The Porn Myth

In my travels across the internet I came across an interesting New York Magazine article written a few years ago by Naomi Wolf where she revisits Andrea Dworkin's arguments against pornography.

Ms. Dworkin foretold of an age, much like our own, where pornography was pervasive. The ubiquity of porn, in her opinion a dangerous entity that objectifies women, would lead to an acceleration of rapes and such and would incite violence against women.

Ms. Wolf went the opposite way with it. Her claim is that the increase amounts of porn in our lives hasn't led to Dworkin's nightmare world of constant rape and female enslavement but rather it as led to boredom. More Porn, dirtier porn, and lightening-quick access to it has made it easier than ever for a man find sexual satisfaction in a way that leaves flesh and blood women behind. The result is that men and human don't connect on the same level as they did before. Women for the most part have to try harder to live up to ramped-up sexual fantasies men now find standard. Men for their part understand women less. Real women aren't like porn women. Something gets lost in intimacy when Bang Bus is your guide to relating to women.

I'm an inclined to agree with Ms. Wolf's article to a point: Yes, all this porn has gotten us bored with sex. But it has enhanced my relations with women. Now I can only speak for myself, but I find that the fact that sex has lost a lot of its mystery to be liberating.

I feel that porn doesn't create what isn't there. Porn doesn't manufacture my sex drive; it merely appeases it. It quells a sexual urge that would've been there regardless of the stimulus. That means if it weren't for the the copious amounts of porn I've consumed over the years I would've been hard at work sublimating those desires one way or another. That would most likely mean directing it at real women. As it is I can maintain healthy sexual relations as well as a porn habit. It downright frightens what that would look like if there was no porn at all. I argue that I would objectify women more.

The way I see it, porn is a safety valve for my libido. The fact that I have such a thing means I can afford to think of real women as more than just sex objects. I can talk to her about her: who she is, what's she's done, who she wants to be. I'm not spending all my energy trying to get her to do anal or cum on her glasses or bang her and her best friend. I have videos for all of that. I am trying to get something I can't download: her mind, her smell, the her-ness of her. Isn't that what intimacy is? Of course I am only talking about myself. Maybe I'm different.