Mind_Storm

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/...437/index.html


From the October 20, 2003 issue of New York Magazine.

The Porn Myth
In the end, porn doesn’t whet men’s appetites—it turns them off the real thing.

By Naomi Wolf

At a benefit the other night, I saw Andrea Dworkin, the anti-porn activist most famous in the eighties for her conviction that opening the floodgates of pornography would lead men to see real women in sexually debased ways. If we did not limit pornography, she argued—before Internet technology made that prospect a technical impossibility—most men would come to objectify women as they objectified porn stars, and treat them accordingly. In a kind of domino theory, she predicted, rape and other kinds of sexual mayhem would surely follow.

The feminist warrior looked gentle and almost frail. The world she had, Cassandra-like, warned us about so passionately was truly here: Porn is, as David Amsden says, the “wallpaper” of our lives now. So was she right or wrong?

She was right about the warning, wrong about the outcome. As she foretold, pornography did breach the dike that separated a marginal, adult, private pursuit from the mainstream public arena. The whole world, post-Internet, did become pornographized. Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training—and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.

But the effect is not making men into raving beasts. On the contrary: The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as “porn-worthy.” Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention.

Here is what young women tell me on college campuses when the subject comes up: They can’t compete, and they know it. For how can a real woman—with pores and her own breasts and even sexual needs of her own (let alone with speech that goes beyond “More, more, you big stud!”)—possibly compete with a cybervision of perfection, downloadable and extinguishable at will, who comes, so to speak, utterly submissive and tailored to the consumer’s least specification?

For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.

For two decades, I have watched young women experience the continual “mission creep” of how pornography—and now Internet pornography—has lowered their sense of their own sexual value and their actual sexual value. When I came of age in the seventies, it was still pretty cool to be able to offer a young man the actual presence of a naked, willing young woman. There were more young men who wanted to be with naked women than there were naked women on the market. If there was nothing actively alarming about you, you could get a pretty enthusiastic response by just showing up. Your boyfriend may have seen Playboy, but hey, you could move, you were warm, you were real. Thirty years ago, simple lovemaking was considered erotic in the pornography that entered mainstream consciousness: When Behind the Green Door first opened, clumsy, earnest, missionary-position intercourse was still considered to be a huge turn-on.

Well, I am 40, and mine is the last female generation to experience that sense of sexual confidence and security in what we had to offer. Our younger sisters had to compete with video porn in the eighties and nineties, when intercourse was not hot enough. Now you have to offer—or flirtatiously suggest—the lesbian scene, the ejaculate-in-the-face scene. Being naked is not enough; you have to be buff, be tan with no tan lines, have the surgically hoisted breasts and the Brazilian bikini wax—just like porn stars. (In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled.) Pornography is addictive; the baseline gets ratcheted up. By the new millennium, a vagina—which, by the way, used to have a pretty high “exchange value,” as Marxist economists would say—wasn’t enough; it barely registered on the thrill scale. All mainstream porn—and certainly the Internet—made routine use of all available female orifices.

The porn loop is de rigueur, no longer outside the pale; starlets in tabloids boast of learning to strip from professionals; the “cool girls” go with guys to the strip clubs, and even ask for lap dances; college girls are expected to tease guys at keg parties with lesbian kisses à la Britney and Madonna.

But does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so.

The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy. The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman. Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don’t know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face.

So Dworkin was right that pornography is compulsive, but she was wrong in thinking it would make men more rapacious. A whole generation of men are less able to connect erotically to women—and ultimately less libidinous.

The reason to turn off the porn might become, to thoughtful people, not a moral one but, in a way, a physical- and emotional-health one; you might want to rethink your constant access to porn in the same way that, if you want to be an athlete, you rethink your smoking. The evidence is in: Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity.

“For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.”

After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.

Other cultures know this. I am not advocating a return to the days of hiding female sexuality, but I am noting that the power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time. In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time—to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, “rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family.

And feminists have misunderstood many of these prohibitions.

I will never forget a visit I made to Ilana, an old friend who had become an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. When I saw her again, she had abandoned her jeans and T-shirts for long skirts and a head scarf. I could not get over it. Ilana has waist-length, wild and curly golden-blonde hair. “Can’t I even see your hair?” I asked, trying to find my old friend in there. “No,” she demurred quietly. “Only my husband,” she said with a calm sexual confidence, “ever gets to see my hair.”

