Pornified: why admitting that you watch a lot of porn is no longer cool

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 might 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 to the world 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 it 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 in the early 90’s, 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 a vibrating Fleshlight in the 90’s would quickly earn you the reputation of a pervert, and even worse, it could 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 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 me a taco in a TV commercial - I feel like I’m being violated. When porn oversteps its lecherous boundaries into normal, clothed society, there is 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 people have no secrets they become vulnerable.  Without rules of eitquette and deportment, 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 began to realize that the recent “coolness” of porn – started in 1999 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 live on his decision to retire from the porn business (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 caused an unsettling feeling. 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 the smut king of a huge part of its authenticity. I liked to think that by occasionally cranking one out to a scene starring Ron Jeremy and some callow newcomer to the biz was my own little private escape, and this gave these innocent corpulent and hirsute fantasies a sense of sophistication. It was like I was learning from the world master of the quicky himself, and to see a man who is so disgusting yet so confident in action added greatly to my own optimism and self-esteem. I thought of how I might someday employ his little tricks and seductive charms (like when I’m on a Royal Caribbean Cruise for instance). But to look at the world now and see all sorts of people from all walks of life admitting their fawning appreciation for this man and what his existence has meant and done for them, it seemed like a sci-fi movie in which the nation’s drinking water becomes tainted by truth serum.

These sorts of unchecked revelations are careless, reckless and unhealthy to say the least. There is a time for humor and lust, 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 the standard dress code, the increase in the average waist size, and the elevation of numerous 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 by marketing items which, at their core, are generic, garish, offensive and vapid. Entertainers have abandoned the more sophisticated art of tact and subtlety in their acts 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, never seemed to learn the value of hard work. They expect and crave the good life, but many of them lack the discipline needed 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 many 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 otherwise healthy obsession into the light as a way of moving out of the dark ages of the more repressed 80’s and 90’s. But progress is not always a good thing, and having a voluminous knowledge of adult cinema is a useless conversation topic in my opinion. 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 any glib revelations about one’s porn viewing habits should be discouraged just as much today as they would have been ten, fifteen or twenty years ago. I hate to envision a newfangled world where keeping up with the Joneses means having a bigger wall of XXX rated DVD’s than they do!

Probably the most ironic thing about all of the professed “coolness” of porn lately is the fact that, despite having seeped out of its mostly inglorious and invisible niche into more respectable culture, 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 become immersed in a world of unquenchable virtual sex. Porn may always have a few advantages, but for a lot of people it is 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 am the kind of person who likes 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.

paradigm shift

Does God punish us?

Because we are moral creatures, we punish ourselves. I also believe the world can beat us down at times, but not because a higher power wills it to. The world can work against us for a variety of reasons, and how we deal with life’s unlevel playing fields results in making us either stronger or weaker individuals.

A religious person might see these grueling uphill challenges as God’s way of punishing us, but a rational person will view these things as a combination of different forces working together, some of which we have control over, and others which are beyond our control.

Why Dan Brown is important

People need to incorporate Christianity into a modern context so that it still has relevance in our daily lives today; otherwise the Bible is just a collection of ancient stories that have no present day applications. People think we don’t need God anymore because we live in a complex world with TVs, computers and medicine. But we’re still going to die, and this is where all the big questions come from: Why do I exist? Why am I here? What do I hope to achieve in life? What comes after? This is why we still have religion, and why we may always have religion. This dilemma (if you can call it that) is what inspires people like Dan Brown to write books like “Angels & Demons” and “The Da Vinci Code.” These intellectual adventures serve as a collective exploration and redefinition of faith for a generation standing at the threshold of something new and uncharted.

On seeing and believing

I believe that current events happen, but I don’t always believe in how they are interpreted and told to us by the so-called “pundits” in the media. For instance, in the 2008 vice presidential debates, I thought Sarah Palin bombed. And yet probably because of some network mandate, all the talking heads were saying that she aced the event and blew Joe Biden out of the water. By watching the debate with my own eyes, however, and seeing how she reeled and stuttered her way through the questions without saying anything concrete that came from her own head, I believe that she flopped. But news is very political, and nothing is ever reported without a spin, hence we get ridiculous assessments like this.

For this reason I carefully filter out everything that comes from the major news networks, and only accept the little trickle of facts that make it through. I have learned by now that most of the opinionated blowhards on channels like CNN and MSNBC are vacuous bags of fat that are pumped full of empty words and slogans by the candidates with the most soft money.

Three cheers for Bubba!!!

FINALLY!

I know this also could not have happend without B-Money’s indefatigable ‘Lil Kim smear campaign on facebook!

