Let's talk about Porn
I came across an interesting article, titled The Porn Myth by Naomi Wolf. I can summarize it for you - they Myth is that pornography turns men into sex-crazed psychos, willing to rape and pillage to get what they want, which is sex, sex, sex. The actuality, according to Wolf is that men have becoming uninterested in women because women do not compare with the ideal porn woman. Women just can't compare, because they are real, actual women "with pores and her own breasts and even sexual needs of her own". Men just don't feel that the girls that they encounter are porn-worthy and they no longer try to have sex with them.
Wow. What an utter and complete load of horseshit.
There's only two things wrong with this article.
a) She didn't do any research+. b) She didn't draw any reasonable conclusions.
I was going to draw some conclusions from my own life, but I think that would be making the same mistake as Wolf. Instead, let's take this scenario ("men no longer want sex") and take it to its (possibly il-)logical conclusion.
For starters, what has been driving men's brains for the last million or so years? That's right; sex. Sex is behind almost every decision that men make and quite nearly everything that men do. Here's a list of things we do for sex:
- Groom ourselves. We groom to get chicks*.
- Buy flowers or chocolates.
- Go to a gym.
- Go to bars. 90% of the time you see a guy in a bar, he is trying to score. The rest he is getting drunk, usually because of a woman.
- Go to fancy restaurants. We tend to like beef, usually cooked by fire.
- Wear clothes. The only time I really like to wear pants is in the winter when I'm outside, because it keeps my boys from freezing off.
- Go to work. We go to work to get money. We get money so we can spend it on girls. We spend it on girls so they will have sex with us. It's like plumage.
- Play sports. This one might be difficult to see, but I'll explain - sports are a symbol of the times when we could just fight each other. Sports are, in fact, organized warfare with rules where people tend not to die. We play sports because women don't like us killing each other all the time, and because chicks dig a guy who plays sports.
This isn't even a very complete list. There's a ton of other things we do so we can have sex. But let's see what would happen if we stopped being interested in sex:
- Men stop grooming themselves. Head and Shoulders goes broke. Lever 2000 goes broke. Crest goes broke. Gillette goes broke. Long beards abound. Long hair abounds. Lice abound.
- Flower stores go broke. Chocolate manufacturers do not go broke, but they stop making frou-frou little chocolatier-style chocolates in doilies.
- Men's gyms en masse transform into fighting schools.
- All the bars close. The Beer Store's stock goes up 68000% because men know that drinking at home with buddies is cheaper than drinking at a bar with buddies.
- Every fancy restaurant either closes down, or gets a charcoal grill and starts serving steak and burgers.
- Every tailor goes out of business except for the guy who specializes in loose fitting pants, sandals, and full winter gear. Men will wear the loose fitting pants when they barbecue.
- Surprisingly, professional sports do not shut down, but every sport becomes more like hockey, except for hockey which becomes more like fighting with ice skates on. A new rule is added to every sport - if you win a fight, the other team gets a penalty for being wussy.
- Men stop going to jobs that they don't like and start going to jobs that they do. There is a drastic increase in a number of professions including gunslinger, cowboy, porn director, porn distributor, jockey, bullfighter and fireman (not firefighter - fireman, as in, "one who lights fires"). All the infrastructure for waste removal falls into disrepair; garbage piles high on the streets and the sewer lines back up. All mining stops. The diamond industry collapses. Methane build-up reaches colossal proportions. The price of kidney beans skyrockets. Cats are hunted and killed on sight. Dogs are everywhere, and are free to lick their own balls. Speed limits are abolished. Every major conflict is decided by a fight to the death and minor conflicts are decided by armwrestling. To the death.
Seriously, though, I think if men were no longer interested in sex, or even if there was a significant decrease in the libidinous nature of we manly beasts, there would certainly be repercussions beyond a general lack of sex. Let me introduce another theory:
People today have the same problems connecting with one another that they have always had. It can be difficult to talk to people, to make yourself feel as if the person you with is really, honestly listening and actually cares about what you are saying, thinking or feeling. As always, the easiest scapegoat in the crisis of inter-human relations is the media. Naomi Wolf can try to blame pornography for the problems of men and women, but I think that's the same as looking at someone who has tuberculosis and saying that "your tuberculosis is caused by all that coughing." It's a symptom of the problem, not the root cause.
I think you'll find that the root cause is the incredible differences between men and women and the way that we think. Good job, though, Ms. Wolf, on giving us an inconcrete idea to put the blame on - that's really going to help the situation.
+ I know she did talk to some people. I don't think that constitutes "research". * Almost every argument here can be used about the GLBT crowd as well by replacing a few words.