Porn For Everyone

Yep. I said Porn. For Everyone. And to those of you who are already either offended or embarrassed… I do have a point to make here.

Porn in all its forms is vilified, discussed as a cancer on society, and those with an open interest are often looked upon as degenerates. Meanwhile many others are privately interested in Porn and don’t discuss it or admit their interest in order to avoid being labeled among those said degenerates.

Let me clarify by summarizing two of the big concerns about Porn:

1 – It objectifies women, claiming they are only sex objects without goals or intelligence of their own.

2 – Creates unhealthy escape for men, allowing them to fulfill their sexual fantasies and believe they have a connection without actually engaging in healthy relationships. And this can affect the relationships they do have with women because of #1.

So. With those benchmarks established I can get to my actual point:

Porn for women is all around us. And no one seems to care.

Don’t believe me? I have 3 words for you:

Twilight: New Moon.

Yes, I saw it. Not because I have any interest, but with my wife who really wanted to go and didn’t want to go alone.

And it was just the latest proof of this phenomenon. I was a fly on the wall of female fantasy. Teen girls cooing at the screen in unison in an octave so loud and piercing that all the movie sound was drowned away and car alarms went off.

$150+ million later, and all I can think is that the books and media women devour create the same problem porn does for men: Unhealthy fantasy which affects real world relationships.

And it’s true across the other forms of media consumed by women: Romance Novels, Soap Operas, A long line of movies, and even modern network shows like Brothers & Sisters,

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not angry. I’m not asking for anything to be done. I’m not demanding anything… I’m just saying lets call it what it is.

Porn for women.

In fact, let’s compare with the 2 things above:

1 – These shows objectify men, claiming they have no real goals of their own other than the desire to protect and care for their woman. They are never angry. Never poor. Never dealing with any emotional or personal issues of their own.  And there is no amount of fickle activity or terrible treatment which will drive them away.

In Twilight both major males wind up shirtless in the film with long scenes going by to show off their great abs. And they both want nothing more than to love her unconditionally, protect her fiercely, and be available to her at all times. They are unrestricted by jobs, finances or even pesky things like personal goals or time at the gym to maintain their abs.

2 – These shows create an unhealthy escape for women, allowing them to fulfill their emotional fantasies without having to engage in healthy relationships. And this can affect their actual relationships because they begin to believe that real men should be like #1.

In these romance Novels, or Soap Operas, movies, or Brothers & Sisters someone is always meeting the perfectly backlit guy with a killer body and an artistic streak. And he will want to sweep her away. He will want to listen during long walks and never leave her. Thus, allowing her to not make up her mind, string him along, and probably debate between him and someone else equally great. (See Twilight, the Notebook, and most female centric romance films ever made). All the while these women are allowed to be fickle, unreliable, and indecisive, because none of these men will ever decide these heroines are high maintenance or too difficult to love.

So here we are… Porn for everyone.

12 year old girls go to Twilight: “OhMyGAwd, he’s so cute, look at his stomach and he loves her just as much as the other one. They’re both so perfect… and look he wants to fly her in his private plane to his amazing house”

14 year old boys go to Transformers: “Dude, she’s HOT. I like boobs… and look there’s robots! And stuff’s exploding!”

Adult women wind up watching the ladies on Brothers & Sisters decide between which rich and dedicated man they want… while those unlucky in love characters will find some scruffy perfect artist who only wants to pour them wine and take care of their kids.

Harmless, you say. One is naked people, the other is drama of people engaging. They aren’t anything close to the same!

But… here’s the problem.

A guy watches Porn and begins to wonder why his wife/girlfriend/whoever doesn’t want to constantly have sex. Why does she actually want to talk about her feelings? Why does she really want me to fix the sink?… I thought that was just the reason she called me over here. And why does she have goals and dreams and a desire to wear sweatpants instead of a nightie?

A woman watches her Porn and begins to wonder why her husband/boyfriend/whoever doesn’t want to whisk her way from all her problems. Why does he want to go out with the guys? Why doesn’t he make more money than we will ever need? Why doesn’t he have perfect abs and a constant desire to protect me from the world? And why does he get angry when I treat him terribly?

For every man who’s ever said “I wish my girl/wife/etc wanted sex like that”…. there’s a woman saying “I wish my guy/husband/etc treated me more like Edward (Hero of Twilight)”.

Folks. It’s all a fantasy. It’s all Porn. Just some of it has a wardrobe department and some doesn’t.

So go find your significant other. And see them for who they are. And who they aren’t. Cause they’re real. And it will take work on both sides to keep that relationship going.

Even though that reality would make for bad porn for everyone.