A dark disease or harmless fun? (Lesley Garner, The Telegraph, January 26th, 2007)
Nobody denies the destructive power of alcohol and gambling. Professionals make good livings treating those ravaged by them and fiscally addicted governments spend a smidgeon of their huge profits on flashy TV ads warning of what they might do to us. But we still seem to hold firmly to the quaint belief that pornography is a harmless pastime with no consequences to ourselves or families. The link above is to a pretty good collection of accounts from men, women and professionals of their experiences with the “innocent” indulgence.
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38 comments:
'You feel excluded by your wives, who often lost interest in sex a long time ago.'
Well, I never. This didn't happen before Al invented the Internet.
We should, of course, go back to the days described by Wharton in 'Ethan Frome,' when people understood that the sexual interaction of men and women was evil.
Tom Lehrer said it:
Smut
Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers
Lurid, licentious and vile,
Make me smile.
Novels that pander
To my taste for candor
Give me a pleasure sublime.
Let's face it I love slime!
I guess Tom isn't the only one.
Is there a third choice?
I vote for "vapid nonsense."
This article amounted to a self-selected survey, which is an alternate spelling for "hopelessly invalid."
In the 80's, Susan Brownmiller wrote a book called "Men, Women, and Rape."
Using a great deal of statistics, she proved that 85% of women had been raped.
All from self-selected surveys placed in women's magazines.
The evil is addiction itself.
Skipper,
The author is not presenting the article as a scientific study, so I'm surprised by your reaction. It makes no quantitative claims as to how many people are addicted or how many marriages ruined, etc. I see it as qualitative evidence of the effects that internet porn can have on some relationships. There is no need to dismiss it out of hand because it is not scientific.
I've seen some internet porn, and I agree with the one man in the article that found it a turnoff. It is mostly very degrading stuff.
As Brit says.
This bit basically wraps it up:
"[You might be dismissive of this article] if you are not a man whose relationships have crumbled because of your compulsion for internet pornography, or a man who has lost his job because his compulsion has led him deeper into illegal areas such as child porn, [...] or if you are not a man whose habit has led him to seek therapy for sex addiction. If you are one of these men, you will know that there is a continuum here that can lead from thoughtless gratification to fear, shame and misery."
Like, duh, any human behavior is on a continuum from too little to way too much, and at the extremes can lie fear, shame, and/or misery.
Frigid women vs. sex-obsessed men.
Anorexia vs. morbid obesity. Worthless layabout vs. workaholic.
Alcoholics & other substance abusers.
There are a million ways to ruin your life and lose your family.
Would the women who wrote in be just as upset if their husband possessed a single copy of Penthouse, that he looked at once a week ?
Would they be happier if he worked 100 hours a week, and stopped by home just to sleep ?
I don't think the women upset by this are just complaining about lack of attention.
What are they complaining about ?
BTW: Is my "How to Spot a Rich Guy" link over at the Duck pornography, in your opinion ?
In the real world, some women like pornography. I've seen them do it.
Hey, I'm with Skipper. I want to here from the people who have achieved better living through pornography. The pedophile who has been able to sublimate his urges, the young, naive married couple who got some new recipes, the polymorphously perverse young man new to the big city who was able to put names to his nameless fantasies.
We need both sides of the story.
Duck:
The author is not presenting the article as a scientific study, so I'm surprised by your reaction. It makes no quantitative claims as to how many people are addicted or how many marriages ruined, etc.
Because the author starts by saying "this isn't scientific," then immediately proceeds to start on numerical analysis. Additionally, the headline for the article asks a question, as if it is going to be answered.
As well, it uses the term "addict" or "addiction" frequently, without any real sense of what the term means in this context.
That said, on re-reading it, I can see she is claiming less than I had initially assumed.
Peter:
I don't think the women upset by this are just complaining about lack of attention.
The impression I got from most of these women is that of self centerdness. Their inclinations are the correct ones, and they automatically disdain what they simply do not understand.
David:
What, precisely, is your point?
Is pornography de facto wrong, or is it like almost every other human activity: harmless except in excess, which almost everyone avoids.
(Full disclosure. I have always averted my wallet from pornography.)
