A few days ago, a couple of persons
where having a discussion about how social media has destroyed homes and how principled
individuals have given way to very unethical behaviours as a result of what is
seen on social media.
Sometime ago, a licensed
psychotherapist, certified sexuality counselor and New York Times best-selling
author Ian Kerner wrote a very interesting article on his website iankerner.com
with a questioning title “Is there such a thing as ‘good porn’? honestly
speaking, it was a good read.
For many of us, like he explained in
the article, our first exposure to pornography was surreptitious as it was
either a case of a sneak peek at someone else's copy of Playboy or the viewing
of a worn VHS tape stolen from an older sibling or some other ways. However today,
the reverse is the case as porn is nearly everywhere given that anyone can
simply jump online and view it with the few clicks on a device.
‘Anyone’ means ‘anybody’
irrespective of age, gender, class,
religion and more given the staggering numbers
of people who visit such sites if the
data provided by the American Psychological Association is anything to
go by.
According to the data,
as stated in the article, the rates of porn consumption range between 50% and
99% among men and 30% to 86% among women. It says the popular website PornHub
alone logs about 2.4 million visitors per hour which is more than an estimated
6,000 visitors per second.
Amazingly, such a site
is free and given that it's all free, it makes it not only more accessible and
acceptable to a lot of people of the present generation but also for those of
the future and many years ahead as it is gradually becoming less taboo and
simply part of life for many people at the moment. The shocking and craziest part
is that when you want to watch better and well-meaning videos online, you have to
pay for them.
Even though many see
this trend as unethical, Ian who refers to Porn as a sexually explicit Internet
material or visual sexual stimuli given his field, says it could be a positive
and a valuable aspect of a healthy sex life in some ways.
A proposed regulation
in California would require porn actors to wear condoms while filming. The
thinking is that this will not only promote safer sex on set amongst the
performers, it will encourage porn viewers at home to follow their lead. But
condoms aren't the only way to protect the safety of adult film actors or to
ensure that the porn that reaches consumers is of a higher standard overall.
In fact, a booming
trend in the creation of adult films -- ethical porn -- is changing the way
erotic content is both made and consumed.
"If we put porn in
perspective and use it as an adjunct to fantasy, it can be beneficial,"
said licensed marriage and family therapist and certified sex therapist Marty
Klein, author of "His Porn, Her Pain: Confronting America's Porn Panic
with Honest Talk About Sex."
But with this growing
acceptance comes a tolerance for mediocre material. Like most advertising-based
online content, the "tube" sites that offer free porn operate on
search terms and clicks. It isn't created on the "build it and they will
come model," but rather on the "build more of what they're already
clicking on" model. This approach creates a vicious cycle: What we click
on is what gets made, which is what gets clicked on, which is what gets made.
Though the average
duration of a porn visit clocks in at about 9 minutes, many men and women spend
way more time searching for something interesting to view. "Sometimes, I
can spend two hours a night looking at porn," one of my patients said.
"It's not because I'm addicted. I'm just looking for something that feels
real."
Unfortunately, that can
be difficult to find on the tube sites, where quantity far exceeds quality.
"Amateurs have largely replaced actors because they're willing to work for
less money," explained Bryant Paul, a faculty member at Indiana University
Media School and co-producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary "Hot Girls
Wanted." With an amateur's career peaking after just a few months, many
must participate in increasingly degrading or exploitative material to remain
relevant in the industry.
Because tube sites tend
to deliver short, digestible clips of content, some of the material they offer
may be pirated and taken out of context.
"Free porn sites
may steal scenes from longer movies, which they re-label and rebrand,"
explained adult film director and writer Jacky St. James. "I can create a
film that's more story-driven and romantic, only to have a clip from it pop up
on a tube site, where it's being called something like 'big-breasted blonde
whore on her knees.' " Worse, there's no guarantee that the people
participating in free porn are of legal age or that they have consented to the
acts portrayed onscreen.
But the answer to bad
porn shouldn't be no porn at all; it should be better porn. Enter ethical porn.
Much the way organic produce, cage-free eggs and fair-trade coffee have
transformed the way we shop for food, ethical porn is changing the landscape of
adult-oriented material, making it easier to enjoy.
In his new book
"Ethical Porn for Dicks: A Man's Guide to Responsible Viewing
Pleasure," clinical psychologist David Ley outlines the requirements for
this new form of porn: It should be made legally, respect the rights of
performers and pay them for their labor, and treat both performers and
consumers as consenting, thinking individuals. Also important: Ethical porn
celebrates sexuality as a diverse, complex and multifaceted component of being
a human being, without judgment.
That doesn't mean that
ethical porn is always romantic and soft. "Hard-core, rough sex can be
ethical," St. James said. "What matters is that the performers are
comfortable, consenting and respectful of everyone's boundaries."
Ley agrees.
"Ethical porn can explore darker aspects of sexuality. If we expect it to
be 'nice,' we set others up to be ashamed about their own desires," he
said. "Professional sports aren't 'nice' either, but they can be played
ethically and responsibly. Porn should be the same."
Something else to
consider: Just as porn itself should be ethical, the way it's consumed should
be, too. "In addition to advocating for a product that's made ethically,
we should be using it ethically as well," Klein explained. "That
means enjoying it in a way that highlights the positive aspects of your own
relationships and sex life: for example, not breaking any promises to your mate
about your viewing and not using porn to withdraw from your mate or make them
feel bad with explicit comparisons to porn stars' bodies."
In my own practice, I
often suggest to couples in sex ruts that they try ethical porn as a way to
increase sexual arousal, as well as to people coping with common sexual
concerns such as erectile dysfunction, premature ejactulation and difficulty
achieving orgasm. Indeed, research by neuroscientist Nicole Prause and her
colleagues has found that watching more pornography actually increases arousal
in men to less explicit material -- and increases the desire for sex with a
partner. In other words, it makes them more responsive to "normal"
sexual cues and more desirous of real physical relationships (Archives of
Sexual Behavior, May 2013).
So how do you know
whether the porn you're watching was produced ethically? Although there's no
guarantee, you might want to start your search with the winners at the annual Feminist
Porn Awards. Yes, you'll probably have to pay for it, but even with a small
budget, you can build your ethical porn library into something you can feel
good about enjoying.
No comments:
Post a Comment