In Defense of Porn

It seems like everyone is talking porn this week. Witherspoon Institute, a conservative think tank recently published a book called The Social Costs of Pornography. I am not going to link to the website, as there's a sentence on the site that makes me not want to promote their cause, "commitment to liberal education and republican government". Nuff said. Feel free to Google it yourself.

But I found this account on another conservative site interesting:

Picture an addiction so lethal it has the potential to render an entire generation incapable of forming lasting marriages and so widespread that it produces more annual revenue — $97 billion worldwide in 2006 — than all of the leading technology companies combined. Consider a narcotic so insidious that it evades serious scientific study and legislative action for decades, thriving instead under the ever-expanding banner of the First Amendment.

In this article, the woman talks about her husband of 13 years leaving her for someone who looks like a porn star. And she blames the first amendment.

My first reaction: well, who wouldn't?

Insensitivity alert: I forget which book/article that talked about Indian women and their desperation in holding on to their man. It went something like this, the socialite women bring up their kids, attend yoga and literature circle meetings, and talks about poetry, pilates and life and so on. And they wonder why the men don't look at them anymore. The answer was something like, men do look at them, they just look at younger, uncomplicated versions of them. OK, end of bitchiness.

But seriously, google definition of porn, and the first one says: "creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire". What kind of stupid definition is that? Adam and eve met in the garden, looked at each other, ate the forbidden fruit, looked at each other again with desire, and tore leaves off the tree to cover their private parts. Adam because he felt inadequate in front of the snake. and Eve, I'm guessing here, just wanted to to be chased. It's more fun when you leave things out for Adam's imagination. She needed to screw with his head.

Let's take a detour off the topic for a moment. As a communication professional, I am always fascinated by the "boardwalk pitch" approach taken by our beloved herbal medicine industry. One morning, I was walking into my house (which is on the same compound as a children's kindergarten), and saw two new posters on our gate, both using creative slogans as follows:

• Do you feel inadequate in bed? 
• Do you spit it out too soon? 
• Is the anatomy of your manhood (a certain specific way)? 
• Is your wife dissatisfied (in islamic country, of course it'll be the wife who's dissatisfied, not the girlfriend or the lady in waiting)? 
• Do you feel burning and itching sensation (it's a tropical country, it itches and burns everywhere all the time)?
• Did you pleasure yourself in early years, and now feel weak and tired (it's the smoking and the malnutrition, just saying)
• Is your thing too small?

Now that is right there on the wall for all the children to peruse. No problem with that, the government don't care if you get psychological complex and use untested herbal crap from quacks for questionable benefits.

In Mohakhali intersection, there are 40ish women throwing these leaflets into your vehicle. But god forbid if you get a stare at the woman who's handing you the leaflet. Or use technology to do something similar.

Now back to my topic. The arguments placed on the articles, at least how I understand it, are misplaced. I think porn is great. Here's how:

1. Safest form of sex: You won't die of HIV or hepatitis.
2. Saves time and money: You won't have to spend an entire evening quoting Nietzsche and chowing down expensive seafood at an overpriced restaurant wondering if you'll ever get there
3. Costs less: Now even less thanks to Moore's Law. Here's a plug for SuperFreakonomics, where LeVitt and Dubner argues that the earning power of prostitutes have fallen drastically over last 100 years, because there's a steady supply of so many people who are willing to give it up for free.
4. Privacy: There's no morning after water-cooler gossip about how weird or idiotic you were during the interaction.
5. Anytime, anyplace: You have the ultimate control.
6. It's all about you: When was the last time the world revolved solely around you?

Now keeping this in mind, let's look at the conservative arguments (and debunk them):
1. Porn destroys the family structure: It's the 2010, and the definition and usefulness of familian structure is nowhere near what it used to be.

2. The 9/11 terrorists consumed porn and went to nude bars before boarding the plane: So did Elliott Spitzer, John Edwards, Papal guard at the Vatican.

3. It follows the drug addiction cycle of addiction, escalation, desensitization and acting-out: Yeah, but you can get back to work in less than a minute, and no morning after headache.

4. It creates undesirable expectations on women: I think society creates undesirable expectations on women. Porn is mostly a expression for it.

5. "A 2004 study published in Social Science Quarterly found that Internet users who had had an extramarital affair were 3.18 times more likely to have used online porn than Internet users who had not had an affair." I have to laugh, as that sentence makes no sense.

6. "Western liberalism (in its old-fashioned sense) has done far more than Israel's settlements to provoke violent Muslim anti-Americanism": This, from WSJ, is again a red herring, as i'd argue that invading Iraq and Afghanistan, and continuing to make a mess there would be a bigger culprit. Oh, well.

There's no way I can end this entry without disappointing you. I don't have a compelling punchline ready. Let me plagiarize Woody Allen once more, and say that "Love is deep, but sex only need to go a few inches". But if you're looking for deeper things in life, don't start in the puddle. At least make an effort to go near a lake or pond.

Same applies to pornography. If you want lasting relationships and meaningful fulfilling experiences, what are you doing trolling along paths looking at people who have explicitly expressed intentions to the contrary?