Recently I was in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on my way to Baltimore and I was walking to my gate, something caught my eye. It was a word written large and in all caps. A four letter word I never thought I’d see in the center of the red border of Time Magazine. PORN. I was surprised and intrigued. Probably more surprised than intrigued but nonetheless it caught my attention. The thought that this well respected news magazine felt PORN worthy of being a cover story was all I needed to detour me into Atlanta Daily World and pay over $11 for two magazines (the latest issue of Cosmopolitan was also available). I put my magazines in my tote bag and continued to my gate, eager to learn what Time had to say.
After a forty-five minute wait, I boarded Southwest Airline flight #4510, settled into my favorite seat, 5A (I love a window seat) and got comfortable in anticipation of take off. After everyone was herded onboard like cattle, there was the familiar announcement that the cabin door had been closed and locked, all electronic devices should be stowed and phones switched to airplane mode. And then next, the silence in the cabin that accompanies the whirl of the engines as the plane rumbles down the runway before nosing up into the sky. My excitement bubbled. After several minutes of climbing and banking left and right to find our designated flight pattern, the pilot broke the silence to inform us we had reached 10,000 feet and we could now use our electronic devices but the seatbelt sign was still on so it was safest if we remained seated. I had been waiting for that announcement. I knew once we got to cruising altitude, I’d be able to get a cocktail and settle in to read what caught the editor’s attention in the world of PORN.
“I’ll have vodka and cranapple please,” I said as I reached for the cocktail napkin being offered to me. I then retrieved what I believe to be a magazine now half the size I remember as a kid and immediately find an article entitled PORN and The Threat to Virility. A few paragraphs in and I realize this was not what I was expecting. PORN has always been considered naughty, the thing young men watched or looked at behind closed locked doors and under their covers. Some may say they it’s a right of passage for an adolescent boy to have a stash or swipe one of his dad’s or older brother’s Playboy, Penthouse or Hustler magazines. There have been many jokes about pages sticking together from repeated viewing. Groups of boys would sneak to the basement to watch a video they found or borrowed from an older friend. Moms would pretend not to notice the PORN collection they’d find between the mattresses when they changed the sheets.
Society accepted pornography as part of the natural order of things. No one cared whether women were being degraded or that the publications were considered misogynistic. Pictures of scantily clad or naked women didn’t hurt anybody since they obviously freely posed for the pictures or chose to have sex with numerous men day after day. What’s the harm? They’re getting paid. Imagine my surprise to learn the article was about E.D. Yes, E.D., erectile dysfunction. And even more surprising, the sufferers are men in their twenties. And to further make the story interesting, these twenty-somethings claimed their erectile dysfunction was from watching too much PORN. That’s right, I said twenty-somethings are complaining of erectile dysfunction and they’re blaming it on pornography being readily available 24/7/365.
Teenage boys can now jump on the internet and watch all the PORN they want, whenever they want and as a result of that, they claim by the time they reach their late teens, early twenties and become sexually active, they can’t perform unless they either fantasize about PORN, try to recreate PORN scenarios or they can’t get it up at all no matter what. The problem is so bad, they are proposing a ban on online PORN and forming support groups to help those addicted to or rehabbing from PORN viewing.
I took a gulp of my vodka and cranapple, put the magazine down and looked out the window stunned by what I had just read. I won’t go into the statistics or the research but let’s just say, I sat at 38,000 feet thinking, What the fuck? Are you kidding me? Men are calling for a ban on pornography NOT because they feel it degrades women, sends the wrong message to our young girls or exploits women who believe this is their only option. They want to ban PORN because they can’t get it up. Ain’t that some shit?
I continued reading. Whether PORN is truly contributing to erectile dysfunction in young men is an issue very much in debate but men are taking their PORN-induced E.D. serious. Are you kidding me? I couldn’t finish the article. The back and forth between researchers was making my head spin (or maybe it was the vodka). Just as I was about to put the magazine down for good, I noticed a small article about women and pornography. The details are irrelevant but what was noteworthy was the article was just one column long versus the ten columns dedicated to the erectile dysfunction.
As a writer of erotica geared to women and a fan of pornography (shout out to Skin Diamond) I asked myself, Is the dialogue relevant just because men have a problem? And here’s a new thought – Why are we still assuming women are offended by PORN?
My experience has taught me more women watch PORN and are aroused just like their male counterparts. Many women pursue pornography as a career happily. Many women produce movies geared specifically to women. I had the pleasure of contributing two short stories for @anna_frolicme www.frolicme.com. And many more amateurs share their video encounters as well as their techniques for a better sexual experience (I picked up some pointers on squirting). Why not explore the sexual revolution going on with women? While many still have a lot to learn, a large population are not only exploring their sexual desires more freely, they own the fact that they like sex, hell even love sex and don’t want to be stigmatized for being comfortable in their skin. I dare Time Magazine to ask women how they feel about PORN. Sure you’ll get the conservative response (especially if you’re looking for it) but we’ve been brainwashed by the idea that women who like kinky sex are whores and women who just lay there and spread their legs are the preference. By the way, if the latter were true, there would be no PORN.
I finally closed the magazine disturbed because once again men are addressing an issue because it affects them not because it would benefit the women they say they love. To that end, if you’re suffering with E.D. in your twenties and you feel it’s as a direct result of your PORN consumption, don’t punish those of us who aren’t having a problem. You don’t see former alcoholics calling for a ban on alcohol or anyone with any kind of addiction asking that the thing they can’t control themselves from using be boycotted or banned. Man-up. Deal with your issue and do what you need to to get better but don’t think you’re going to shut down an entire industry. If you really had an issue with pornography, you would put regulations on it to benefit the people supposedly mistreated by it. Until that’s the cause behind your mission — fuck you and your limp dick. Now go grab a pill from your dad’s medicine cabinet and stop whining.
Smooches. ~ Casey
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