To put charges of "fanaticism" in context, let us recall that, going on three years ago, at BrosJudd, you called me a fanatic for posting a couple of lengthy comments containing many citations of studies which show that second-hand smoke is not harmless. Link.
When it comes to the sex-trade, you, Harry and Oro would impress an Islamicist with your fanaticism.
Our collective point seems to be that sex and sexual relations have always been complicated, and that while porn may be ruinous to some, it's true of fewer people than those who take up drinking or gambling.
That seems to me to be a voice of "moderation", not of "fanaticism".
But speaking of fanaticism, YOU are the one who compares pornography to taking heroin, stealing, and racism.
Would you care to establish exactly how porn is as harmful to individuals or society as are those activities/mindsets ?
And it's a point to ponder that every new visual media technology that comes along, starting 40,000 years ago, from painting to sculpture to the printing press to cameras to motion pictures to home videotape players to the internet, has been used extensively to depict naked women. In the cases of the printing press, home video, and the internet, that was the main commercial use of such technologies in their early years.
As late as 2001, Forrester Research asserted that sex-related transactions made up 10% of all internet commerce.
Can we attribute such a history of behavior to the work of a few dedicated, overachieving perverts, or is it possible that casual pornography viewing is widespread among Americans, (and, as Harry points out, not confined to males; there are successful porn and sex toy businesses aimed exclusively at women), and is generally unharmful, just as is the casual violence displayed every night on television screens ?
Did the risque airplane nose & tail art, bomber jackets, and pin-up girls of WW II corrupt an entire generation ?
Oro:
"and that while porn may be ruinous to some, it's true of fewer people than those who take up drinking or gambling.
You are incredibly well-informed as to the effects of this stuff. But how about telling us exectly why you think it is so ruinous to some. Time? Money? Health? I don't see it tied to any of the well-known material downsides to other vices. Is it pretty much like a blogging addiction in your mind? I mean, we all know the real issue there is Skipper's self-centered wives (always thinking their inclinations to clean the kitchen, etc. are the correct ones). Oro, how can something that is intrinsically innocent and inoffensive become so ruinous to the point that families disintegrate over it?
But let us assume there is a dividing line somewhere between those that can "handle it" and those who can't (I'd like to see you try and make that distinction about the participants). What would you suggest we do about those on the wrong side, especially given the huge growth in quantity and access you point to? Got any ideas beyond libertarian cant on how tough freedom can be?
O: Of course, the Helena study you cited at BrothersJudd was obvious nonsense, as a moment of comment sense skepticism makes clear.
Skipper: I'm not sure I have a point. I am deeply ambivalent about pornography. I think that pornography as I define it, and I know it when I see it, is purely a force for unhappiness in the world. I do, however, deeply believe in freedom of speech, I do believe that we can't make interpersonal comparisons, I do believe that if people demand something that is sufficient excuse (caterus parebus), I do believe that if we relax these rules then things I care about will be taken from me and I'm even pro-sex and pro-eroticism and while my own personal definition of eroticism would disallow pornography, I understand that other people's definition of pornography would disallow my eroticism. How we get rid of internet stories of incestuous pedophilia while keeping Kissing Jessica Stein is trickier than one might think.
So I'm left with my bottom-line belief: the world would be a much better and more orderly place if I were dictator of the world.
The selfishness accusation rings hollow from men who would rather keep their pornography habit than give up something that vexes their wives so deeply. Do they want pornography or do they want a happy relationship with their wives? One good sign that something has become an addiction is when you value it over your personal relationships.
Of course women don't understand men, and men don't understand women. But if you get married to a woman you know that's part of the territory. You know that there are 1000 compromises to be made, and there are points in many marriages when you look at the cost/benefit ledger and decide that the compromises just aren't worth it (speaking from personal experience) but if access to porn is the price you will not pay for the possibility of a happy marriage, then you've sold your future happiness for a very cheap and trivial thing.
I've been resisting the temptation to link to this post, but what the heck.
I do think that, female empowerment to the contrary notwithstanding, men and women just want different things out of the same relationship.
But how about telling us exectly why you think it is so ruinous to some.
