Our society is beginning to realize how awful porn is. It’s about time men did, too.
Society at large continues to grapple with the fact that the
wide-scale pornification of our culture is coming at a brutally high
cost—especially to girls and women. Alabama, for example, is taking a look at legislative ways of addressing the problem:
When Alabama lawmakers return to the Capitol next week they will consider a bill that would criminalize the sale of a smartphone or other internet access device without a pornography filter. Adults wanting to turn off the filters would pay a $20 fee and request the deactivation in writing…
Williams’ bill would make it a class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail, to sell an internet access device without a filter to block out obscene material, child pornography, images used for sexual cyber harassment, or sites used for human trafficking. Selling a device without a filter to a minor would be a class C felony – punishable by 10 years in prison.On top of that, last week the state of Arkansas joined Utah and the Republican Party in recognizing the porn plague as a public health crisis:
Similar bills have been introduced in South Carolina and North Dakota.
A panel of lawmakers unanimously pass a resolution Wednesday declaring pornography a public health crisis. The bill cites an array of individual and community problems that proponents say are associated with pornography, including sex trafficking and child exploitation.Besides the fact that pornography is creating an online rape culture that is beginning to spill over into the sex lives of porn consumers, we’re just starting to discover what the impact of a pornified culture is on those who feel forced to live up to its standard. A horrifying story in the Daily Mail revealed a huge spike in women seeking plastic surgery in their attempts to model their own appearances after the porn stars their male peers so voraciously consume:
A supporter for the bill, a former adult film actress, testified in front of the committee warning about the negative impacts of that and other industries. “The pornography industry, strip clubs, hooters and all forms of exploitation prey upon the vulnerable,” said Jessica Neeley, an adult film actress.
The resolution is non binding, but does encourage the state to seek education, prevention, research and policy change to reverse problems associated with pornography.
Increasing numbers of women are going under the knife to have a ‘Barbie vagina’ as a result of watching internet porn, experts claim. Becoming accustomed to what looks ‘normal’ as a result of the abundance of x-rated images online, many are seeking an unachievable look.The physical risks of emulating and engaging in porn culture go far beyond plastic surgery. Gwyneth Paltrow’s appropriately-named “Goop” Magazine, for example, recently released a sex issue which advocated for so many bizarre sexual practices that one commentator noted it that it was “normal sex” that was now abnormal. One of those practices was anal sex, which brought to mind the horror stories being presented via testimonies and briefs to the Standing Health Committee of Canada, which is currently examining the impact of violent pornography on sexual assault. One of the trends highlighted for the Committee was that rough and violent anal sex was resulting in girls ending up in the hospital with prolapsed rectums, damage that could be permanent.
In 2015, nearly 100,000 across the world underwent a labiaplasty, which involves trimming back the inner ‘lips’ to give them the look of a pre-pubescent teenager. And a further 50,000 had vaginal rejuvenation – the tightening of the canal, figures from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) showed.
But both procedures to give women a designer vagina come with health risks, including bleeding, infections and scarring.
It’s stories like those that make me increasingly frustrated with the way we discuss the issue of pornography. Porn “addiction,” for example, is a very helpful way of explaining the way porn consumption rewires the brain, creates compulsive users, and results in such manifestly self-destructive behavior. But on the other hand, we have to be careful that porn users don’t use the term “addiction” as an enabling one, as an excuse for their seeming helplessness in the face of ongoing porn consumption. Some of the guys who approach me genuinely want to get help freeing themselves from porn. But others seem to use open conversation about the problem as catharsis, and actually expect people to feel sorry for them. That I have begun to find somewhat nauseating. Men are called to fight for those that they love and to make society a better place. The idea that men could instead snivel about their inability to stop masturbating is a sad picture of where a pornified culture can lead. What would our grandfathers and great-grandfathers say about such men?
Fortunately, our culture is beginning to recognize that pornography is immensely destructive, from academia to the halls of power. Repulsive stories of the damage porn culture is doing to girls and women are hard to read, but men, especially, need to read them and realize that pornography is the biggest threat to real masculinity in the history of Western Civilization. Porn consumption is, at the end of the day, fundamentally predatory behavior that involves the systematic dehumanization and degradation of women. Stop whining, stop struggling, and start fighting.
Jonathon Van Maren "Prevailing PORN Pandemic"
