Sex and Porn Part III

Now that I have written about my personal feelings and emotions related to porn, I guess I am free to talk about porn and society. There is going to be some strong language and explicit descriptions in this post, so either bear with me or bail out.

The first thing that comes to mind is that it is my belief that porn is much more violent than it used to be and I don’t like it. When did it become cool to choke women with your dick? Or watch them vomit because they were forced to deep throat it till they gagged? I am not fond of seeing women being forcibly held with a cock all the way down their throat and their nose pinched shut. As a matter of fact, that goes straight from being a turn on to grotesque. This is not in B&D or S&M oriented porn either, it is in mainstream porn now.

Porn DVD’s commonly feature the man fucking the woman and he had his hands wrapped around her throat. I find that ugly and somewhat disturbing. It seems like these studios can hardly stand to see a woman’s ass for more than ten seconds before they want to see it get slapped. Lately I have seen two instances in mainstream porn where the guy and girl are going at it and out of the blue—he slaps her face. Pretty hard too, in one instance.

I have also noted that pornographers have taken a page from the non-porn corporate scumbags and have started to outsource porn jobs to other countries. This gives them two advantages, they can market the exotic women featured in the films and pay them pennies on the dollar of what they would pay performers in the United States. I’m sure this also saves them money in terms of the overhead invested in testing for AIDS and other STD’s that are standard to test for in the United States.

My final observation on the porn industry is that they have never valued women very much at all—women have mostly been convenient semen receptacles in that industry since day one and it would be a mistake to pretend otherwise. Even so, the manner in which women are generally portrayed in porn has reached new lows. As various porn entrepreneurs race for the bottom in terms of content, looking for something new and different to offer, the performers are essentially humiliated and treated like trash.

So where does all of this come from?

Here I am going to wander into the uncomfortable world of gross generalizations. These speculations are merely opinion, I do not have facts at hand to back them up. Nonetheless, I believe that in general these observations have merit.

The United States has a problem with violence in general. In movies and television violence is casually portrayed and is often presented as justifiable. The heroes/heroines are often shown as committing violent acts as solutions to problems. Rarely, if ever, are peacekeeping and negotiating skills portrayed as alternatives to violence. Even the most positive shows are permeated with violent themes. Video games are filled with violence at levels that alarm me. The trend towards making the player a criminal protagonist is not reassuring to me either. Pop music (I listen to a lot of this) is filled with violence. I wonder if these rap and metal stars have any conflict resolution skills beyond temper tantrums.

Our culture does not deal well with sex at all. It is not in the interests of the media or the porn industry to encourage us to come up with healthier ways to handle our sexuality. If we become comfortable with our sexuality they lose a marketing tool. Our insecurities sell billions of dollars of products ranging from porn DVD’s to lipstick each year. The more isolated and lonely of a society we become, the more we consume the entertainment and garbage they spew at us. The more we don’t have the ability to be confident in our own skin, the more alcohol, drugs, clothing and other appearance and personality altering products they can sell us.

Last, and in my eyes, worst, we have completely divorced sexuality from the sacred. I mean, completely. We do not value the physical act of sex at all and the spiritual and emotional aspects are largely ignored (outside of lip service given to those topics in support of limiting marriage to heterosexuals). Sex workers are considered less than human and get treated as such. The funny thing is, when you degrade them, that degradation spreads right up the food chain and infects everyone when they perform acts that should be loving but are suspect as perversions.

No wonder we are so angry and lonely.

I don’t see things changing anytime soon sadly. Nonetheless, I am filled with optimism, born of my relationship to my Higher Power. She has the power to change us for the better, if only we would let Her do so. And as I have said before, I call Her Goddess. You may call Her Jesus, Allah, Jehovah, Vishnu, etc. I think that if we are talking about a loving, caring God, they we are probably talking about the same thing.

Good Morning Goddess Brigit! My name is Andy and I am an alcoholic, I have been kept sober one day at a time since Imbolc 2001. I know this is Your doing, not mine and I thank You for this blessing. Today is a good day to be sober.

Please be with me today all day long, help me to stay sober all day long. May I be of service to You and to those around me. Guide me in Your ways. Thank You, blessed be.