50 Shades of PORN

If you have been living under a rock for the last few months you may not have heard about the phenomena of the book "50 shades of Grey".

It is a fairly recent book that has received worldwide fame and sold more books than the Harry Potter series! 

And it is porn.

Seriously.

The main story-line goes something along the lines of woman meets man, man is attractive, man introduces the woman to his red room, red room is a place where they get to go sadomasochistic on each other and cause pain for sexual arousal, woman falls in love, more pain inducing sex.

And this obviously deep and meaningful plot line is the best selling book of our era.

Have to say the most brilliant pic I saw recently was one that said "anyone who says that 50 shades is excellent literature needs to be beaten with the complete works of Shakespeare". But I digress.

My issue here is not the writing style of the author or even the subject which she chooses, but the fact that it has been so phenomenally successful.

Sex sells.

Porn sells even better.

What is the difference between porn and sex? Is there one?

I think there was a more defined line in the past. Selling sex was about using pretty woman and men and product placement to insinuate a connection between the two.

Now it is much harder to define as selling sex often means just that. Barely clothed woman and men, often in compromising positions are used to sell, often barely mentioned, products. People don't want to see what they could be any more, they want to see what makes them aroused.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is porn.

Interestingly enough there are dictionaries that don't even mention sex when defining porn. For example:

television shows, articles, photographs, etc., thought to create or satisfy an excessive desire for something,especially something luxurious: the irresistible appeal of foodporn; an addiction to real-estate porn.

 "the excessive desire for something".

Porn, the sexual gratification kind, not the real estate kind, has a grip on this generation like nothing else. It is easier to ask a group of people 'who hasn't seen porn' that it is to ask who has as the numbers will be easier to count.

It is instantaneous gratification that is accessible anywhere if you have the right kind of phone with web capabilities.

It forgoes the issues of having to build a relationship (see my last post "Give me love!") and skips straight to the sex with no need to call them the next day, or to even know their name!

And it is so unbelievably destructive that I would rank it near the top of why there are so many failed relationships.

If you watch porn a lot it desensitizes you to the need for love in sex. It forms your ideas about what a male or female body should look like (and trust me NO natural body looks like that) and it puts in your head desires for sex that you may never find anyone actually willing to do, submitting you to the possibility of only finding sexual gratification through porn.

And it demeans and objectifies people in a way that makes them something rather than someone.

Every time you watch porn you are making those people less than human in your eyes.

You don't care about them, you don't care if they are drug induced, sex slaves that have been stolen from their homes and trafficked into the business.

You don't care that they may have been sexually abused as a child and found that this was the only job they felt they were good at.

You don't care that they carry STD's and are passing those to every sexual partner they have.

You don't care because they are less than human to you.

And they don't care if your marriage or relationship breaks up because of them. They don't care that you views on your partner may be warped because of them. They don't care

because you are less than human to them.

You are the one that gives this industry a reason to keep going.

You are the one that keeps them in business.

You are acting less than human by even watching porn.

I know a young man who said once that watching porn was the ultimate hypocrisy. He watched woman with no thought of who they were or respect for them and yet he believes in treating his female friends with dignity and respect.

It's because in his eyes, at that moment, those women were less than human to him.

As a woman who has been coerced into having pornographic pictures taken of her, the possibility that they are on the web and that some of the men in my life that I care about could maybe one day click on a link and see them fills me with a horror that I cannot begin to describe. It makes me wonder if the women in porn feel that sense of shame and disgust as well.

There are far more that just 50 shades of porn and it is becoming more and more apparent on everyday television and movies. 

Next time you think to watch porn, ask yourself

"What if this site shows me young pics/movies of my mother?"

Let's start to humanize people again and give them the respect and dignity that they deserve.