I am very mad at Amazon because I wrote a review for Pamela Paul’s Pornified last night and it still hasn’t appeared with all the other reviews. I’m thinking about boycotting if it doesn’t post because I hate censorship, and any website that would censor the harmless things I write does not deserve my or any other free-speech loving individual’s patronage. Not only was my review harmless, but a lot of intellectual labor went into it. It took me at least an hour to write even though it wasn’t very long. I painstakingly constructed every word and sentence even going so far as to employ a thesaurus at one point. The reason I think my review might not appear is because I carelessly titled it, “I didn’t read the book, but I have some things to say.” This is not a good way to ingratiate yourself with the Amazon algorithms which might search out and try to subvert attention whores who are just trying to use their website as a free platform. But still, I bought and shipped a birthday gift to my brother yesterday using their “platform,” so I feel this entitles me to write at least one free review of a book I didn’t read. Furthermore, I gave the book three stars and deigned to agree with the author when most of the other reviewers ripped her apart.
From what I gleaned from the Amazon and other reviews, Pornified is a poorly researched and passionate (i.e. biased) book which attempts to caustically demonize the adult entertainment industry. Basically, it uses all the old arguments (many of which are feminist arguments) to call attention to this destructive obsession which is reeking havoc on families and marriages, women, children, teens, society as a whole not to mention men’s minds. According to the author, it is a corrupting and perverting force and perhaps the biggest bane of healthy relations in America. Keep in mind, this is inferring a lot from the scant reviews I read, the title and alluring cover of the book, and the fact that the genesis for this commentary had its origins in a TIME magazine story which ran a few years back.
But still, I felt like I had to stand up and say (or write) how I feel about porn. I think my opinion matters more than a lot of people out there who claim to know so much about the genre not least because of the fact that I was raised on pornography. Yes, I am 33 years old and I am a walking study in the long term effects of what more than half a life of getting off to porn will do to a person who is still relatively young. And lucky for me, I turned out normal. Contrary to what a lot of people would expect, I am not promiscuous, I have never contracted an STD, I don’t sexually harass girls or women (although I do stare), and I don’t set demanding expectations for my sexual partners. I have never videotaped myself masturbating and posted it on a tube site, I have never had cyber sex with a stranger, and I do not wear revealing clothing or send any other sartorial signals which might announce that I am a “slut.”
If I am such a walking example of how porn is practically harmless, you might wonder why I side with Pamela Paul’s basic thesis that some things about porno are simply ”bad.” Well, my gripe with porn is probably a little more intellectual than her’s and is mostly rooted in the fact that, when I came into contact with adult magazines and films, porno was still a very private obsession for most people. It was not considered cool or even safe to transparently advertise your preferences for adult film genres and sex toys like it is today. Blabbing on about how much you dig seeing lesbians kiss or how you own two Fleshlights in the 90’s was likely to earn you the reputation of a pervert, or even worse, get you in serious trouble. I guess we all took it for granted back then that most of our friends and associates probably dabbled in porn, but these self-gratifying habits were protected by a sacred fortress of solitude that made engaging in them seem that much more pleasurable and salubrious.
Now when I see these people on TV unabashedly debating the viscosity of lube and spit, or when I hear porn stars announcing the station identifications of local Middle America radio stations, or when I see a CGI John Holmes trying to sell my tacos in an ad – I feel like I’m being violated. When porn oversteps its boundaries into respectable, normal society, we have a problem. Some people might see this as a lifting of the veil, or an overcoming of our more counterintuitive and destructive puritanical tendencies. But I disagree. I think we need veils in order to live, and we create boundaries to protect and uphold us. When there are no boundaries, everything begins to break down. Life becomes a never-ending bachelor party full of fart and penis jokes. “Hey, Bob. Want to see my dick, I just got it pierced?” “Um, no I don’t.”
I think I realized that the recent “coolness” of porn started by Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Corolla back when they did the Man Show together had burned itself out when I awoke one morning to hear the DJ’s on the local radio station in my small little non-city interviewing Ron Jeremy on his decision to retire from porn (as if porn stars ever retire). To hear the yokels in my backwards little Rust Belt town cajoling the so-called “king of porn” in real time as I went about my morning rituals made me think of something unsettling. Knowing that every little weasel in the corner of nowhere that I called home had a personal relationship with Ron Jeremy that was similar in nature to mine, this robbed my secret admiration of RJ of a lot of its authenticity. I liked to think that by occasionally cranking one out to a scene of Ron J and some callow newcomer to the biz was my own little private escape, and this made it seem sophisticated in a way. It was like I was learning from the world master of the quicky himself, and I thought of how I might someday employ his little tricks and seductive charms (perhaps when I’m on a Royal Caribbean Cruise for instance). But to look at the world and see all sorts of people from all walks of life admitting their fawning appreciation of this man and what his existence has meant and done for them, it seemed like a sci-fi movie in which a nation’s drinking water is corrupted by truth serum.