When she showed me her little house in a settlement on a hill, and I saw the bedroom, draped in Middle Eastern embroideries, that she shares only with her husband—the kids are not allowed—the sexual intensity in the air was archaic, overwhelming. It was private. It was a feeling of erotic intensity deeper than any I have ever picked up between secular couples in the liberated West. And I thought: Our husbands see naked women all day—in Times Square if not on the Net. Her husband never even sees another woman’s hair.

She must feel, I thought, so hot.

Compare that steaminess with a conversation I had at Northwestern, after I had talked about the effect of porn on relationships. “Why have sex right away?” a boy with tousled hair and Bambi eyes was explaining. “Things are always a little tense and uncomfortable when you just start seeing someone,” he said. “I prefer to have sex right away just to get it over with. You know it’s going to happen anyway, and it gets rid of the tension.”

“Isn’t the tension kind of fun?” I asked. “Doesn’t that also get rid of the mystery?”

“Mystery?” He looked at me blankly. And then, without hesitating, he replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sex has no mystery.”

Harshaw

Interesting, I've actually though a few times about cutting down my porn intake. I was afraid I would get too used to seeing airbrushed women with perfect tits. But in the end, while it is a more solitary life- Porn never stands me up. It never just "wants to be friends". It never tells me how great of a guy I am, and that any porn would be lucky to have me as it goes home to its dick head boyfriend. I think it is sad that a generation of men is more interested in beating it to pixels instead of seeing someone naked. But I have to admit, going after girls is a hard process that very rarely pays back the initial investment.

Porn isn't a friend the way a sexual partner can be. But the pain of chasing the real life person can be damn daunting from time to time.

__________________
This too shall pass.

MangaMonkey

Hi,
I agree that although porn does provide a lot, it only goes so far. A warm body and the embrace does much, much more than a cold computer screen with your speakers blaring.
Thanks,
Manga

almostaugust

Very interesting article. I think it is spot-on in a lot of areas too. I reckon porn can become a serious problem if people immerse themselves in it. It used to be that men would just see a girl's ankle and they would almost have an orgasm. Now they have to see a full colour supermodel spreading gynacologically in thier face to quicken thier pulse.

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rainheart

"What they don’t know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face."

That's just the biggest problem I have with that article, because that is just tripe. I watch porn frequently and I can easily spot attractive girls, chat them up, and occasionally watch some flutter because there's some rapport being built, and I'm not that attractive or anything special.

hobo

Porn desensitizes men to naked women, no doubt about it. There is also the aspect of unrealistic expectations due to porn, which is also quite true. It is not, however, as bad as the article says. Real women are not "bad porn". They are amazing live porn.

Aladdin Sane

I hope what I'm about to say doesn't offend, but here goes: This article proves once again that most feminist theory is emotional gobledegook dressed up as science. I don't buy Wolf's hypothesis for a second, and here's why:

I prefer amateur porn, as do millions and millions of guys, which negates just about everything this writer said. If the woman in the picture doesn't look like "the woman next door", I'm quickly on to the next offering.

Back in the days when all I could get was the airbrushed photos from Playboy and Penthouse, then it was a true disappointment the first time I saw a real naked woman-- she had some freckles, two or three moles, hairly nipples, and one breast was slightly bigger than the other! She didn't compare at all to the nude models I was accustomed to lusting after in magazines.

Today, with so many photos of amateur women out there, one is no longer surprised by real naked female features because we now all know that freckles, hair, and yes, uneven breasts, are quite normal.

Contrary to this writers conclusion, I believe my heavy consumption of amateur porn has made me appreciate my woman's physical beauty even more.

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BentNotTwisted

This is absolutely true for me as well. I grew up with a few hidden copies of Playboy and Penthouse. When I started dating women I focused on their external looks, which led to a lot of disappointment. Although I was past the dating phase at the time internet porn arroved, I still enjoy looking at porn and especially enjoy seeing amature women showing off their stuff. It makes me appreicaite my wife even more.

