Let me pose a question to you. If straight men enjoy watching lesbian porn, is it not reasonable to assume that straight women enjoy watching gay men go at it on their BluRay screens? You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But try as I might among my female friends and workmates I can’t find a single one who finds the thought of watching male-on-male action in the least bit arousing. Maybe they’re all lying and are too embarrassed to admit it. The reason I say that is because apparently an increasing number of women are ordering gay porn DVDs by mail order. I can’t think they are buying them for their husbands, but you never know!
Interestingly, more and more people are prepared to be very open about their habitual viewing on onanistic porn. Porn has become part of people’s everyday lives in a way it wasn’t even ten years ago. Back in the day, anyone found viewing porn, whether it was a smutty magazine or a sitting in the back row of the local porn cinema, would have meant a profound moment of shame for the perpetrator. Nowadays, if you were found looking at Readers’ Wives or Zipper it would barely raise a titter.
The reason for this is undoubtedly the proliferation of online porn. Older generations are able to access whatever version of porn turns them on, at the press of a button. They don’t even have to pay for it any longer. It’s anonymous, and with the advent of smart phones and tablets, available when and where people want it. The same of course, goes for younger generations, but the difference is that online porn forms a part of people’s lives from a very early age. Smart phones and tablets have ‘normalised’ porn in ways which are not altogether healthy.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a very liberal attitude towards porn. I certainly don’t regard it as exploitative, which is what feminists have long argued. To me, the greatest power a woman has is over her own body. If she wants to sell access to it, far being exploited, she is empowering herself. Just as men are.
But the prevalence of porn in schools should concern all of us. Not just what could be termed as ‘normal’ porn, but the sort which would make even liberal minded people like me turn pink at the gills. In short, 14 year olds are increasingly coming to believe that violence and sex are innately linked because that’s what they see on their smart phones. I remember talking to a mother on my radio show whose 14 year old son was addicted to porn and quite happily admitted it. Being a good mother she had had a calm, reasoned discussion with him about it and he agreed it was becoming a problem, not least for the number of sheets his mother had to keep washing. But how many parents would actually sit down with a child and talk about porn addiction with them? Very few.
This does not mean I think we should return to a puritanical society where erections were not allowed to be shown on film, as was the case in this country until about twenty years ago. Far from it. Adults who wish to watch porn should be allowed to do so without undue interference from the state. Where porn is concerned, an Englishman’s or Englishwoman’s smartphone is their castle.
We’re told that watching porn is proof that the person who’s watching it doesn’t have an adequate sex life or a good and fulfilling relationship. I’ve never bought into that argument. Some people have higher sex drives than others. Better to watch porn and use it as an outlet for a high sex drive, than cheat on a partner. Isn’t that the adult way of looking at it?
The transformation of the porn industry in recent years has stemmed from ‘reality porn’, where people film themselves indulging in various sexual acts and then upload the footage on free access sites which are free to view for the end user. In the end, this could spell the end of professionally produced porn films as fewer and fewer people are prepared to pay £20 for a porn DVD or £10 a month for a porn website subscription. Monkey spanking has never been cheaper!
_This article first appeared in the June issue of Attitude Magazine.
