The Pornography Debate: Part One

One day while I was going through a list of freelance writing jobs I came across something where I could get paid to review adult movies. After giving it some thought and looking over the webpage I decided why not. Most of the reviewers were men and I thought that a woman's perspective might be welcomed, after all women and men look at sex and porn differently. Today I am one of the top 10 reviewers on that site and have been offered a bigger opportunity with the site. My husband is amused by it all and looks forward to reading my reviews, especially when a movie was so horrible we used the fast forward button on 80% of the movie.

Being an adult movie reviewer sparked my interest in the history of porn and the adult movie industry as well as the different attitudes toward porn, mostly based on gender. It's all really quite fascinating.

The adult movie industry as we know it today is less than forty years old. In those almost forty years society has become faced with various forms of sex addiction and it's all being blamed on the ease that any member of society can get their hands on porn. In fact, internet porn addiction is often categorized separately from sex addiction.

After spending some time reading about the Myths of Porn I found myself wondering if the adult entertainment/sex industry doesn't get a bad rap taking the blame for things that really isn't its fault but the fault of society or individuals.

Any history of pornography starts with ancient cave paintings and Greek pottery that depicted sexual rites. The bottom line is that sex has been depicted in somewhat through out history. Still, that doesn't change that when these ancient cave paintings were unearth during the Victorian Times that they weren't locked away for only the eyes of top scholars to study. It was feared that these images would corrupt women and children, and possibly anyone who wasn't highly educated. For very many years images that depicted sex or nudity were regulated to only being allowed to be viewed by the upper crust of society, as many things were at the time.

In the early days of film content was regulated by the Hayes Code. This code stated what was morally acceptable in movies and it followed the Christian morality code to the letter. Nudity, drug use, religious ridicule, criminal acts (safe cracking, murder, theft), any reference to sex and childbirth and offensive language were not allowed to be shown in movies. The list goes on and on. Today most of us laugh at the absurdity of I Love Lucy with Lucy and Ricky sleeping in separate beds, yet she was pregnant. If they slept in separate beds how did she get pregnant? The couch? The kitchen counter? Everyone knows how these things happen, but they were not allowed to be referenced in TV or movies.

In 1967 The Hayes Code was dropped in favor of the MPAA film rating system that we use today. X ratings were originally for anything that was adult in nature, just not sex, but violence as well and there are several X rated movies that have won Academy Awards. Pornographic directors and producers voluntarily put X ratings on their films, starting the stigma associated with the X rating. (XX and XXX are only used as a marketing ploy by the industry. These are not ratings that are recognized by the MPAA.) This stigma brought about a change in the movie industry where X rated movies would no longer be eligible for Academy Awards.

The sexual revolution helped things along and in 1973 Behind the Green Door and Deep Throat were released. Movies of this caliber had never been made before. Prior to the release of these two movies any film depicting nudity was regulated to private clubs for men on, on the basis that it would corrupt the women and children, or to the grind houses. Grind house films were films that promised to show the taboo, like a documentary on the sordid world of prostitution. Because society as a whole are fascinated with things that are taboo or unacceptable the grind houses became popular and turned a nice profit.

In 1990 the NC-17 rating was introduced for movie that should garner an X rating for violence, language and questionable content that doesn't classify as pornography.

Print pornography has a similar history starting with erotic art, moving onto pin-up girls and the first full frontal nude pictorial showing up in Playboy in 1971.

So, here we are today, thirty-six years after the sexual revolution and Behind the Green Door and pornography is still being blamed for the demoralization of the masses and the downfall of society. Add the internet making it easier to propagate and it's the reason given that men and women aren't able to have successful relationships, it's the reason for degradation and violence against women, it's blamed for breaking up marriages, casual sex and the list goes on. The other side argues free speech and artistic expression.

I would like to offer a different perspective, one that should be considered at least momentarily. Pornographic material, as we know it today, is a new concept. It's been around less than forty years, as a society we are still adapting to it. In the beginning you would have to go into an adult movie store to purchase movies or view peep shows. People had to be discrete. There would be public humiliation if someone considered an upstanding member of society was seen going in or out of an adult movie store. Today the internet makes it possible to view pornography without suffering embarrassment and judgment. The preconception was that only the perverted and depraved would view such things. Society was having a hard time come to terms with it all. Those things that they hoped to see in grind house movie theaters were now a reality.

Today every possible kink, perversion and fetish is just a mouse click away. There is even stuff on the internet that people look at because of the curiosity. Consider the internet phenomenon of 2 Girls, 1 Cup. I would be willing to bet that more people have watched it because of twisted curiosity; they couldn't believe that someone would do such a thing and had to see it for themselves. Much like a train wreck they couldn't turn away.

As with everything new there is overindulgence before moderation is learned. Remember the first time you ate yourself sick on candy as a child or the first time you drank so much you threw up? It's the same concept. Not only that, if someone has an addictive personality, they are going to become addicted to something, be it drugs, alcohol, food, hand washing and now we can add pornography to the list.

Just because someone has become addicted to porn does not mean that it is a problem of society. It means that one person has a problem that needs to be addressed because if it wasn't porn it would be something else. My mother, for example, went from a gambling addiction to an alcohol addiction when she gave up gambling. For those addicted to porn something else will eventually come along to take its place if the underlying personality issue isn't addressed. Having an addictive personality is due to self-destructive and compulsive behaviors. Add something to the mix that is pleasant to engage in, especially something that is still relatively new that society is still trying to get a handle on, and you have a problem.

I can see the hate mail and comments that I am going to get over this now from the people who are convinced that pornography ruined their life or the life of someone they know. If porn has taken over someone's life is it the fault of the pornography or the people involved in the porn industry or is the fault of the person looking at it? Chances are those people that spend hours a week on the internet surfing for and looking at porn are not being forced to do it. It's like those who blame the fast food industry for being overweight. No one forced them to eat fast food just as no one forced someone else to look at pictures containing nudity or sex. It's so much easier to blame someone or something else than take responsibility for personal shortcomings and wrongdoings.