It is careless, reckless and unhealthy to say the least. There is a time for humor, lust and levity, and there is a time for seriousness and professionalism. When the lines between pop culture and porn culture begin to blur, we set ourselves up for potential embarrassment and disaster. We become a society devoid of decorum where anything goes.
Americans’ ubiquitous exposure to porn is no doubt a symtpom of our overall decline in dignity and etiquette. We are rapidly becoming a nation of bad manners. This is evident in the decline of dress code, the increase in waist sizes, and the elevation of tawdry trends to full-blown domination status. People are starting to wear Bermuda shorts and baseball caps to church, foul language is uttered in places where it formerly wasn’t permitted, and tattoo covered skin is displayed everywhere. Despite the widespread awareness of the life-truncating effects of prolonged tobacco use and alcohol consumption, people smoke and drink more than ever now. Corporations don’t help either when they trample tradition in order to make a quick buck marketing items which, at their core, are generic, garish, offensive and vapid. Entertainers have abandoned the more sophisticated art of tact and subtlety and now subject us to bombardment after bombardment of hackneyed immaturety (I swear, if one more recycled sitcom employs a reference to porn in order to invoke that single bachelor/ette levity…). And adding fuel to this fire is an ever-increasing trend of laziness. Generation X, spoiled by their Baby Boomer parents, don’t seem to know the value of hard work. They crave and expect the good life but many of them lack the discipline required to earn it. After sitting back for decades and having everything handed to them, they have suddenly grown up, and the awareness of their stark mature lives is no small cause for concern for a lot of them.
It should not be surprising, therefore, that a porn craze should emerge in this sort of early post-postmodern landscape. Many people who profess their love of porn were most likely raised on it like I was, and they’re probably just trying to bring their healthy obsession to the light as a way to move out of the dark ages. But I still think having a voluminous knowledge of adult cinema is a useless conversation topic. Nobody wants to sit around and discuss the merits of Ron Jeremy’s latest directorial feature, or whether Jenny Layne looked better as a D cup instead of an A. This type of chatter belongs in the realm of sci-fi geekery, and I am always going to be old fashioned by discouraging this sort of glib revelation.
Probably the most ironic thing about all of the professed “coolness” of porn lately is the fact that, despite having expanded out of its inglorious and invisible former niche, the adult entertainment industry still manages to attract the lonely, the socially awkward, the desperate and the depressed. To have a heavy dependence on porn is to turn away from a life of healthy normal relationships and immerse yourself in a world of unquenchable virtual sex. Single people may always realize and appreciate the utility of porn, and in light of this it seems to make sense to advocate its incorporation into healthy monogamous sexual relationships between lovers. When teens and young adults are reared on porn, it can be difficult if not impossible to transition into a relationship that has a physical component without frequently reverting back to it. But for many people porn is still a heavy millstone, and the addiction comes when one tries to squeeze water from that stone.
I sided with Pamela Paul not because I want to be an old fashioned fuddy-duddy, but because I am a 1980’s fuddy-duddy. Like her, I would like to see porn go away. Not completely, I just want to see it go back in the closet where it belongs. Perhaps I realize that everybody peeks at porn, but to be constantly reminded of this serves no purpose for me and I’m sure a whole lot of other people. And when people try to use the fact that we’re all secret perverts as justification for destroying all barriers in the world, I get especially mad. I like to destroy the world each night and awake to it rebuilt again. I can’t fathom living in a world with no laws, no boundaries and no moral point of view.
Finally, I just want to mention that I think it’s funny that despite the fact that nearly limitless porn is now available for FREE to everyone who has a computer and an Internet connection (did I mention it’s FREE!), people still feel the need to divulge and brag about their masterbutory fetishes to the world. It’s funny because I would think this kind of easy accessibility to all the porn our brains and bodies can handle would enable us to get back in touch with enjoying it the way we used to – in the sanctum sanctorum of our own homes, bedrooms and closets.
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