Sure, although I note that you have answered exactly NONE of the questions that I posed. Ignoring objections, while tossing out more arguments to see if anything sticks, is a sometimes-effective legal and political tactic, but it doesn't make for serious conversation.
Time? [...] Is it pretty much like a blogging addiction in your mind?
Yes, that and emotional distance, although money can obviously be a factor.
The problem, as presented in the article, seems to be mostly that the addicts value spending time looking at pictures more than they do spending time interacting with their families. That's exactly the problem that "blogging addicts" or even "TV addicts" have. In America, we talk of "sports widows", women whose husbands do little other than watch or participate in their favorite sport, during its season. You mention golf, and that's one of the biggies, along with American football.
Oro, how can something that is intrinsically innocent and inoffensive become so ruinous to the point that families disintegrate over it?
A family-court lawyer is asking me that ?!?
Come on, how many times have you seen something that seems so insignificant from the outside, become a destructive point of contention within a given family ?
As another example, how can something that is so intrinsically innocent and inoffensive as food become the bane and ruin of so many people ?
In America, tens of thousands of people die prematurely every year due to diet-related and ENTIRELY PREVENTABLE health issues. (Diabetes, cancer, heart disease, etc).
But let us assume there is a dividing line somewhere between those that can "handle it" and those who can't (I'd like to see you try and make that distinction about the participants).
There's no need to assume, since I've already established that tens of millions of Americans consume pornography*, and since they don't all become addicts, obviously most can "handle it". (Which, LOL, is kind of an absurd, not to mention Arabic, way of putting it: American men can "handle" seeing naked women).
What kind of distinction do you think needs to be drawn, other than a reality-based one, in which some people need help to control their obsession, and most don't ?
What would you suggest we do about those on the wrong side, especially given the huge growth in quantity and access you point to?
Counseling, and possibly medication, to control their obsession. What else can be done about obsessives, whether they fixate on porn or baseball minutiae ?
Got any ideas beyond libertarian cant on how tough freedom can be?
Being an adult is tough, there's no getting around that. If freedom were easy, then there'd be no "liberty vs. security" philosophical and political struggle.
* OK, presented an argument supporting that contention, which was not contested.
C'mon, who really believes porn helps anybody about anything?
Pornography, defined as "erotica", helps many couples to maintain a sense of excitement about their sex lives, but that's irrelevant.
Porn isn't primarily an aid of any kind, it's simply an indulgence, like smoking, sports cars, or fine food and wine.
Nobody needs anything but a well-engineered, good-enough people or cargo mover, but those kinds of vehicles make up a tiny fraction of the auto market. People buy good-looking, powerful cars and trucks whenever they can afford to do so, even though they're wasting money and the world's resources, simply because it gives them pleasure to do so. Ditto foods that aren't simply grilled meat or a bowl of stewed what-not, and who does smoking help ?
Porn is a statement that women are impersonal meat whose highest calling and deepest symbolic beauty lies in their ability to satisfy 100% physical male hormonal yearnings.
Really ?
That's true of the cosmetics industry as well, but women buy a lot more cosmetics than men buy porn. There aren't any billion-dollar porn empires, but there are several such cosmetics companies.
People are rarely only one thing, and it's entirely normal for women to want to be sex objects at times, "a lady in the drawing room and a whore in the bedroom", so to speak.
Further, as Harry has pointed out many times in many places, "bodice ripper" romance novels are simply rape fantasies about women being "masterfully" treated, i.e., treated as though their highest calling lies in their ability to satisfy 100% physical male hormonal yearnings, and yet women buy tens of millions of 'em annually.
David:
What a sad place that link takes us to. Some of the commenters don't seem to realize that we get what we'll settle for, but still.
Unlike Justice Powell, I don't recognize pornography when I see it -- or at least, I don't recognize it when other people (like Orrin in front of a Redbook magazine) see it.
So I really have no idea what you guys are talking about. Harlequin Romances? Penthouse? Seymour Butts movies?
Actually, here's a real life social etiquette problem where you people can help me out -- although I predict you'll go for cheap laughs instead. (In fact, as Peter points out over at my blog, it would be helpful to have some female input into this problem.)
