Pornography Abuses Men

Pornography abuses men. In all the porn I have ever watched, and that is a lot, the men have been made to look like buffoons – sweating, brutish, unfeeling imbeciles, with an obviously dubious sexuality.

The men are pained, straining to fight against the natural explosiveness of their own sexual release. Increasingly, men have become more and more hairless in pornography. Gone are the days Ron Jeremy, of hairy noses and bushy moustaches, and baboon-like back hair. The men are unreal, head shaven, bic-razor bald, and their skin tight and raw. These are not men, these are drones, Hollywood driftwood, the detritus of a Eugenic ideology. And ultimately it makes for a boring but violent erotica, one that is geared towards ejaculation without sensuality, without human touch, without creativity and feeling – all of the things which should actually characterise and define a true masculinity.

The message is clear – that men are interchangeable. As long as their cocks are long and hard, it matters not what the bring to kitchen table, or the bedroom, or the back of a limo; as long as they are charged liked dogs on heat, their job is done.

But there is another way that pornography abuses men. The very structure and aesthetic of it, the focus on power and release, the IDEAS embedded in it, rob men of their sexualities. Because it reduces your sexuality to a kind of shameful mental condition. It says that if you are feeling horny, if you are feeling sexual, then you must remedy this crazed state with sheer vaginal indulgence. It gives no room for the notion that a man can control his sexual energies, that he might want to hold onto them even. That to be erotically charged might be something that is worth relishing for its own sake, rather than for the anticipation of release from this state. It re-emphasises abusive myths that society imposes on men, foremost among them being the idea that their sexualities are somehow wrong, that to feel erotic is bad and must be done away with as soon as possible.

What masquerades as a form of sexual liberty – hardcore sex on video - actually reinforces male repressions, because it does nothing to quell the longing for touch, the longing for intimacy and pure erotic adventure, within men. Instead, it exploits these emotional needs and says that all a man is good for is ejaculation. And the only kind of emotional kick you are entitled to is one of subjugating the woman, physically.

Of course, the irony is that these woman are in fact somehow more empowered than the men, because despite the physical humiliation they put themselves through, they find themselves in a politically powerful place of reducing their male counterparts to emotionally bankrupt apes.

I'm not saying don't look at porn. I am just saying that when it comes to sexuality, what appears to be empowering can very often be the highest form of abuse to yourself and others.