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analog

Interesting article. While I agree with some of her opinions in principle, I think her idea of their severity is a little off. While I think there is a change in the overall attitude towards sex and it's impact on our relationships, both long-term and the shorter, purely-sexual ones (casual sex), I disagree that it's merely the widespread availability of porn over the internet that is causing all of it.

The writer seems to think that it can all be blamed on porn, and that porn has given males (notice the whole thing concerns males, hmm) unrealistic expectations of what women should be. Porn is a drop in the bucket. There is advertising- always trying to be edgier, more risqué, to stay competitive- everything from underwear to cologne to simple jeans are now a contest to look “the best” or “the sexiest”.

Additionally, her comments about “the lesbian kiss” and “girls getting naked”, in my opinion, are misguided suppositions that pick porn as a scapegoat for a “problem” society as a whole has created. People always want more- more food (buffets), more power (ridiculous, POINTLESS SUV’s), etc., etc., and are always looking to be more enlightened, more open than their parents. Also, many elements of what have been everyday life for tons of people are now “coming out” into the forefront of the mainstream. Will and Grace, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and other shows centered around the arrangement of gay and lesbian characters or people are now possible because we (meaning society) have begun to finally accept these things as “normal”, and can explore what was once the taboo. Anyone remember the episode of Ellen (TV show) where she came out? Shit, that was hyped like it was a damn world-stopper. A woman who… who… LIKES OTHER WOMEN?? ON TV?!

If the writer wanted to find a reason for the lack of easy shock-value, it would be in the progressive nature of society itself, not an easy feminist* target like porn. Sure, society uses the internet to expand it’s horizons- but by our very nature we are always on the hunt for that which is new or taboo, and eventually we will come to find out that the “taboo” was simply a concept one step beyond what our elders could handle. The average person can only make so large a leap in one lifetime. As a society, it takes an entire generation to pass before the real effects of social change become apparent.

There is a new chic now where straight men are –gasp- getting facials and manicures and pedicures and dressing sharply as ever, going to malls and shopping for clothing and accessories for themselves, and having more and more decorating sense than ever before. Even I, as a very progressive and open-minded person, (while not having any problem with it, I think it’s great) would never have seen that coming- but now that it’s here, it’s stuck. Perhaps (warning: sarcasm ahead) in the future we will see another article from this woman blaming this trend on the readily-available gay porn market.

Thanks for reading, I know it was long. Peace.

*NOTE: I'm not attacking feminists. I'm questioning the suppositions of a writer with a seemingly closed, one-track viewpoint.

pocon1

I have looked at so much porn, that I have become desensitized to so-called perfect looks. All of the women look the same, and there is no variety. Now a real woman has a different shape from the other women around her. So does her friend, so does their female coworker. I think that many people like myself learn to differentiate between what is fantasy and what is reality. Also, when I watch professional porn, I know they are getting paid and they could be faking their enjoyment. When I see amateur porn, I know most of the people are making very little money and they often do it because they like it. That is a real turnon to me; knowing that people that look like my friends and neigbors are actually out mixing it up.

Holo

In another community on the net I am well known for my porn collection. One day on IRC I was asked by someone if, after collecting 1.2 million pics and 100GB of video, if I found a regular woman attractive anymore. I simply told him, "Everytime I go out of the house. I find something attractive about most women, and even a single attractive attribute can hold my sexual interest." He was very surprised at my answer given my well-known collection in that circle of ppl.

Porn serves a purpose; to give me mental/visual/aural stimulation as means to an end. It doesn't replace real women to me at all.

The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy.

Bullshit. I would love to meet any one of these girls. I don't hold real women to a measuring stick of porn. It's virtual apples and real oranges. You wanna measure up to me?

Be clean
Be nice
Be sexually aggressive (!!!!!)
Make the most of what you have and accept and like your body/looks.

Notice nowhere does it say

Be thin
take facials one the first date
be like (insert pornstar name)
Do anal
etc etc


I would date/have sex with any woman I found attractive, no matter if society find her "hittable"or not. I have some conditioning in me that attracts me to models and "hotties" but I can feel the same way about a nice 300lb woman with a pretty face and a fierce sexual appetite. Real women >* porn.

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arcane

yeah....warm body > your right (or left) hand

as for what hobo said, live sex is so much more of a turn on. airbrushed chicks are cool and everything, but a real woman is a LOT sexier. that's my $0.02

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kel

Interesting theory, not the case. Women can't compete with porn because many (many being a product of personal experience only) of them treat their men like dog shit and expect to get away with it.

