Motivations Against Adult Media

I don't like it when people aren't honest and upfront about their motivations. I'm much more likely to deal with a salesperson who is honest than one that is pretending to do something out of the pure goodness of their heart or claiming a dire disaster will happen to me if I don't buy from them. [This entry has been bumped up.]

You see this sort of thing all of the time. People say they want to "legalize hemp" for medical marijuana or because practical products made from hemp are so much better than using petroleum. But once recreational pot is legalized these people seem to disappear. Or the "Indian gaming" pushes that say it'll be nothing like Las Vegas, and then once the laws are passed they run ads calling themselves the "shortcut to Vegas!"

This happens constantly when people talk about adult media. So many of the complaints are really about media, masturbation, male sexual nature, the nature of sex, etc. but people choose to only apply their complaint to adult media.

Some people breathlessly pronounce that if you watch "porn" you will become addicted, become impotent, rot your brain, and become a serial mass rapist-murderer. That, THEY CLAIM, is why they constantly warn people and call for restrictions ranging from censor/spyware they're selling to incarcerating people for making or watching video of adults having sex or pretending to. They dupe politicians into passing declarations that such material is a "public health crisis" even though it isn't, and offer a “cure” in the form of a book or “rehab” they’re selling. Or stickers and t-shirts.

Let's get honest about why people freak out about porn.


True, we don't know with certainty what's really going on inside any particular idividual's head/heart. What we have to go on is what they say, what they do, and our hunches based on our observations and introspection.

Let’s get right to what it probably about 95% of the motivation, at least when it comes to women.

Most women crave attention, and on some level, want to control men. They see nude and sexual imagery of other women as a threat. Since they are human, they are aging, losing their youth (and their looks and fertility) and there’s nothing they can do to stop it, and there’s this never ending river of now-legal, nubile, attractive, in-shape women creating sexual imagery that never ages. Some women perceive this as unfair competition that lowers what men have to pay for visual and auditory sexual stimulation. After age 25, women start going downhill physically, both visually and in fertility. Women can be attractive and sexy for 50+ more years, but it’s a lot of work and they’ll never get back to their early 20s. Some women dislike that other women appear to be sexier/hotter than they are.

Some women dislike it being so obvious and provable that other women are willing to do things they won't.

Some women dislike men having a choice of what he sees. These women not only want to prevent "their man" and often any man from viewing adult media, but any media in which female skin or the female form can be seen, and they don't want women wearing clothing that they consider immodest. Just about any heterosexual man is looking at other women. A man can be with one of the most attractive women in the world, and he's still going to look at other women. This is male sexual nature. Again, it is normal and natural. The only heterosexual men with normal hormones who aren't are men who are making a constant, focused effort to NOT look, usually because of what they believe to be a religious command.

Nobody seems to give a rip that likewise, men have their own “competition” to deal with. Men usually reach peak potency while they are still in their teens, and there’s no way that most men can compete with not only male porn performers, but pro athletes, leading male actors and male characters in soap operas, “reality” television, romantic comedies, action movie heroes, princess fantasies, romance novels, etc. Despite all of this “competition”, men and women still get together, because if they want flesh and blood companionship, they have to settle, no matter what fantasies have captured their imagination.

The rest of the motivations are probably more often than not, related to the above or cover for the above.

Some men don't want to admit what turns them on. They like the female body, they like seeing sex, and it is like a mirror to their fantasies. And they don't want to admit this, for whatever reason. It could be because it makes them vulnerable, or they get shamed, etc. They may be personally trying to avoid it for religious reasons, and don't want temptation being around. It is normal and natural for men to enjoy looking at the female body and women in sexual situations, but there are belief systems in which normal and natural does not mean good.

Some religious people have moral qualms about immodesty and lust, masturbation, contraception, abortions, sterilization, sodomy, nonmonogamy, fetishes, paraphilias, etc. They point out that performers who aren’t married to each other are engaging in fornication or adultery, but these people also wouldn’t want a husband having a candlelit dinner with a woman who's not his wife, but never say anything about actors doing so on stage or camera.

Some guys don't want other guys doing what their wife/religion won't let them, and by golly, if they can’t do it they sure don’t want other men enjoying something.

Some MGTOW don't want men "relying" on women at all, and viewing adult media (at least, adult media that isn't strictly depicting males or isn't a computerized work of art) is depending on a woman for visual and auditory stimulation, giving her the attentions she wants, and, in many cases, providing compensation to those women.

Some washed up performers are bitter, as washed up workers from any industry can be. Even some people who officially retired, and did so on good terms, often have gripes as time goes by. Some have legitimate gripes. Maybe someone they worked with mistreated them. That also happens in any career, including in ministry.

