I was recently interviewed for a study on pornography’s effects on young men. The questions ranged from my family background to which sections I liked the most on pornographic websites. I found some of the questions difficult to answer, as I feel my pornography viewing experience has been different from that of most men my age. I didn’t feel that pornography had negatively affected the way I view women. If anything, it’s made me think more deeply about sexual rights and freedoms.
"How would you describe the pornography you watch?"
The question was followed by inquiries into whether or not the pornography I watch is “Hardcore.” I had to pause and think about this for a moment, and I made a connection, which I think is very important to talk about. I realized what hard-core pornography means to most people. It means non-consensual.
To me, this presents an ethical dilemma, because what you see in pornography is not necessarily what you get. Let’s compare two vastly different kinds of pornography. On one side we have a hard-core pornography scene with one woman and multiple men, which portrays what sex columnist Natasha Vargas-Cooper describes as “widely available, routine stuff in the major porn portals.”
On the other side we have a solo scene, with just one person masturbating, perhaps the most soft-core form of pornography. To a teenage boy, the first scenario obviously affects their view of women more negatively and sexualizes violence. The second scene is seen as much more innocent. It is, perhaps, still degrading for the woman in front of the camera, but there is no violence being portrayed.
Anyone would agree that pornography that portrays gang violence towards women is more harmful to the viewer than a depiction of masturbation, but one must also consider how the videos are being produced. A website like Kink.com, which produces pornography that is specifically violent and degrading—the kinds of sexual acts made popular by "50 Shades of Grey"—is actually one of the most safely and consensually run pornographic websites. Their videos only feature professionals with strong ties to the BDSM community, and what looks like abusive behavior is actually desired by all parties. The website’s mission statement is, “…to create the most authentic BDSM experiences that foster community and empower people to explore their sexuality.”
Let us then suppose that the soft-core pornography features a woman who is a victim of sex trafficking. Human trafficking plagues pornography produced in Eastern European and South American countries, as well as the United States. The Covering House reported that sex trafficking in the United States is a $9.5 billion yearly industry and that 1 in 3 teens is lured towards prostitution with 48 hours of being homeless.
Now, this is not to say that hard-core pornography portrays positive images of how women should be treated—it does not. If a teenager were to come across an advertisement for Kink.com while searching the Internet, it would surely have a negative effect on them. Children, and most adults, would not understand what they were seeing, that it was a consensual act, where the performer playing the “victim” was actually the one in control of the scene.
Of course, parents need to take every precaution possible to ensure that their children are not exposed to this kind of media, but our society has unfortunately become somewhat relaxed on this issue. Almost every child in the United States has a laptop computer and Internet access, and parents don’t seem to think about what their children might be seeing. Few parents utilize parental control to monitor or prevent the content their children see on the Internet, and even if they do, most fourteen year olds are better at using computers than their parents. It would not surprise me if a teenager were able to disable their parental controls.
So maybe some hard-core pornography is more consensual than some soft-core pornography. That knowledge helps us understand whom we should be battling from a human rights standpoint, but it doesn’t change the fact that pornography is dictating the way young men view sex. Pornography is a completely unrealistic depiction of sex, but our teenagers are bombarded with it, and it makes its way deep into the subconscious of young men. The Huffington Post reported that pornographic websites receive more traffic than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined.
The person who conducted my interview clearly felt strongly that violent pornography is one of the most negative influences on young men. I would go even further than that. I would say that any sexual acts depicted in the media that are incomprehensible to a young man have a negative influence. Our young men see things they’re not ready for, and all too frequently. They’re suffused with sexual activity, which not only completely throws off their internal reward systems, but also forces them to embrace things through a computer screen that they’re not to embrace in the physical world. We need to make pornography less accessible, and we need to discuss sex with our children in order to mentally prepare them for a world that’s divided up into 61 categories.
Max Tabet is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Friday.
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