Last night, I took my son to a belated birthday dinner at a local Japanese hibachi restaurant, the Beni Hana kind of thing where the customers sit around a hibachi stove and watch the chef make dinner and clown around. We were seated with another party, a family group also celebrating a birthday -- parents, two daughters and the daughters' boyfriends.
I sat on the corner of a narrow side. Directly to my left was one of the daughters, an attractive girl of about 21 wearing a push-up bra and a low-cut blouse. Her boyfriend was on her other side and her father, roughly my age, was seated directly across from me. I basically spent me evening focusing on not looking to my left or, if I had to look to my far left, looking up at the ceiling as I swiveled by head. This was awkward enough, but the restaurant has a tradition of having the chef cook a grilled shrimp appetizer, which he then offers to flip into the air to be caught by the customer in their mouth. He went back to the girl three times, each time (it seemed to me) coming in a little low. He never hit his probably target, but came close enough the last time to prompt her father to ask, with appropriate sign language, whether "it went down there."
So, here's my question: what is the social etiquette for taller men when women display their cleavage? I understand that I can look all I want and there isn't much that can be done, but I am all about not giving offense. Should I continue to focus on not looking at them at all (assuming that they didn't dress up for me) because once I'm looking, I'll be looking? Or is this just a part of getting dressed up for a nice night out, like getting her hair done, and my refusal to acknowledge the effort made insulting?
Well, Peter, then I guess that I don't know what you're looking for by starting a conversation like this.
Pornography and erotica are commonly regarded as near-synonyms, whereas your response was absurd.
David:
You can look at them, but focus on their faces.
In your situation, I wouldn't have looked left either, because that would have been the simplest way to avoid akwardness.
Although if one wears a push-up bra and a low-cut blouse, one has to expect looks; it's leering that crosses the line.
Seinfeld says, 'It's like the sun, you're not supposed to stare at it.'
That's probably safe enough advice for almost any occasion.
However, my understanding is that women dress like that because they want to be looked at. Just not by me.
By studly young men with Corvettes.
I remember Donald Kaul, my favorite columnist, writing about a survey that purported to find that college women preferred older men. Kaul was, at that time, around 40, and he said he was feeling pretty puffed up until he learned that college women defined 'older men' as '32.'
Architects design and owners build beautiful buildings for valid commercial reasons, but when I'm driving by admiring the building that's simply a positive externality that the owner can't capture. Nonetheless, I have no sense that the owner resents my staring at the building.
Now, granted that the young lady did not get dressed up to impress me. But does she mind my capitalizing on the externality?
Peter: The ride home was with my son. We have a good relationship, but it is not and never will be of the "ja get a load of dem knockers" variety. I noticed during the meal that he, too, didn't look left, but he's 14 and I was to his immediate left, so I'm not sure what that means.
And, as usual, I have another story that tells a different moral.
When my youngest, who is now 24, was not quite one year old, we wanted to go to Le (or La?) Festin du gouverneur in Montreal, but at the last minute the babysitter backed out. So we took her anyway, and although the maitre d' was dubious, we promised she would be good.
She was, and she was very cute.
The fest is at communal tables, and two seats away from Scooter, the baby, sat a middle-aged, paunchy provincial with bad teeth, and between him and her, his doxy.
The doxy was greatly taken with Scooter and spent the whole night cooing with her. The provincial was not amused.
Peter:
It's clear that if every woman in the world rose in protest, you'd just dimiss them all as selfish things who "don't understand.".
That avoids my point entirely, which is this: by what law of nature do they get to impose their sensitivities upon something they do not understand, and, other than reaction formation, scarcely affects them, if at all.
You mean like taking heroin, hurling racial epithets, stealing, burning flags, cheating on your spouse etc. The whole problem is excess?
No. I mean like eating, gambling, drinking water, shopping for shoes, and a whole host of other activities that have absolutely no ill effects unless taken to excess.
I would have thought the distinction is fairly obvious.
When it comes to the sex-trade, you, Harry and Oro would impress an Islamicist with your fanaticism.
Fanaticism? Puhlease. Your inability to discern any ill effects from readily available pornography strongly suggests the arguments against it are largely empty.
