Hating Porn Stars For No Good Reason
Here’s a really strong and emotional essay that looks at why people seem to hate porn stars so badly when they encounter them in real life. It’s all worth your time, but this bit on the horrible, terrible, stupid, and endlessly-debunked anti-porn “studies” really resonates with me:
It can’t be factual. The reason you hate us, I mean. It’s fine, not all emotions have to be based on facts. We’re human beings, after all. I just wanted to make sure you knew it couldn’t be factual.
You might think the thing that upsets you about us is that we’re ruining society. And there are studies. You like to start sentences with the phrase, Studies show that…
But listen. The facts? You’re going to have a hard time with them.
Every in-depth study that looks at how porn affects people ends up either supporting porn or rendering it neutral. Now, I know, I know, you’re going to say, “But what about THIS one?” and point to a study I’ve never heard of. It’ll say that porn is somehow rearranging our neural pathways or that such-and-such part of the brain lights up when we watch porn. But those studies are routinely debunked. Did you know that most of those anti-porn neuroscience studies don’t have much evidence to back them up? Or that they have leap-of-faith conclusions? Don’t take my word for it. Just look it up. Not right now? You want to keep reading? Well, all right.
So then you bring up the studies that say porn leads to sexual abuse. There actually aren’t many of those, and the ones that exist have also been debunked. Did you know that sexual violence is more likely to occur in places that have sexually repressed atmospheres–including the banning of pornography? And did you know that there’s no sociological data that clearly links pornography to sexual violence? Don’t take my word for it. Just look it up.
Not right now? Okay, okay.
But sometime, just take an hour–or even a half hour–and investigate that.
You know what? Fuck it. Ten minutes. Just 10 minutes.
Similar Sex Blogging:
Shorter URL for sharing: http://www.erosblog.com/?p=11571
Of course watching porn re-arranges your neural pathways, as does reading this website, as does reading cnn.com, or thebible.com, or watching a movie, or the evening news. That’s what happens when we experience things, neural pathways get changed, strengthened, weakened, rerouted, etc. Same thing with bits of the brain lighting up, if they weren’t, then I’d be worried.
Ah, the power of a social media or e-mail link with a few sciencey-sounding words in it!
Thinking about the role of “porn”, or, adult erotic material, in my own personal life, the only bad thing I can think of is that limited access to “porn” gives one a limited picture of the otherwise vast panorama of human sexuality. On the other hand, unlimited access to erotic material, such as is provided by the internet, gives one a greater store of information from which to draw one’s own conclusions about what is for oneself a healthy path, or perhaps an unhealthy or less healthy path. The worst possible situation is NO access to “porn”, leaving one to try to figure out what sex should be about in an isolated environment of ignorance. It is my contention that the old saw about those who are ignorant about history, are doomed to repeat it, applies here as well. I feel SO blessed to be living in an age of virtually uncensored web access.
I have a friend, who at a time we were doing our own thing, became a porn star. My brother in law saw her at a club performing and my husband showed me some videos. During this time, she had two sons and towards the end of her career she had a daughter. I don’t really care what she did or does. She is someone I have always liked and I have had a long friendship with her. Now that she is back in my life, I don’t even want to mention her porn star movies (which by the way were pretty good). I am quiet about it because I don’t want her to think that I would judge or condemn. I wish that people would learn to treat everyone just as a regular person. We all put our pants on one leg at a time.