The Plague Of Porn

As much as I like to explore both sides of an issue, the two sides of this issue are remarkably lopsided. Pornography is a moral and social plague that brings devastation to those who make it and those who use it. Here's the argument I will make, and which my links will support:

• It dehumanizes, objectifies, and eventually destroys the actors and actresses who make it.
• It turns those who make and produce it into callous users if not predators.
• It ruins romantic relationship emotionally, sexually and relationally. 
• It ruins normal relationships as users get used to the commodification of people.
• It fuels “acting out” as many (not all) users find that simply viewing an activity is not enough.
• It fuels a culture that normalizes sexually abusive behavior (see the recent headlines about a daunting list of predatory males - then ask women around you if they have had those kinds of experiences with men in their lives)

Full disclosure: I gave ten years of my life to pornography. Fortunately, this was before I had easy access to the internet, so I was spared the easy escalation of clicking on the next link. I didn't need that to fall into an addiction. Had you asked me at the time, I would have said it was no big deal (except for the shame and depression that followed my inability to stop). It wasn't until I found freedom - which is a story for another time, and involved what I consider to be God's miraculous and crushing intervention in my life - that I realized how much it had been impacting my view of women and sex, as well as my overall judgment of what gave people value, worth and dignity.

I rant about this not because I sit astride some moral high horse; I'm pleading with you as one who was broken by this, and as one who did not realize until later that cost that all those around me would pay for all the time I spent training myself to view the world through pornified lenses. As I moved from addition to freedom, I spent a lot of time reading up on how porn impacts the brain, how it impacts relationships, and how it devastates those who make it. I also spent a lot of time refilling my mind with truth (more on that in the links at the end).

It is not a victimless crime. Someone always pays a price. Don't take my word for it; read the links. There's a lot of them, but there's probably not enough that can be said about the seriousness of this issue.

Men, Women, And The Line Between Objectification and Empowerment

I'm about to wander into a minefield.

I want to offer a man’s perspective about whether or not women's attempts at empowering women actually do or don’t empower them in the most meaningful sense of the word - at least based on how men perceive or experience this quest. Just what everyone was hoping for, right? A man talking about women's empowerment. I just ask that you bear with me. I am increasingly convinced that unless we build a bridge between how men and women understand this issue we will not make necessary progress as a culture.

I will not be building the entire bridge with this article. Not even close. At best, I am offering a supporting strut by attempting to explain how men view this issue for the sake of clarity and truth. I want to live in a world where everyone is granted intrinsic value as human beings, a world where justice and peace rule the day. That's my goal, and I hope these thoughts contribute to that end. 

Let's tiptoe through this.

* * * * *

We live in a visual culture, a world in which the medium is often just as impactful as the message. Content, said media analyst Marshall McLuhan, cannot easily be separated from form.  In addition to just being a visual culture, we are increasingly a pornified culture. The statistics are sobering to say the least. Thanks to the internet, we have access to pornography in ways that are unprecedented in the history of the world. The vast majority of consumers are men. 70% of men ages 18-24 visit porn sites in a typical month. Why? Because nature or nature’s God (depending on your worldview) has wired men to be visually stimulated. I don’t think this is a debated issue. Men are turned on by sight.  Psychology Today quoted several researchers who have noted, “Men’s brains are designed to objectify females.” They talk about the unwilled connection between a man's brains and his genitals that begins with a sensitivity to visual cues. "Men’s brains scrutinize the details of arousing visuals with the kind of concentration jewelers apply to the cut of a diamond.”

Getting What We Deserve

Snapshot One: A few years ago, I attended a concert by Johnny Lang and Buddy Guy. While Lang’s performance left me in awe, a different memory has lingered just as strongly. When Buddy Guy finished his first song, he said something along the lines of, “Where’s the f****** crowd?”  Within minutes, audience members were shouting the f-word back at him. When Guy left the stage and began to work the audience, his speech, songs, and actions were full of innuendo – and once again, the audience responded in kind. It was all part of the stage show – Guy knows how to work a room – but I’ve never forgotten how the entire mood changed when Guy gave the audience permission to interact with him in a certain way by establishing what was appropriate. He didn’t have to tell them they could; they rightly inferred it from what he demonstrated. [1]

Snapshot Two: I once attended a soccer game in Costa Rica between two teams with a long and intense rivalry. My friend who took me, thinking himself funny, bought me the jersey of the visiting team to wear.  “Oh,” he noted, “don’t be surprised if people walking past you say insulting things.” Indeed, that’s exactly what happened. I wore a visiting rival’s shirt to a rivalry game; what else should I expect?

Snapshot Three: I saw a documentary that included some scenes from a music festival a few years back. A band introduced a song by saying, “There’s only one rule tonight: there are no f****** rules!” Shockingly, fans swarmed the stage, and the band had to stop while security enforced that particular rule. Limp Bizkit (“Break Stuff”) and Rage Against The Machine (“Killing In The Name”) have seen similar incidents at their concerts when fans went ahead and acted out what the band sang.

Snapshot Four: Last week, one of Mac Miller’s fans came up to him and said about Miller’s girlfriend, Ariana Grande, what Miller says all the time about women – specifically, how great it must be to “hit that.” If you are wondering why that fan thought it was appropriate to say that, just check out some of Mac Miller’s lyrics. Or not. The message matters.[2]

The 'Hit' That Ariana Didn't Want - Or Deserve

Last week, a young fan said to Ariana Grande’s boyfriend, Mac Miller, “Ariana is sexy as hell, man. I see you, I see you hitting that!!!" Ariana’s response was rightly indignant: "Hitting that? The f***?? This may not seem like a big deal to some of you but I felt sick and objectified. I was also sitting right there when he said it."

Can we all agree that the fan was totally out of line, not just for saying that in front of her but for saying that at all? It’s a cold objectification of a human being whose value is reduced to her' tappability'.  Ariana desires to be seen as a strong, independent woman whose value comes from an inherent dignity, not her sexual desirability. I don’t blame her for wanting this.  All women deserve to be treated with value, worth and dignity because they are human beings.

Can we also all agree there is some sad irony here? Ariana makes her living in an industry that has normalized the use of ‘hit’ or ‘tap’ to refer to sex – and in so doing, our cultural troubadours have made it acceptable to refer to women as objects whose value is found in how eagerly men wish to ‘tap’ them. Here’s just a small sample easily found with a google lyric search – and I will let her boyfriend, Mac Miller, lead the way. I apologize for the language, but...it is what it is.

What Super Bowl Halftime Shows Reveal About Us

The halftime show at the Super Bowl reminded me yet again that we live in a very confused culture.   
On the one hand, we hear a myriad of voices rightly warning us about the ways in which women are objectified in our society.  Maybe it's because there is already a recognition bias built into all of us. Both men and women tend to see women as a conglomeration of particular parts rather than a complete person. We even manage to do this when pictures are upside down. It seems sensible to warn us away from a cultural trend wherein we are increasingly bombarded with images and messages that bolster an already flawed way in which we all perceive women.