Porn is Not Harmless

A few years ago, while traveling through Texas, I noticed a billboard which read: "PORN: THE ONLY SAFE SEX." Brushing it off as an oddity, I had very little knowledge about the subject itself, much less the range of individuals who indulged in it or the very strong and very negative impact it can have. As for the latter, it was limited to young kids who get a warped view of what sex and human relationships are all about, guys who believe their partners should be willing participants in sick fantasies, and those who already have deviant tendencies believing porn validates their deviances. However, while these factors are disturbing enough, it extends much further. Not only are youngsters being urged to consider it acceptable, individuals well past middle age consider it an acceptable part of everyday life. It has ranged from adults prodding thirteen-year-olds to view pornography to adults talking about movies which depict "women's lips sewn shut with shoelaces." It has ranged from long-single adult-aged males claiming they are unable to form and maintain relationships while focusing their attention on library-sized collections of "adult" videos, to a long-married couple who frequented a local porn shop and had a large poster on their living room wall of a nude girl with bound hands and feet and rags stuffed into her mouth.

Harmless fun? Entertainment? Not in the slightest. Curious to hear what other average American adults thought of the subject, I put the question to a popular forum. The general viewpoint was 'It has not affected me personally, so I don't know anything.' Even upon reading the article from the link I provided, most people did not 'get it.' The general consensus was "only lazy women who allowed themselves to get out of shape, and ultra-conservatives with a narrow view on what constitutes morality, have any 'issues' about pornography."

With no conservative slant to it, the article was not about "fat, middle-aged women who were no longer desirable." Quite the contrary-- the article was primarily about the devastating effects porn has been having on college students. One point this article left out was if college students, in the earliest prime of life, are having these experiences, what hope is there for older people who are having the same experiences? Perhaps while conducting her research the article's author did not take into consideration that in some regions it is not limited to individuals in the student age groups, but is a "lifestyle" for those in their thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond. If porn has reduced or eliminated the normal, natural appeal of super-intelligent, beautiful college girls, what hope is there for single women over thirty? The article's summation that a steady diet of porn has resulted in "real women" are no longer enough, or no longer good enough, is not limited to college kids. It has nothing to do with a person's physical appearance, or what one has to offer; the value of these characteristics have become irrelevant in favor of on-demand erotica, one's own personal specifications, and fantasy.

Porn not only allows each of these factors to bear more weight than they should, it gives individuals who indulge in porn on a regular basis to fully believe that this is the way it should be. None of these factors reflect real life, real relationships, real human beings. First, real relationships consisting of real human beings are not "on-demand." Whether a situation involves normal dating amongst singles or couples in long-term relationships, real relationships take the needs and feelings of human beings into consideration. Porn, on the other hand, focuses on the "I want- gimme" characteristic of children who have never grown up. Second, it urges those who indulge in it to believe human beings can, should, and must conform to one's personal specifications. Logically, no real-live human being is capable of measuring up-- nor should one be in the position of attempting to do so. A real-live human being could be a "10" in physical appearance, and have a multitude of other characteristics to go along with it, yet still not measure up to what one views on a screen. Third, the fantasy aspect of porn takes away everything that could and should be positive about normal human interactions and turns it into nothing more than base experimentation. The weirder and the more degrading, the more it is seen as a means to satisfy unquenchable appetites, rather than a mutually-positive experience between two human beings.

What all of these factors have in common is they remove the human element. Whether the topic is young kids getting their first view of sex and relationships through pornography and believing it represents real life, or adults of any age concluding "real" human beings cannot measure up to pornography, it is not something that anyone should be silent about. It goes way beyond twelve-year-old boys snickering over Playboy magazine; and the article in this link only skims the surface of how far these problems have been allowed to progress.

Perhaps it is way past time to apply the Miller Test. It states as its criteria:

Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,

Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law,

Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

I'd venture to say pornography fits into all of these categories. In addition, when it has been proven to have such a wide range of destructive effects on such a wide range of the American population, it is way past time to begin taking it seriously.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test