These women are the only one's who are using porn as an excuse... the rest you of you do just fine...

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jimk

.......*jimk rethinks compulsive titty board visits..........*

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mattevil

i can definetly see this .afterall i'm eagrly awaiting my titty board access.

jvwgtr

I don't think the massive amounts of porn I've viewed has changed my view of women, other than moving me AWAY from the airbrushed, fake-boobied look.
The only thing that's been twisted is my hope for my SO's attitude to be more like women in porn...where sex is fun and readily available.

vveronica

Porn during sex however is really cool. I guess the whole thing depends on how secure you are in your own body and relationship. It can be a great plus and it can be a problem. It sorta depends like any drug or stimulant. on how you use it.

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lurkette

The problem with articles (and ideas) like this is that they have no basis in fact. I'm not saying she's wrong, I'm just saying that a lot of intellectuals, particularly in the "cultural theory" side of the academic spectrum (where I got my MA and then ran screaming) get an idea that's based in theory and then go looking for anecdotal evidence of causation that matches that theory. This kind of crap would NEVER be tolerated in the hard sciences, why do we tolerate it here? She's saying that this is a particular aspect of reality: go prove it with data. When you can show me a causal link, then I'll crusade against porn as the death knell of healthy sexuality. Till then, I will continue to call "bullshit."

P.S. Fair disclosure: Naomi Wolf has always bugged the hell out of me. She takes a perfectly good idea and then ruins it by being whiny, unempirical (although The Beauty Myth came close to at least some kind of anecdotal empiricism) and completely un-helpful.

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rodgerd

Ahh, yes. Naomi Woolf. Another one of the, "my opinions and experiences are what every women believes AND THE SKY IS FALLING."

Too much effort to back your opinions with any research, Naomi? I suppose we should be grateful she's not producing kiddy porn a la Germaine Greer...

(On edit)

Rereading, she also seems to be verging into a middle-aged case of homophobia. Presumably womens' rights don't incldue the right to be a dyke, bisexual, or just experiment and see what sticks.

trudes1131

Very interesting read. Poorly written, I felt, but interesting nonetheless. Especially given the eventual possibilities such a reduced libido can have on our culture throughout future generations.

A scary thought, indeed.

anti fishstick

these kind of articles just adds to the guilt and fear we have of sexuality. this is not sexually liberating, its confining. this article did nothing for me but think bullshit. i have never noticed this reduced libido trend due to excessive porn and a lack of connection to real women because of it. most guys i know would be glad to take a REAL women anyday than some fake brushed up model. real is the appeal, and the model is an ideal. and if lack of connection to real women is a problem to men, i'm sure porn is not the sole or even main problem to point the blame. some people use avoidance tactics to avoid reality (life) which includes all aspect of computer or internet interactions. not just porn. it's their own problem. not the porn industries.

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RelaX

Personally I think it's a good thing. Like other posters said, you get desensitized a bit but this doesn't diminish your appetite for real women. In fact, it shows you the extremities and you get a little more comfortable with the little discrepancies in real women.
Plus it evens out the market a bit.

Women wanted equality? They got it. Men respond to this new culture (as analog said) by taking better care of themselves (my dad often scoffs at me for caring about my hair and skin) and women get to be more sexually aggressive. I'd say it's a win-win situation.

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analog

i'm glad so many other people saw this as total bullshit, as I did.

Anomaly_

For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.

I couldn't disagree more. Cro-Magnon man was probably wanking to crude cave paintings. Wolf fails to realize that masturbation and sex are not one in the same for males. It explains why men masturbate whether single or involved in a relationship. The progression of porn into the taboo and physically "perfect" does not ratchet up the baseline for real world standards. It makes the fantasy status of porn even more apparent and allows more appreciation for natural, real women. If anything, my substantial porn collection makes me more depressed about what I'm not experiencing with real women.

spads

I tried reading that. I really did. But every 10 seconds I would get angry at the convoluted specious reasoning.

This is shit written by a sanctimonious bed-wetting feminist. Shes just sad that all her theories have been shown to be bullshitm and angry she was born so ugly. Shes even angrier that now shes old, even less people want to fuck her.

