Today was a quiet spring Sunday and I spent it the way Sundays like this are meant to be spent: lazing about at home in front of the computer watching episodes of Frontline. The first one was an analysis the financial meltdown, then I moved on to an episode about the exploding meth epidemic, and before you know it I was watching American Porn.
American Porn is a captivating look at the porn industry by the people at Frontline. Though it is beginning to look dated (it was shot a millennium ago, back in 2002), it reminded me of several facts about the state of porn today.
The most salient point, the one that stuck out in my mind, is that our present exposure to porn, in volume, variety, and level of "depravity," is unprecedented in human history. The power of the internets is only part of the equation that has made this scenario so. A lack of obscenity prosecutions during the Clinton Administration and the calculated efforts by the porn industry to infiltrate itself into the mainstream have also played a part.
We are the first generation to have near instant access to damn near anything you could think of (See: Rule 34). For better or worse we don't know the long term effects of that kind of exposure. What's more, judging by the rise of porn in just the few years since American Porn, we have not yet reached the high water mark. We can only imagine what lays ahead for the next generation. Will there a be a saturation point after which porn will start to get boring ( I have to admit I feel this sometimes myself)? Will there be a puritanical backlash? Or will porn production ceaselessly increase in order to feed a bottomless desire? Oh the questions!
Click here to see American Porn.
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