Porn and Process
Creative expressions of sexual energy, in any art form, are key to ongoing human evolution. Debates about potentially harmful effects of porn, particularly on the developing preadolescent mind, must be had. I'm not into censorship, even when what is hitting the "airwaves" feels vile. I believe in great variety and thoroughly tagged transmission to allow individual choice. Where I draw the line in reality media is based upon whether the act that produced the material was coerced or truly consensual-that isn't about censorship, it's about freedom from actual victimization. I'm particularly concerned about "amateur" videos passed off as consensual without any safeguards.
In the written world, as in the mind itself, where there is only muse and artist, consent is clear. The reader joins that conversation voluntarily, deciding at any moment to lay the words aside. Yet, I find myself worried at the huge volume of written material subjugating women that is still produced and consumed by both men and women in 2015 in comparison to the other varieties of stories.
As a woman, I am affected by rage-porn in any form. There's so much of it trying to flash across my screen despite every block I can throw up that I would have to guess that at least one out of every ten people with whom I'm in regular contact in my everyday life must partake of it. As both genders living in a woman's body, I also understand the limbic impulses that feed the industry, and I'm not sure that ignoring or repressing them helps.
I think that the antidote is again, variety. As more women and men make more erotica and porn in all the variations that tease the human mind, while some people will remain inexorably cued to hate and alienation of the other, probably because of formative experiences, the rest will surf everything that's available and will realize that consent isn't boring.
In the written world, as in the mind itself, where there is only muse and artist, consent is clear. The reader joins that conversation voluntarily, deciding at any moment to lay the words aside. Yet, I find myself worried at the huge volume of written material subjugating women that is still produced and consumed by both men and women in 2015 in comparison to the other varieties of stories.
As a woman, I am affected by rage-porn in any form. There's so much of it trying to flash across my screen despite every block I can throw up that I would have to guess that at least one out of every ten people with whom I'm in regular contact in my everyday life must partake of it. As both genders living in a woman's body, I also understand the limbic impulses that feed the industry, and I'm not sure that ignoring or repressing them helps.
I think that the antidote is again, variety. As more women and men make more erotica and porn in all the variations that tease the human mind, while some people will remain inexorably cued to hate and alienation of the other, probably because of formative experiences, the rest will surf everything that's available and will realize that consent isn't boring.