As for Islamists, I would have to be in a coma to care less about what they think than I do already.
I mean, we all know the real issue there is Skipper's self-centered wives ...
The sure sign of a bankrupt argument is ad hominem attack.
Please re-read the article, and see if you can find any self-centered wives completely incapable of understanding that the male sex drive can be different than theirs without being wrong.
let us assume there is a dividing line somewhere between those that can "handle it" and those who can't (I'd like to see you try and make that distinction about the participants). What would you suggest we do about those on the wrong side ...
I have an uncle who for the better part of two decades completely ignored his family because of his devotion to his church. He neglected his wife, and ignored his children.
Now, ask that question again.
But what astounds me is the intellectual hoops so many will jump through to deny the seedy, exploitative world this stuff comes from, to pretend there are both good sides and bad sides to it
You could say exactly the same thing about Chinese sweatshops.
Before you start on another rant, think about that for a second. Chinese work in what we would consider sweatshops, and many on the left would consider them exploited.
Are they? Given they are there voluntarily, they are there because it is better than the alternatives on offer. Eliminating sweatshops would make them worse off, not better.
Presuming that participants in pornography are there voluntarily, they are there because all the alternatives are worse.
If you were God, you could eliminate pornography, but at the cost of, by their lights, making these people's lives worse. Considering the nearly complete absence of material harm resulting from pornography, isn't that a bit extreme?
I'm not saying porn helps anyone -- does opera? -- and it doesn't have heck-all to do with whether women are just a little behind men in embracing it.
Instead, it has to do with an almost exclusively harmless activity, and what the reaction to it should be.
Porn is a statement that women are impersonal meat whose highest calling and deepest symbolic beauty lies in their ability to satisfy 100% physical male hormonal yearnings.
For those completely incapable of separating fantasy from reality. For everyone else, that notion is simply nonsense.
When Oroborous says
In America, we talk of "sports widows", women whose husbands do little other than watch or participate in their favorite sport, during its season. You mention golf, and that's one of the biggies, along with American football.
he is on to something: there is no intrinsic moral component to sports, or food, or pornography. Context is everything.
David:
... what is the social etiquette for taller men when women display their cleavage?
You are supposed to look.
They want you to look.
But you bloody well better not be caught looking.
No, that doesn't make any sense.
Speaking of stories.
When my son was 4, we were walking along the beach on Marcos Island. As it happens, the sand at the waters edge is festooned with these crabs that look, at first glance, like little polished stones. Get a handful of them, and they all start crawling around.
My son was captivated.
Anyway, as we were walking along, I noticed we were approaching a woman sitting in a beach chair directly in front of us, and that she was, umm, statuesque.
And inclined to reveal all that indecent exposure laws would allow.
My son toddled right up to her, and proceeded to tell her all about these little crabs. (At that time, my son was one of the most powerful chick magnets I have ever seen that wasn't a Jaguar XKE).
Staring intently at the horizon didn't seem quite on, and I could scarcely look at him without noting the statuesqueness.
Heck of a dilemma.
Can't say I was mad at the little guy for putting me in that predicament, though.
It's a very male-centric view to imagine that women dress to impress them.
They dress to look better than any of the other women in the room.
Skipper: Follow the link I left, the one the Oro correctly characterized as sad. This one. I hate to generalize from blog comment threads, but clearly some people have gotten what strikes me as a really bizarre idea of the connection between marriage and sex.
Maybe the source of that bizarre idea isn't pornography, but it is definitely the quasi-pornographic threads in our culture.
I post an article full of pretty dramatic testimonials of broken homes, lost love and respect, shame, embarassment at what the PC cleaner might find out, etc., etc. Professionals tell of the very serious damage many relationships have suffered.
But you have failed to establish that all of that misery was caused by something intrinsic to pornography, rather than just by guys ignoring their wives, which as we've pointed out can happen with just about any activity.
Porn, for instance, isn't physically addictive, it's only potentially mentally addictive.
If you want to establish that porn is uniquely bad, then at the very least you have to produce some kind of supporting evidence that porn is more emotionally addictive than, say, blogging. Or golf.
But you just repeat that I have utterly failed to discern any ill effects. Sorry, but it sounds like a stuck record to me.