Some women don't like it because they've been socialized to dislike it. I'm convinced that, for some women, this is the case. For the life of them, they can't actually explain it. And men are told that they shouldn't watch because their wife disapproves. What would people say if a woman was told she shouldn't watch things she enjoys because her husband doesn't like it? I'm not saying most women would naturally like the average adult video. I'm saying that they wouldn't feel a need to "fight porn" or insist others not watch it, if it weren't for peer pressure or sermonizing on it.

An extreme tangent from the women in the point above is women (and men, for that matter) who have bought into hysteria that viewing porn turns men into serial rapist/mass murderers, or something in that direction. It's an absurd argument when you couple it with how ubiquitous and easy to access AM is and how many people view it, because we should have a lot more maniacs. (There are exponentially more people who are distractedly and disproportionately upset than there are AM addicts.) A milder version of this is people equating viewing adult media with abducting women and girls and raping them on-camera (look for the “trafficking” buzzword). There are all sorts of rhetorical gymnastics used to try to convince people that looking at a centerfold or watching a married couple's amateur home video is contributing to the murder of children. It's no different than trying to say that if you watch the latest "Star Wars" movie, you are contributing to the abuse of animals seen in other videos.

When the same people say “Porn rots your brain!” and “Most porn contains these specific bad elements…” I have to scratch my head. To know that “most porn” has those elements, these people would have had to watch a lot of AM, which they claim rots their brain. So how can anyone else take what they say seriously, since they’ve rotted their brain? And, of course, if someone really believes seeing nude women in sexual situations rots brains, then anybody, including people engaged in marital lovemaking, must always have sex in complete darkness or risk brain rotting.

Some people seem ever so concerned that men are getting erectile dysfunction from watching adult media. They cite 1) individual anecdotal cases, and 2) a general increase in the rates of reported or claimed ED as AM has become ubiquitous. I’ll assume we’re not including a man having just rubbed one out or done so a few hours ago being unable to get it up for his shrew of a wife who has decided this is going to be the moment for his monthly mercy sex. Of course men who’ve orgasmed/ejaculated within the last several hours are a lot less likely to perform (especially for a wife whose been getting fatter and fatter and more butch and less enthusiastic or adventurous). Individual cases are hard to argue. A guy who feels guilty about watching AM might get what he thinks is ED as a result. That’s a psychological issue and can be a self-fulfilling, psychosomatic issue. However, the general statistic of an increase in ED in the population asserted as being caused by AM is hardly conclusive. Accepting that claims of ED have significantly increased and viewing of porn has significantly increased over the last whatever number of decades, these things didn’t happen in a vacuum. For example, there has also been an increase in obesity, changes in gender roles and dynamics, and the introduction and marketing of reliable and effective prescription medicines to treat erectile dysfunction. How many men who experienced ED simply didn’t report it to a doctor before Viagra hit the market? How many men claiming ED don't really have it, but want the medicine anyway, because they think it gives them an advantage, or because what they really have is "erectile disappointment"?

Some people think men should have to pay more for auditory and visual stimulation from women. Some people insist that the right thing is that men pay women a lot of money for sex. They usually don't say it so plainly, but that is essentially what they are talking about when they say that if a man wants sex, he should sign a state legal contract with a woman that guarantees her at least half of his earnings as well and continued payment (even for life) should they part ways, or that even without that contract (but usually heading for entering into such a contract) he should be regularly paying for her meals and entertainment, buying her gifts, and providing his labor to her. Meanwhile, men can get the auditory and visual stimulation for relatively little money thanks to adult media.

Some misandrists (some of them describe themselves as feminists, though not all self-described feminists are misandrists) are not only upset that men can "get something" from women for little money, but they don't like the idea of women "performing for men" at all.

Some people dislike that someone can earn more than the lowest wages doing something that doesn't require higher education.

Some guys like to score points with their ball-busting wife by parroting the hysterias, and there's money to be had frightening wives and mothers and grandmothers. It's rather sad, really, and the scare mongering and catering to irrational insecurities and jealousies furthers unnecessary anxieties, destroys some marriages, reduces the credibility of the alarmists.

None of this is to say that AM is a good thing in general. Even if generally harmless, it’s often silly, cheesy, features performers who’ve turned themselves into fake or freaky-looking specimens (as does some pro wrestling and bodybuilding), can convey bad messages (as can any media). A lot of niche stuff is really strange, but pretending that's representative of all AM is laughable. But people need to be honest with themselves and others about what bothers them, and not perpetuate really bad arguments and hysterias.