Show The pornographic pornographic i. A s Y i mainstream c p G s y jT-y y i I. N. N Michael Hawe garde Avant-garde Philosopher When I say that this is an article about pornography becoming mainstream some of you may be worried that I am advocating this trend so soI soI soI I want to be clear and say from the outset Im I'm not sure how I feel about this subject I do think that in inmany inmany inmany many ways our society's fear of sex paired with our almost fetishistic love of pf violence is ridiculous But I seriously doubt that the portrayal of sexuality that the Internet and other mechanisms of pornographic distribution churn chum out is a healthy one So the point of this article is not to come to toa toa toa a conclusion about the nature of this phenomenon merely to point out that it is happening the conclusion you draw is your own and andI I encourage you to reach it As a friend of mine pointed out when I said saidI I was writing this article porno has always been there In the days before the Internet there were still VHS strip clubs porn theaters and magazines and it has often been said that prostitution is the worlds world's oldest profession So its it's not a matter of some new obsession with sex that thatis thatis i is causing this but rather an era of accessibility and ambiguity that has brought 1 n to the forefront Every mother knows that L L teenage boys minx mIlK think about sex and naked women or men if they're gay I suppose almost nonstop In the past it was merely I Ia a matter of making makine sure they never had enough enough- time alone to explore their uncles uncle's closet and find his Playboy stash and that his friends were all well mannered and moral But today's tech savvy teen merely needs to spend some time figuring out how to bypass the parental controls on their Internet and since most of them understand computers far better than their parents that's rarely a difficulty By the age of thirteen an enterprising young man can see things that 50 years ago only the most hardcore of swingers and perverts ever even thought about And while teen girls are less likely to actively go looking surprising number do one study indicated that about 4 1 of teenage viewers were female Combine this with the growing vulgarity of the media both movies themselves and cable TV series and teens today have a much different perspective on sexuality than that of their parents 30 years ago the portrayal of teen sexuality in the relatively tame movie Mean Girls would have caused outrage among parents and religious groups alike Now it rates pretty low on the scale Zack and Miri Make a Porno while not particularly graphic would have definitely received an NC 17 rating something it narrowly avoided received r L 1 DA A the modern the modern from me lUc Both were particularly popular among younger viewers And while TV tends to imply sexuality through innuendo rather than explicit depictions many series A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila comes readily to mind would have shocked most audiences in hi the and to their core So what does all this mean Quite honestly I have no idea As I stated in inthe inthe inthe the beginning I dont don't think that the sexuality depicted in pornography is either accurate or healthy but the fact is that it is coming more and more into the limelight Equally though I think that sexual repression and guilt can have severe negative effects on the psyche of a growing person So where does that leave us It seems to me that the best thing we can take from this is a chance to open an honest dialogue about sexuality in our culture and perhaps from there we can ad adequately address fundamental problems of sex in our society The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily express the views of the garde Avant-garde Philosophers Society The rhe garde Avant-garde Philosophers Philosophers' Society is an student club whose mission is to promote a genuinely examined life while applying an evolving understanding of the Philosophical Good as active agents engaged with the community |