Porn is Plastic

I’ve been researching a lot about porn and have a lot of very specific ideas in mind. As I’ve researched I’ve noticed two attitudes that I disagree with. One I think is flat out wrong, and the other I think needs to be flipped on it’s head to be realistic about pornography.

The first though is that porn is normal.  This quote is from a comment on a blog post entitled “Internet Pornography Stats: Parents Should be Concerned”.
“Sex and pornography are the most normal things in the world. An interest in sex for a 15 year old boy is completely healthy, you should be worried if he WASN’T interested in porn.”

This attitude needs to change for very specific reasons. First off, Porn is not sex. From “7 Surprising and Negative Effects of Porn”: “3. Porn Turns Sex Into Masturbation./ Sex becomes self-serving. It becomes about your pleasure and not the self-giving, mutually reciprocating intimacy that it was designed for.”  If you’ve ever watched porn, as I have, looking back you can see how it’s not at all like real sex. Women don’t become slaves to men. Men are not just erect objects to the woman-turned-object on screen. Real life is not a “do whatever pleases me” situation. Porn is a plastic version of bad sex. Secondly, pornography isn’t healthy. I would agree that an interest in sex is healthy, that doesn’t mean delve into it, but be interested for sure. Pornography is not healthy. It is fake and dressed up for a reason. It is designed to be addictive. It’s a marketing scheme, and it’s effective. Unfortunately the cost is not only monetary. Porn addictions destroy relationships within families and friendships and make coping with life long relationships nearly impossible. Porn rewires your brain, in the pavlovian sense, to be turned on in specific situations that don’t occur within most sexual relationships or any long-term relationships.

After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.  -Naomi Wolf, “The Porn Myth”

Source Here.

The idea I would like to flip on it’s head is best said by Sean McDowell in an article: “Pornography is tearing apart the fabric of our society.” He’s not the only one who has said something like this, and he acknowledges the dramatization within his article. I would rather say that our torn society is producing pornography. Porn is a product of an over sexualized society. We thrive on sexy. It’s a life force beating all around controlling our advertisements, and our media. It’s hard to find a video game these days that don’t hint at sexuality in a casual (and gross) kind of way, as if it’s no big deal to have free sex with whomever sparks one’s interest. And I’m sure that a lot of you reading this are thinking, “that’s true, it is no big deal.” Point proven. Our social ideals and pornography are growing more and more perverse in correlation with each other. Porn will only be as gross as the consumers allow it to be. Apparently we don’t have limits.

I’d like to end with the same words Namoi Wolf does in her article, and talk a little about what I want in a marriage. Among other things I want sex. I want fun uninhibited sex with one woman from the moment we say our vows till the moment we die. I want to cherish her as if she’s the only woman in the world. I want to glorify her in her sexual beauty. I want to be surprised on my wedding day at the fulfillment of sex, at the pleasure, and the intimacy. I want to be surprised on my wedding day at the I don’t know what, it’s surprise. But I’m afraid that with pornography I will want something other than sex, that I will be inhibited and unfaithful, not just in my mind and heart but in actions. I’m afraid I will see other women as sexual creatures, and I will lust after more beautiful women. I’m afraid sex on our wedding night will be a mundane practice, just a repeated action: muscle memory. I’m afraid that “Sex has no mystery”.