Velvet Verbosity

Woman Remodeled posted about PETA, the objectification of women and her views on pornograhy. I had already been thinking about posting on the topic, but now I have to. I’m one of those people that WR refers to as “not ok with it”. When I was younger, pornography was available but someone had to go out, in public, and buy it, or wait for it in the mail. For most people it wasn’t worth the bloody effort. And getting hold of more hardcore, deviant, or illegal stuff was no easy task.

But isn’t the internet a beautiful thing? Just turn on you computer and ask yourself where you want to go, and you’re there, instantly, cheaply, and anonymously. Addicts call this the three A’s. “Accessible, Affordable, Anonymous”.I don’t share Woman Remodeled’s laissez-faire attitude of porn. We share no cross words over it, but we’ve had many long conversations exploring our own views on it. I’m against pornography, not blanketly, but against the allowance of it being so prevalent and so easy to get. My objection to it is not moral or religious. I am thoroughly dismayed that the few people who are blogging against pornography do so from a heavily Christian slant. Unfortunately, that only furthers the case for the proponents of smut because they can easily draw a clear line in the sand.

“If you’re on that side, clearly you’re a prude, but if you’re on THIS side you’re fun and free and sexually LIBERATED!”

If only life were that simple.

I object to pornography in the same way I object to fast food, or factory farming, or excessive consumption. It’s not about “right” or “wrong” morally. To me, it is about the health of a nation and its people, and since WR brought it up, I’m going to spend a few posts talking about it.

Neither the hardcore supporters of porn or the religious “prudes” are right on the issue. There are other reasons to think that free, easily accessible pornography coupled with anonymity isn’t such a good thing. I have several points to make but today, I want to point out one of the serious flaws in the proponents’ argument.

Most supporters of pornography will tell you, “it’s just images, it’s only fantasy, therefore it’s harmless”.

Blink. Blink blink.

Oh how I love this argument. I do so wish I could stand on a debating podium and rip this one to shreds in front of a live audience and then walk home with a big fat trophy leaving my opponent to weep over her big plastic boobs.

Ok, that was harsh. I digress.

Seriously, if images had no impact on the human psyche, if fantasies could wield no influence over human decisions and actions, then WHY would the business world spend BILLIONS of dollars on marketing? And what sells more? A text-only ad or a full blown, full color, mini-length movie featuring an OBJECT OF DESIRE??

Another argument, closely related, is that there is no direct correlation between watching pornography and acting out sexually. What they mean is that there is no direct correlation between watching a violent rape pornography scene and then going out and raping a woman. This is more or less true, but not entirely true and I’ll cover those stats tomorrow. But neither is there a direct correlation between watching a commercial and jumping up to go buy the featured product. So why would marketers continue to make commercials? Because there is an effect, and it is cumulative. It happens over time, and it happens by changing people’s minds slowly, slowly and surely. You probably don’t have the slightest clue how insidious, clever, and powerful advertising is. Even if you don’t feel like you’re being affected, you are. Somewhere, sometime, some advertising is going to plant little seeds of desire in your mind. Marketing plays on the basic human condition of dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction=Desire=Survival. This formula got us this far, and marketers now know how to plant suggestions about what particular things we should desire next in order to survive.

Like cars. Do we really need them for survival? We sure think we do. I bet your first thought is, “But Velvet Verbosity, you NEED a car.” Do I? Do you? Does anyone need a car? Why? To get to your job? So that you can pay for your car? Did we need to build our lives around the dependency on a car? I know lots of people who get around just fine with public transport or bicycles. Desire makes us need a car, not necessity. Desire for mobility, for freedom, for ease of living, for sex appeal, to have an outward trophy of our succes.

The flames of that desire are fueled by commercials, and that advertising worked SO well that our culture is saturated with cars. Cars are so normalized in our culture that we really think we can’t live without them. Really? Would I die if I didn’t have a car? No. I would not. I would find a way to make my life work without one.

Images are powerful. The idea that consistent use of pornography will not have a cumulative effect of some kind is about the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Well. Except for that one argument against gay marriage, “What’s next? Marriages between humans and animals?”. Right, because that logically follows. Maybe if you’re a follower of bestiality porn it does.

So, am I saying that if you watch enough rape porn you will eventually go out and rape a woman? Yes. I am saying that. And here’s the rub, it might not be reported, because it’s been normalized in the pornography desensitized mind of the victim through the prevalent, steady, pornification of our culture. Or, if reported, the rapist may not be prosecuted or punished to the full extent of the law, because, as studies have shown, violent pornography makes people less empathetic to the victim and more sympathetic to the rapist.

However, most men will still not go out and perpetrate a violent rape on a strange woman. Instead they will coerce their girlfriends and wives to act more and more porn-like in the bedroom. You don’t think so? Do you think that women decided that learning how to pole dance in their very own home was fueled by a woman’s deep seated desire to fulfill herself by learning how to wrap herself around a pole? Or that women risk their lives going under the knife to have their breasts and genitals reshaped and reworked to look more and more like porn stars because it empowers them?

In 1968 we shouted and burned our bras. In 2008 we shut up and fill em up. You tell me where the empowerment is in that. We women too have been duped, duped I say, by the pornification of our culture.

It is late, and I don’t have time to link to stats and studies tonight, but they are out there and I’ll get them to you.