particular constructed version of sex that is developed within a profit-driven setting.
I want to make clear that when I talk about “porn,” I am referring mainly to “gonzo”—that genre which is all over the Internet and is today one of the biggest moneymakers for the industry—which depicts hard-core, body-punishing sex in which women are demeaned and debased. As someone who has lectured on college campuses for over twenty years, I have witnessed a seismic change in the way porn has come to shape young adults’ sexuality. Before the advent of the Internet, it used to be that some men sporadically “used” porn when growing up; it was the more soft-core type of porn, and they often had to steal it from older males, most likely their fathers. Increasingly, what I hear from students is that men today regularly (often daily) use the gonzo type of porn, and many have now become accustomed to its hard-core scenes. What seems contradictory is that for all their increased porn use, men today are also generally more responsive and interested in engaging in thoughtful discussion and reflection after my lectures.
In these conversations, I hear something I never used to—concern and anxiety from young men. These guys have just heard a lecture on the effects of porn, complete with an explicit slide show, and they are beginning to recognize how porn has shaped how they think about sex. While past generations of men who used porn had limited access to the material, this generation has unlimited access to gonzo porn. Nowadays the average age for first viewing porn is just eleven years. This means that, unlike before, porn is actually being encoded into a boy’s sexual identity so that an authentic sexuality—one that develops organically out of life experiences, one’s peer group, personality traits, family and community affiliations—is replaced by a generic porn sexuality limited in creativity and lacking any sense of love, respect, or connection to another human being. Many times I feel profoundly sad after speaking to these young men.
I have a college-aged son, and I couldn’t stand for the pornographers to set up camp in his sexual identity. When he was entering his teenage years, we talked candidly about the use of porn and its potential effects. I told him that as he was getting older, he would most likely come across some porn, and he had a choice to look or not to look. I said that should he decide to use porn, then he was going to hand over his sexuality—a sexuality that he had yet to grow into, that made sense for who he was and who he was going to be—to someone else. Why, I asked him, would you give anyone something so valuable and precious, something that ultimately is yours, not theirs? When I look out at the men in the lecture hall, they remind me of my son, and I feel outraged that they are caught in the crosshairs of this predatory industry, one that has a huge financial stake in habituating them to a product that dehumanizes all involved.
While men tell me their stories of porn use, women have stories of their own. Most college-aged women I speak with have never seen gonzo, but their sexuality is increasingly shaped by it as the men they partner with want to play out porn sex on their bodies. Whether their sexual partners pressure them into anal sex, want to ejaculate on their face, or use porn as a sex aid, these women are on the frontlines of the porn culture. Some capitulate, some negotiate, and many are confused as to why the men they hook up with, date, or marry are always trying to push the sexual envelope.
But even if a woman stays away from men who use porn—no easy task given its widespread usage—she can’t insulate herself from it. Women’s magazines, fashion ads, TV, music videos, and box office movies bombard women with images that would have, a decade ago, been defined as soft-core porn. Whether the case is Britney Spears writhing around almost naked or Cosmopolitan magazine
I want to make clear that when I talk about “porn,” I am referring mainly to “gonzo”—that genre which is all over the Internet and is today one of the biggest moneymakers for the industry—which depicts hard-core, body-punishing sex in which women are demeaned and debased. As someone who has lectured on college campuses for over twenty years, I have witnessed a seismic change in the way porn has come to shape young adults’ sexuality. Before the advent of the Internet, it used to be that some men sporadically “used” porn when growing up; it was the more soft-core type of porn, and they often had to steal it from older males, most likely their fathers. Increasingly, what I hear from students is that men today regularly (often daily) use the gonzo type of porn, and many have now become accustomed to its hard-core scenes. What seems contradictory is that for all their increased porn use, men today are also generally more responsive and interested in engaging in thoughtful discussion and reflection after my lectures.
In these conversations, I hear something I never used to—concern and anxiety from young men. These guys have just heard a lecture on the effects of porn, complete with an explicit slide show, and they are beginning to recognize how porn has shaped how they think about sex. While past generations of men who used porn had limited access to the material, this generation has unlimited access to gonzo porn. Nowadays the average age for first viewing porn is just eleven years. This means that, unlike before, porn is actually being encoded into a boy’s sexual identity so that an authentic sexuality—one that develops organically out of life experiences, one’s peer group, personality traits, family and community affiliations—is replaced by a generic porn sexuality limited in creativity and lacking any sense of love, respect, or connection to another human being. Many times I feel profoundly sad after speaking to these young men.
I have a college-aged son, and I couldn’t stand for the pornographers to set up camp in his sexual identity. When he was entering his teenage years, we talked candidly about the use of porn and its potential effects. I told him that as he was getting older, he would most likely come across some porn, and he had a choice to look or not to look. I said that should he decide to use porn, then he was going to hand over his sexuality—a sexuality that he had yet to grow into, that made sense for who he was and who he was going to be—to someone else. Why, I asked him, would you give anyone something so valuable and precious, something that ultimately is yours, not theirs? When I look out at the men in the lecture hall, they remind me of my son, and I feel outraged that they are caught in the crosshairs of this predatory industry, one that has a huge financial stake in habituating them to a product that dehumanizes all involved.
While men tell me their stories of porn use, women have stories of their own. Most college-aged women I speak with have never seen gonzo, but their sexuality is increasingly shaped by it as the men they partner with want to play out porn sex on their bodies. Whether their sexual partners pressure them into anal sex, want to ejaculate on their face, or use porn as a sex aid, these women are on the frontlines of the porn culture. Some capitulate, some negotiate, and many are confused as to why the men they hook up with, date, or marry are always trying to push the sexual envelope.
But even if a woman stays away from men who use porn—no easy task given its widespread usage—she can’t insulate herself from it. Women’s magazines, fashion ads, TV, music videos, and box office movies bombard women with images that would have, a decade ago, been defined as soft-core porn. Whether the case is Britney Spears writhing around almost naked or Cosmopolitan magazine
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