Economic Uncertainty Spawns Creative Fecundity

[via Intent.com (where inspiration flourishes)]

NEVER A WORSE BETTER TIME THAN NOW

By: Tim Freeman

If the Recession Blues are getting you down – or if you’re just dreading the countdown to 2012 when the ancient Mayan calendar predicts the world will end – have no fear. Even though you may not have a job, or you have a job but no money, you can take solace in the fact that things aren’t as bad as they appear on the surface.

As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21^st Century and realize what an anticlimactic disappointment it all was, we can take comfort in knowing that the world isn’t going to implode anytime soon (sorry Mayans). There is a vast future waiting to be conquered, and history is already unfolding before our eyes. Many of us might not see it, but all it takes is some sifting through the murky haze of blah-ness to uncover the possibilities.

You probably already recognize some of the trends brewing these days without even being aware of it. If not, let me call your attention to some of them:

Jon Itkin

Not since Bruce Springsteen has an artist tapped the American working class backbone with so much originality and intellectual honesty as this 24 year old virtuoso from Oregon. Itkin’s website describes his music as, “A little country, a little rock n’ roll,” but this man’s sound truly defies genre labeling. In “Like a Bruise” off of 2005’s Oregon, Jon laments, “Working ‘till [he’s] sixty then dying of a heart attack.” Not the most uplifting lyrics, but this coffee drinking hick has a way of turning pain into something beautiful. “Bismarck,” from 2007’s Big Gold Guitar in the Sky, is a more upbeat ditty which rants about fathers who are “land-locked sailors” and running away with “a beautiful woman.” Probably the most promising thing about Jon Itkin’s music besides his prematurely-aged wisdom and talent, however, is that it attempts to redefine a certain way of life within a 21^st Century context. Itkin proves that cowboys can still be cool and have relevance for all time, if they only adjust their sensibilities every once in a while.

Blog Your Way to a Job

Believe it or not, ennui is marketable. Chances are you and everybody you know (and their dog) has a blog. But did you know that your blogging might pave the way to a career? Yes, what you had for breakfast and your insights about last night’s episode of Big Love can actually land you a job. Emily Gould, former Gawker editor turned blogger, is a perfect example of someone who utilized this bedroom launch pad to make a career for herself in the limelight. Considered a leading authority on the whole blogging phenomenon, Emily is currently authoring a book based on her 2008 NY Times Magazine article about her personal obsession with blogging and being what she calls an “over-sharer.”  The blogging maven has even been a guest on Larry King Live and FOX’s Redeye.

Carmichael native and Del Campo alumnus Brenna Hamilton, a self-described “freelance writer and former advertising wondergirl” began studying mass communications after her advertising job was downsized. “There is a huge rift in the mass media between traditional forms of broadcast, cable, radio, magazines, newsprint, books and sound recordings (music) versus the 21^st Century digital Internet and mobile/cell revolution,” she says. “What we are experiencing is the end of the line for the traditional media as they struggle to adapt or die in the new age of all things Internet/digital.”

As old school media struggles to keep pace with newer technologies, conditions are ripe for bloggers to move in and fill the gap. What does this mean for us lay people? Let’s say, for instance, you have season tickets to the King’s games. Perhaps you could provide firsthand reporting of all the Arco action on your blog titled Cow Bells.  Sports Illustrated would no doubt be jealous, and who knows – they may even try to recruit you. With so much foreseeable potential in the future of blogging, you need to start asking yourself before you sit down at the computer: Who is going to be reading this and how will it impact me later on down the road?

The New York Invasion

Another foreign music invasion wouldn’t be something to feel optimistic about if it were anything as dismal as the last invasion which brought us such depressing acts as Coldplay, The Vines and the new politically-charged U2. No, the latest invasion of musical genius is actually being generated from within our own borders in a little place called New York City. These new bands share more in common with their older British siblings, bands like Radiohead and Blur who illuminated the alternative rock scene during the middle and late nineties. Acts like the Brooklyn-based MGMT, The Kills and Georgia born Cat Power are spearheading an American musical Renaissance. Add to this domestic juggernaut the Canadian rockers Arcade Fire and a Danish duo called the Raveonettes, and it seems as if the world is musically on the verge of something very powerful and transcendent. If you are someone who thought there was no future to music after Radiohead, think again.

***

On the surface, blogging and a musical Renaissance may seem like meager sea changes in these gloomy times. But we should all take solace in the fact that the economic pall cast by the failures of the shadow banking system could not and cannot kill or dampen human expression and creativity. We will always have these great freedoms and commodities to enjoy, trade and sell.

And when times are toughest, sometimes this wellspring of freedom is all we have.