Just a statement of fact.
If you want to nudge the needle, to un-stick the record, (what is this, the 70s ?), then simply provide a list of the ills that you think that you can establish are caused by porn.
...you will tell yourself the most fantastic tales about how modern porn is mainly about perfectly healthy chaps relaxing with a few Beardsley prints or a young couple watching a risque Swedish movie...
What's a "fantastic tale" is that porn isn't mainly about perfectly healthy chaps relaxing, or a young couple watching a risque movie.
Again I ask, are you attempting to assert that a few overachieving perverts are spending a billion dollars a year on porn ?
In America, at least, it's pretty mainstream.
Peter:
Oroborous has said what I was going to say, only better.
Your response fails to address anything he said. The man in question clearly has an obsessive activity, the nature of which caused a reaction formation that other obsessive activities, equally consuming in all other respects, would not.
Obsession is the issue, not the activity. What do you suppose Orrin's wife thinks of all his blogging?
Everybody knows the trade is grossly exploitative, sordid and connected to drugs, prostitution and crime.
With respect to pornography (as opposed to prostitution, which is connected to crime because it is illegal, which is a lot like circular logic), I'm not sure you can say that. From what I have heard, the women often make a great deal of money, either in absolute terms, or relative to what they could get otherwise.
And even if all you say is absolutely true, it still fails to address the pivotal consideration: as it is voluntary, those making the decision, regardless of the reasons, do so because it is better than the alternatives on offer. You may not agree with the decision, or find it incomprehensible, or terribly sad (my take), but that is irrelevant. It is their life, their decision, not yours.
This brings up an interesting corollary. Prostitution is illegal. Making a pornographic film is not. I'll bet that you would be very hard pressed to find any exploitation -- by the standard meaning of the word, anyway -- in the adult film industry, but it is rife in prostitution.
Could it be that making prostitution illegal causes more harm than whatever harm it is attempting to prevent?
Also, if I happened to be in the market (full disclosure: am not, have never), I would be hauling a video camera with me. If busted, I would simply assert I was making an adult movie.
Again I ask, are you attempting to assert that a few overachieving perverts are spending a billion dollars a year on porn ?
Having traveled reasonably extensively, I can confirm that adult film channels are universal, including the red states.
In fact, the only place I have been that doesn't have adult film channels in hotels is the People's Republic of China.
That's a heck of an example to follow.
That avoids my point entirely, which is this: by what law of nature do they get to impose their sensitivities upon something they do not understand, and, other than reaction formation, scarcely affects them, if at all.
The law of Love, Honor and Cherish? They're not imposing their sensitivities, husbands have promised to share and protect those sensibilities.
I can't fathom how you guys can be oblivious to the threat that such a habit poses to the sense of love and security that a wife feels in her relationship. Men are notorious for being unfaithful to begin with, but add to that a regular habit of ogling younger, sexier women in erotic situations, then how do you expect a woman to react? I'm not buying this "I have needs" angle, or "women don't understand" angle. How hard is a husband who uses porn despite the distress it causes his wife trying to understand her?
This is not a matter of just the time involved. You can't equate golf and pornography from a qualitative standpoint, as far as the impact it has on a wife. They are not interchangeable activities.
Duck:
The law of Love, Honor and Cherish? They're not imposing their sensitivities, husbands have promised to share and protect those sensibilities.
Wow, quite the one way street, isn't it.
I agree that it is a particularly unthinking husband that can't keep this activity under wraps; privacy in this respect would work wonders.
However, if that woman happens to be reading a bodice ripper while protesting his pornographic activities, isn't she being just a tad hypocritical?
Which raises the question: why is all opprobrium reserved for the former, and not a word for the latter?
It seems to me they are far more similar than different.
Ah, yes. The other (digital) woman problem. Like the servant problem, it never leaves the upper middle class.
I don't get it. We have massive anecdotal evidence that religion screws up the intimate relations of men and women, and strong but rather less massive evidence that shocking, my dear, simply shocking reading or watching habits can do the same.
One, however, is presented as not only supportable but a basic requirement of stable family life, and the other as a threat to the same.
Why both are not treated as equivalent is beyond me.
