So, another one of the blogs had the question of whether or not men “need” porn.
I chimed in (like a dope).
I imagine it has to do with where you are in life and also whether or not you’ve been in a long-term relationship or not.
If you want to understand, go back and take a look at the movie American Beauty. There’s a sequence that shows Kevin Spacey at the start of his day. He’s in the shower and I would take odds he’s not thinking about his wife at that moment (even though in the film he’s married to the very lovely Annette Bening).
The inference though is that there are two people together and while they’re together certain things are no longer a part of their marriage.
It’s hard work to be with someone.
Not even hard work, it’s constant work. To stay with someone you really have to work at it and in addition to working at it you have to be forgiving of your partner’s shortcomings and failings.
Dating is interesting but the person we present when we date is not who we are.
No, instead it’s an idealized version of ourselves without all the bumps and bruises. It’s the person we would like to be were we not carrying around all the baggage of the years piled up neatly in our very own Samsonite all weather set.
Some of us have more pieces in our luggage than others but even the best of us has a carry on (maybe one of those jobbies with the little wheels and the telescoping handle).
The whole discussion about porn was surprising if only for the very extreme response it generated from some people. It’s a dicey issue to be sure but I never fail to be amazed by what will get some people’s back up.
I really don’t think men think too much about it. Certainly not quite to the same extent women may and definitely I don’t think it’s something they look upon as a betrayal of their relationship.
It’s not something they’re proud of (except in those special instances where a person has embraced their deviance), it’s just another fact of life for many.
It might have something to do with the dynamic between the sexes as well because wooing as it is requires an exertion of effort and there are times when men just want things to be easy.
Is that really a crime? (1011 Views pre transfer)
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End of a cycle, thoughts and all that jazz...
13 years ago
8 comments:
Hmm. Interesting perspectives but what about the other post made you come away with the idea that porn was a crime?
Check out Stratos97 blog Our Story So Far... with the post titled Do Men Really NEED porn.
I don’t think porn is a crime in the slightest, if anything I was surprised by the extreme reaction the post got from some people.
I know that _you_ don't think of porn as a crime. I already read the entirety of the other post. The only extreme answer I saw was Red's with whom you said you agreed. Then you ask if it's a crime, indicating to me that you got the impression that people on that other post left you with the impression that it was a crime.
That is the part I'm having a hard time understanding and would appreciate help seeing your perspective. What _exactly_ about people's reactions there made you think they were extreme? Because I don't see it, I see people sharing their stories and their conflicted feelings about porn. To me that's not extreme though and it certainly doesn't make crime into a porn.
The fact is women have to deal with the omnipresence of porn on a daily basis. Women are objectified in this culture on a minute to minute basis. Having been part of the sex industry, I both know this to be true and don't necessarily find people's desires threatening to me. However I can very easily understand it producing conflicted feelings in women as it has me.
Is it possible that men are, as a general rule, made to feel defensive and shameful about their desire for porn, while at the same time it is omnipresent and maybe that makes it hard to hear someone else talk about their different perspective without hearing judgement?
Hey, are you coming back? I've been watching this post because I was interested to see the discussion resulting from taar's comments. (I was curious about your reaction to Stratos' post too and wondering if you classified my comments as "extreme" too.)
taarnagh,
I agreed with Red inasmuch snooping around is an invasion of the other person’s privacy. Whether you save old love letters, look at porn, whatever... everyone needs a certain amount of space in the relationship. Certainly where porn becomes an addiction is an entirely different issues, if a person is spending innumerable hours looking at it, spending lots of dollars on it, there is a definite problem.
The thing that gets called into question is what is too much; I think there are very different parameters for men than there are for women.
In the flip side I did see some very extreme reactions to the issue and almost entirely they sprung forth from a single gender. This sense of betrayal about a man looking at porn? There were a couple of things going on there that said more about the person doing the judging... first off there were comparisons going on between the porn and the woman. If a woman wants to draw those kinds of comparisons, it's not the fault of her partner in the relationship.
Then again, women spend quite a bit of time comparing themselves to other women. Are men really to blame for that though?
You talk about objectification...
I really have a problem with that because we are all of us objectified to some extent. We are judged by physical characteristics constantly regardless of gender. Dress, skin color, body types are all factors that determine how the world around us interacts with us. To isolate this very human tendency and attribute it solely as a gender based issue is being somewhat disingenuous.
I'm actually growing quite tired of hearing it too.
Women make the same kind of judgments about men too. The men you run across during the course of your daily travels are objectified just as much as any woman is. You determine whether or not you find a man attractive or "cute." If women are not as overt as SOME men, it doesn't mean it happens any less.
I've often wondered how things like bias and racism are hardwired into people. These are certainly issues that a person needs to tread lightly around but, looking at the natural world there are parallels for these behaviors. I'm not saying it makes them valid, just trying to better understand the basis behind them. While we often would like to forget Homo sapiens are also animals, there are parts of us that make that denial a fallacy. The veneer of civilization aside, we have a long way to go before we escape these very primal aspects of ourselves.
I dated someone in porn, have had peripheral dealings in the industry and am well aware of the good and bad aspects of that world. Porn is fantasy; it's not reality anymore than a Hollywood movie is. Porn also encompasses a broad range of material to appeal to just about every fetish and while the indignant cited occasions of women with unnaturally slim waists and gravity defying breasts, the truth is that is only a small part of porn.
I'm not making apologies for it or validating it, just saying if there weren’t a demand for it, it wouldn't be the big business that it is.
Some of that discussion in the other thread was interesting just because of the characterizations made. Strict religious societies deal with the objectification issue by having a woman cover herself from head to toe. The thinking is that even a women's hair is too much of a temptation.
I had a discussion with someone recently who was telling me about her sister in law who lives in the middle east and follows strict custom. She observed that in the privacy of other women, when she shed all her concealing garments, her mane of hair was indeed quite glorious and she could well understand how it could be viewed as temptation.
What's the solution though?
I admit to having somewhat conflicting feelings about the issue. However, I also know the reality of any long-term relationship is that people lose interest in one and other. Sometimes these periods are temporary but, if they are longer lasting a relationship can be in some very real danger.
Anyway, as I am not entirely coherent at this point because of the events of the last few days (ear) this may come off as a bit of spew but I had wanted to respond. There are volumes that could be written about the topic but, I hit the ball back over to your side of the court for now.
I have every intention of replying to this, I've just been too busy to as of yet. It seems a slow conversation, no? Oh, well.
"Do men need porn?"
Taar is right about the objectification of women and the sex industry, let me just get that out of the way.
I look at this way. I read erotica, most men watch porn. I think women are just more nuanced than men and erotica/porn is that stand in that works with how men and women work. Hmm? Maybe?
Yeah, I had thought Taar was going to get back to the discussion eventually but that hasn't happened. I agree with your observations though. Romance novels? Porn of a different kind maybe reflecting the way each gender approaches the act of physical intimacy.
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