The Wages of Porn

If you're old enough to remember the day the first issue of Playboy hit the stands (in 1953) you probably don't get it. Even if you're not quite that old, you probably do not understand how today's teenagers experience sexuality.

Teenagers know more about sex, have seen more sex, and have probably had more sexual experiences than prior generations. If life is a competition to see who can have the most sexual pleasure, today's teens are leaving the rest of us in the dust.

To some adults this is a wonderful thing, a sign of human progress. To others it is a sign of an impending apocalypse. The truth is probably somewhere in between. Wherever it is, we are all going to have to live with a younger generation that has been sexually educated by porn.

Children no longer learn about sex from sex ed courses. Or from biology or hygiene. Certainly not from their parents. By far the greatest source of adolescent sexual information is pornography.

Details magazine reports that there are some 400,000,000 pages of porn on the internet. And 90% of children between 8 and 16 have viewed it. Link here.

Traditionally, porn, like golf, has been largely a male domain. Yet, Details reports that more and more teenage girls want to emulate porn stars. In England a survey showed that 25% of teenage girls aspire to become lap dancers.

According to Details, teenagers today are thoroughly conversant in the language of porn. They will happily discuss facials, fisting, bestiality, auto-asphyxiation, cream pies, bukkake, and BDSM. Some have even made a point of pride to try out what they have seen online.

Details is surprised that there are so many willing female participants. As am I. Many young women considered sexual prowess a necessity. Some even consider that part of growing up is mastering the art of the blow job.

I suspect that there is an element of exaggeration and alarmism in these numbers. Yet, a significant percentage of girls have been persuaded that they can best prove their love for their boyfriends by text-messaging pornographic images of their private parts.

Does this mean that girls have been liberated from their classical aversion to porn? Have they attained a level of sexual freedom that their mothers never even aspired to? Or is something else going on here?

Women have disliked porn because their sexual power resides in their ability to exercise some level of control over men's access to sexual experience. Being masters of sexual cues and stimuli they can somewhat control male sexual response. And if men are conditioned to believe that sexual pleasure must involve a partner, then women can say Yes or No to that too.

As happens with any resource, scarcity increases the value of the resource. If a man can find adequate sexual stimuli at will online, then the value of a woman's sexuality is diminished.

This explains why women tend to shun any woman who is giving it away for free, or even cheaply.

But once everyone seems to be doing it, the distinction between good girls and bad girls starts breaking down. Female sexuality is no longer a mysterious domain; it is public knowledge.

As feminists have pointed out, if your sex is on public display you are going to lose respect and respectability.

All of this free and openly-available sex has a price. And the reputation of young women is just part of it.

Nowadays a boy can learn everything he ever wanted to know about sex, and then some, without ever going out on a date or developing a relationship or even paying a prostitute. He can become an expert in female anatomy without having to gain the permission, to say nothing of the affections, of a real woman.

Admittedly, he might find himself mired in a depressing solitude and social withdrawal.

But teenage boys did not have await the arrival of the internet to practice what Woody Allen called: sex with someone you love.

In the past, however, they had to content themselves with the imaginative reworking of suggestive stimuli. Now, they do not even have to deploy their imaginative powers. It is all there, out in the open, always available, all the time. It is mostly free and it never says No.

When imagination was an important aspect of self-pleasure, the mystery of female sexuality remained a territory that could only be explored with the permission of a real girl.

Nowadays, what is a high school girl to do? She is probably looking for a boyfriend. She wants a relationship. How can she deal with these porn-addled creatures? And how can she compete for their attention with Jenna Jameson and Tera Patrick?

Apparently, she will try to adapt. When she sends nude images of herself to her boyfriend, she is saying that the male object of her affections need not be contented with someone he cannot touch. She can do better than Jenna and Tera; she can provide both visual stimuli and the real thing.

Assuming that he still desires it. The pervasiveness of porn has wrung most of the mystery out of sex. Without the mystery desire will begin to wane. We might end up with a generation of young people that has so completely demystified sex that it has little desire left for the real thing.

Porn produces another problem in young men, one that is rarely recognized. Young men take instruction from porn because they are suffering from a form of sexual performance anxiety. They feel that if they know the best moves they will become highly proficient, even irresistible, lovers.

But then, the young man who is learning how to please a woman by watching porn will inevitably be comparing himself to the competition: Peter North, Ron Jeremy, and the Rabbit. And this is not going to boost his confidence.

So, he knows how to please a woman, but he is afraid that he is inadequate, or worse, that he will be laughed at. This is not going to make him more likely to go out to find a girlfriend.

Perhaps you were wondering why there is so much television advertising for male enhancement products. And I am not just talking about Viagra and Cialis, which are being sold to aging boomers.

If I had to venture a guess, I believe that the over-the-counter male enhancement products, the ones that promise that you will make love like a porn star, are appealing to a generation of young men who feel that they have to outperform Peter North and the Rabbit.

Given the nature of the internet, and given the value of the free flow of information, there is no way that porn is going to be shut down or covered up.

Let us say that internet porn is here to stay. And that it is not wholly a bad thing. Think of it like red wine. In moderation it will lower your cholesterol and raise your spirits. In excess it will eat your liver.

The outcome is up to you.