I'm going to go punch the wall a few times.

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Sleepyjack

This is quite similar to the idea that playing violent videogames trains killers.

Fantasy Vs Reality

Aladdin Sane

Feminist theorists have claimed for decades that porn would lead to the total objectification of women. In other words, men would only be interested in women for sex.
Now Mr. Wolf whines that porn has completely removed "real" sex from the modern man's appetite. Am I the only one who is confused here?

Perhaps she is menopausal?
;O)

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elfuq

This evening, I think that there is a reasonably high possibility, not guaranteed, but reasonably likely, that I will spend the night with a pretty, funny, sexy, highly sexual and moderately overweight 29-year old woman.

If someone thinks that just because I have recently seen a picture of a skinny shaved naked 18 year old then I would turn down this opportunity, then frankly, they're on crack.

ismark

I could be wrong but I wonder if there is a correlation between the Internet, Porn and what I perceive to be as an increase in the sexual aggressiveness of women.

Women today (of the current generation) appear much better informed, better able to understand what their choices are and more likely to experiment than any women I met in the 70's and 80's.

It also seems that they are more likely to pursue a man and take the initiative

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Aladdin Sane

ismark, first, I'm jealous that you are old enough to have experimented with women in the 70s and 80s, and you are still in the game, or so it seems.
I was also there in the 70s and 80s, but I'm married and out of the game today.

How can a Grumpy Old Bloke mix it up with young girls these days? What's your secret?

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Drider_it

bah problem is no matter which way this swings it all comes down to looks.. me.. you can ask my wife on here and dragonfido.. i never cared for looks at first.. it always came down to a womans eyes and her personality.. FUCK the rest.. I dont care if you were dog ugly or a super fox.. if your personality sucked you go the stiff shoulder from me and i never thought twice about it.

all the loser prep girls in my grad class.. 1993 .. met a few this past month.. they have changed. thier personalities are better in ways. .but i never got over how they thought they were man's dick gift to men.. blah.. now that they exist in the "real" world they understand being a dick tease and a slut dosent help you out in the real world looking for that right guy..

why.. i got proof.. 10 outta the 12 i saw have been in and outta multiple marragies in the past 10 years.. me, im glad to say im still happy on my first and only one.

i got comments on how good i look.. i havent changed.. where have i been. i was polite but left.. i didnt care about them in HS wtf would i give a crap about them now..

I would rather spank my monkey all day than to take a woman in force... and thats the stone cold truth.. most peps do understand the difference between reality and fantasy..

fake.. you can do what you want..

reality.. women win 90% in court..

and believe you me most of the girls i thought were great in HS (most jerks called them dogs and such) turned out to be the better looking ones .. and that is just in 10 years. heh go figure..

no you shouldnt go out and bang everyone.. right outta HS and going into college.. why.. duh.. get your damn schooling done.. get a career started.. fuck everything else.. companionship can come next.. this is a future your planning..

i dont believe in love at first sight... although i do believe in LUST at first sight...

and old HS saying of mine.. am i going off on tangents sure.. but heh.. who dosent..

btw I finally saw the matrix 3 TRAILER it rozkz... l3trz

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TinniT

Intersting article. The only thing that it didn't touch on as much as it should have is not so much the first person male perspective towards women, but how men feel about their peers approval of women they are dating. I think that isa more important and flexible point than the idea that men want porn star girlfriends.

I was with an extremely attractive and alluring woman for 2 years. Though I loved her for who she was, there was a very intense physical attraction, and I was turned on quite often just by walking into a room with her and seeing every guy turn his head and look at her. It felt good to know that I was the guy who came in with her.

To that effect, I think this article holds some merit, but it did not touch on it. The first gal I was ever with was the antithesis of the shaved/waxed/facial pornstar type, and I was just as turned on when it came to sex.

What the article touches on lightly is the actual act of sex. The whole watching porn to learn moves. One might learn moves themselves, just by trying, but if not for porn, I might not have ever learned my favorite position.

For what its worth, porn is no replacement for actual sex. I might watch porn while I'm cranking it, but I can't actually orgasm unless I'm thinking about my ex-g/f. Thats a frustration in itself, but it is me thinknig about *real* sex, not the pixelated variety.