Last night…
I was reading two articles that took me back to what mama used to say: “When in doubt, don’t.”
Although there is an overwhelming majority of people who come to our site in agreement with our mission (to get people free from the *detriments* of porn), there are still those who seem to want to defend why it’s “really not all that bad”. Personally, whenever I read something like that, I kinda liken it digesting a household cleaning product: Like how do you know *how much* will “really hurt you?”
Anyway, for those who still believe that porn is not much more than a “recreational sexual activity”, while everyone else is more than free to chime in, this question is actually for y’all, based on the pieces that I checked out. I’ll share something about those before I ask.
First, I found it interesting (and a bit sad) that a business publication would do an entire article on more-than-10 ways to watch porn without getting busted at work. Now, usually I link articles in, but I think that one might be a bit tempting for some, so this I’ll refrain. However, as I read the piece, a part of me did wonder, “So, you know that you can get fired for watching porn at work (and I know *more than enough people who have*), but you would rather find ways to get around it than simply not do it? You would rather, *in this economy*, risk losing your paycheck to watch some naked activity? Doesn’t that sound a bit like an addiction?”
*Anything that can cause you to put your finances into jeopardy can’t be good, right?*
However, it was another article entitled, “The Ins & Outs: Don’t Mistake Porn as Educational TV” that really inspired me to want to get to blogging. An excerpt of it said this:
“But the internet has now provided accessibility to a wide array of pornographic material. Many young people just learning their way around the sexual arena are being exposed to images that may be hard for their young minds to interpret. These days, like many aspects of humanity, the internet has changed the way we consume porn, putting thousands of hours of porn, free of charge, literally at our fingertips.
The problem isn’t with porn itself; the problem lies with our inability to talk about sex. Sexual education in school typically doesn’t start until 7th or 8th grade, and with nearly 30 percent of children exposed to porn by age 13, according to a study by the School of Behavioral Sciences at Penn State Harrisburg, we’re sending kids out into a vast wilderness of internet porn with no context to evaluate it.”
Now, I’m with the author when it comes to the fact that *far too many children* are being introduced to sex via porn and that is *definitely* a problem. But I think what tripped me up was when he said that it wasn’t the porn itself that was the issue. I think I need some help with that part. So, porn is cool, it’s just not cool for kids because it could warp their perception about sex and sexuality? OK, but doesn’t it also do that for adults? When really are our minds “ready” to be able to watch videotaped sex by people who are paid to use one another? Because if we were that mature in nature, wouldn’t that kind of automatically mean that we wouldn’t be drawn to porn in the first place? Meaning, if we were “old enough” to know that it’s not real, wouldn’t we be “old enough” to not want to settle for less than true and healthy sexuality?
I don’t know. To me, it just seems like porn carries with it a lot of contradictions.
It’s “good”, but not NSFW.
It’s “good”, but not right for the kiddies.
It’s “good”, but not if your spouse finds out.
It just seems like something that is “good” or at least “not that bad” would not come with so much red tape because as I often tell people, “We have to make sure that our loopholes don’t become our noose.”
Anyway, here’s my question: Do you think that porn carries with it some contradictions? And if so, why?
Sound off…