps that doesn’t make sense to you but to me, porn is an illusive little devil, always switching up from good to bad to good again in my mind.
Regardless of how any of us feels about good old flesh films, they certainly are increasingly ubiquitous across the internet. So love it (like internet dating) or hate it, it’s getting harder to avoid it. Whether you regard it as a sweet dessert you can’t get enough of (watch out, there) or a shady prowler ready to jump you when you least suspect it, you need to be aware of porn, the role it’s playing in your society (and your love life) and be prepared to address it when you encounter it…because you inevitably will.
Some points to consider:
Crossing the Barrier
Celebrities are doing it, your friends are doing it, high schoolers (shudder) are doing it…hell, even probably your parents have done it. I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about creating some visual, tangible record of their boom boom time. There was once this wonderful, innocent time where people in pornographic films and magazines were strangers, other than the fact that we’ve seen them in ways only doctors should…but they were still strangers. That was their role in our lives. And that’s how we liked it, for most of us.
Now, it’s a common ploy to get headlines for famous people. Teenagers are thinking that just because they can take videos on their phones and computers that they should get naked. If you’re reading this, dear adolescents, please knock that the hell off. You have plenty of time to be plenty of naked later. Sending naked pictures won’t make someone like you; but they’ll probably have been seen by half the school by Monday morning. Recording sex is fairly common aspect of many people’s love life.
Now that this once foreign means of, ahem, expression is a perfectly acceptable and accessible option on the list of sex-tivities, how does that change how it works in our lives? When it was just other, unknown persons in porn flicks, they were a mostly healthy way to get a glimpse into a sexual scenario that intrigued us but didn’t immediately involve us…like the pu pu platter of fetishes and situations.
But now that so much of the porn we consume ends up having familiar faces attached to it, it’s undoubtedly doing different things to our psyches than before. Celebrities are even further exposed to the point where they almost seem like public property: we have access to, literally, every part of them now.
In my opinion, that’s sad and more than a little creepy, that we expose all aspects of certain people to where they hardly seem like people anymore. So there are two strikes against porn (remember the whole high school kids using it to win boys’ affections? Yeah, that’s strike one to me, hands down).
Don’t Shoot The Messenger
We’ve all probably known, or at least heard of someone who has dealt with a porn addiction. This is a real thing! Think about it: when you have access, 24/7, to any kind of sexual delicacy you can imagine, added to the fact that no one knows how to get you off better than you do…well, the result can equal a booming, orgasmic life that doesn’t involve anyone but you and a high-speed internet connection.
While having a naughty little moment to oneself with a video that does it for you is quite healthy and quite fun, when porn starts to become a substitute for a flesh-and-blood partner or you find you’re watching too much (you’ll know when it’s too much), there might be a problem.
There’s another strike against porn: it gives people access and choice to find exactly what turns them on in a much more systematic way than dealing with actual sex partners. Wait. Pause. Does that last one sound a little…off…to you? Because it should. That last strike against porn isn’t actually a negative thing about porn. It gives us what we want when we want it…that’s what makes it great!
The point at which it stops being a sexy supplement to a healthy lifestyle is when we, the viewers, can’t decide when enough is enough. It’s not porn’s fault that some people have no sense of moderation. Hating porn for that reason would be like hating booze because some people are alcoholics…it’s a total cop out.
The bottom line is, dealing with porn really is like drinking: it is best left to the adults and even though teenagers are going to mess around with it…they won’t figure out how to use it best for years to come. It can enhance certain social situations but shouldn’t be over-indulged in. If we can remember these few points, we’re well on our way to integrating pornography into our lives in a way we can actually live with.