Pornography

Naomi Wolf, writing in the New York magazine, figures out that Pornography harms human relationships. The problem isn't that pornography turns men into raving, raping, lustful beasts. The problem is that men who consume lots of pornography are indifferent to real women.

Here is what young women tell me on college campuses when the subject comes up: They can’t compete, and they know it. For how can a real woman—with pores and her own breasts and even sexual needs of her own (let alone with speech that goes beyond “More, more, you big stud!”)—possibly compete with a cybervision of perfection, downloadable and extinguishable at will, who comes, so to speak, utterly submissive and tailored to the consumer’s least specification?

I wrote about this a while back on my Town Hall column, under the guise of a book review of Pornified. Here's the money quote from that article.

Guys, if you can’t perform sexually unless there is a porn video playing in the background, you’ve got a problem. You’re using too much pornography. The problem isn’t your wife or girlfriend. "If only she were more responsive. If only she were more sexually aggressive. If only she were more compliant. If only she were thinner. If only she had bigger breasts."

Nope. I’m not buying it. If you can’t get aroused by a real woman, you are using too much pornography.

Some men allow their women to believe its their fault. Women feel they aren’t sexy enough, or that they simply can’t compete with the artificial porno babes. Women become insecure over their body image, even against their better judgement. So let me say to women: your man’s porno consumption isn’t fundamentally about you. It’s about him.

Guys, don’t tell me "it’s natural." Yes, I know, men are more visual than women. Sure, it’s all because of evolutionary biology. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Dude, masturbating in front of a computer screen is not a natural behavior. The nature argument is that men get more aroused by visual stimuli, not that they prefer the virtual to the actual. If you spend all night surfing the net when there is a live woman in your life, you don’t get to play the "nature card."

Pornography is harming human relationships by turning the most basic social activity of our species, namely sex, into a private recreational good, and spectator sport.