I can't fathom how you guys can be oblivious to the threat that such a habit poses to the sense of love and security that a wife feels in her relationship.
You can't equate golf and pornography from a qualitative standpoint, as far as the impact it has on a wife.
Women don't react monolithically, and they don't need to be patronized, "protected" from sexual images.
Different women react in different ways to pornography. Some do feel threatened. Most do not, as I will elaborate below.
How hard is a husband who uses porn despite the distress it causes his wife trying to understand her?
This gets to the heart of the matter: The husband isn't responding to his wife's distress.
Again, that can happen under many, many circumstances, most of which have nothing to do with sex.
I have asserted several times during this discussion that porn is widely viewed in America, and concluded that therefore, it must not have too negative an effect, since there's no widespread backlash against it.
Even in the American "Bible Belt" there are enormous megastores stuffed to the ceiling with pornographic magazines and videos. There are places in America that still have religiously-based "blue laws" that forbid the sale of certain goods on Sundays, that are also home to adult bookstores.
Because of that type of cultural acceptance, and due to the amount of adult goods sold in America, I can't see how we can conclude anything other than that most people, male or female, don't take porn too seriously, and although they may have objections based on taste, they don't have fundamental issues with its existence.
Those in this thread who don't like porn point over and over to the destruction it has facilitated in the lives of a few junkies.
My objection is, where is the evidence that these fellows would have been model husbands, if porn were unknown ?
I think it is because the women they respect aren't the real ones.
Your habit of asserting that the women that I know, don't actually exist, is annoying and disrespectful, among other, darker, things.
I believe that the social world that you describe living in is real, although I don't have experience with it, and take issue with you over how much of humanity shares it with you; I'm mystified about why you believe that the subculture that I describe living in is some kind of fantasy or delusion.
I guess that what I'm saying boils down to this:
Although I don't find there to be anything wrong with the concept of porn, there is a troubling shadiness about the industry at the fringes, and porn isn't of the highest morality, so I wouldn't weep bitter tears if it were somehow completely and permanently abolished.
However, looking at naked women is a near-universally-enjoyed pastime of men, and throughout history, they've established social structures to accomplish that, often in ways accepted or even promoted by the religions of the day. (References to medieval Europe or Ancient Greece available, if anyone cares).
The current flood of cheap, high-quality porn is simply a function of our extreme wealth, just as we have more food than we could possibly eat, and more cars than there are adults to drive them.
It ain't going away, unless our entire society does.
Like this. Oh wait, that's "classical fine art".
Whatever.
Oro:
... it must not have too negative an effect, since there's no widespread backlash against it.
I have mentioned this elsewhere. The proliferation of cheap, easily available porn (which doesn't even require going out in public to obtain) is fairly recent, say over the last six years. It has paralleled the growth in broadband internet connections.
Making the WWW a unique means of assessing certain cultural claims, this being one.
IF there are harmful consequences to pornography, than this sudden change in availability, and consequent increase in consumption, must have some knock-on effects.
In particular, if pornography damages marriages, than there should be a divergence in the divorce rate between the subset of the population with broadband connections, and those without. While it is an obvious thing to look for, I doubt anyone has yet studied it.
More broadly though, so far as I know, the divorce rate, and crimes against women are essentially the same since 2000 as in the decade preceding. Crimes against women may even be down slightly. (Note: I'd provide some links, but the PRC is so censorious that it has succeeded in slowing high speed internet to a crawl.)
Peter:
I think it is because the women they respect aren't the real ones. They're the quasi-futuristic ones who have seen the light and think and feel exactly as they do.
I think you would rather engage in a slanging match than bother with analysis.
I can indeed fathom how, and why, a woman would find this offending and threatening. (While reading her Clan of the Cave Bear series.)
What I can't fathom is why some men, knowing this full well, can't keep an easily concealable activity secret.
Well, actually, it is fathomable, and it has nothing to do with pornography.
David:
I did follow the link the first time around (should have mentioned it).
You are right. It is sad, and pathetic.
Maybe the source of that bizarre idea isn't pornography, but it is definitely the quasi-pornographic threads in our culture.
If confined to our culture, which I doubt.
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