There have been a series of posts throughout the Internet lately, including an interesting debate in the Manosphere about whether or not activities involving pornography and, its concomitant, autoeroticism are forms of male sexual liberation; or whether they are in fact harmful activities. So far we haven't written on this topic because it is a complex issue but one that needs to be addressed and debated openly.
Postmodernism has given the West a society which is simultaneously sex-negative and sex-obsessed. Some writers like Dr. Rookh Kshatriya are absolutely correct that sexual jealousy which has been inculcated in the public by various interest groups have led to this paradoxical condition. Sexual power is both a goal to accomplish at all hazards in our society while at the same time those who actually achieve it are envied, resented, and despised. This phenomenon is based in Cultural Marxism; and as proof that envy is at the root of our sexual chaos, just observe other social phenomenon attacked by the Left. Our culture, for example, both hates the wealthy while it worships money. The inherent envy built into Neo-Marxism is at work there as well.
Norwegian blogger Eivind Berge got the debate really going again in a recent article titled Anosognosia. He made this very interesting observation:
"It is true that the ability to "find sexual release" by means of visual stimuli and masturbation is a "feature" of male sexuality, but this is a great tragedy rather than anything to be celebrated. If you think this is a good thing, then you are suffering not only from anosognosia, but also a fetishization of disability, because a disability or maladaptation is precisely what it is in the current world. Our sex-hostile mainstream culture is all too happy to tell you that masturbation is fine. And then it institutes a (to the feminists) bonus level of oppression on top of that -- criminalizing a good bit of masturbation as well, usually by making at least some kinds of pornography illegal -- which is reliant on men being deluded into thinking these asexual pursuits provide some sexual value."
Whether Mr. Berge realizes it or not, this was essentially the reasoning behind most Anti-Pornography laws which existed in the United States up until recent times. Granted, our politicians often embellished their laws with moral and religious overtones; but most doctors, social scientists, and some of the more educated clergy understood that Society had an obligation to at least discourage such behaviors.
Now, probably because of the differences between 20th and 21st Century technologies, we've seen certain trends emerge in society that are troubling. Berge points out that"when something is a major feature of their environment for long enough, species will tend to adapt to it. That has obviously not happened with Internet porn yet because it has only been around for one generation. Two generations if you include DVDs and VHS tapes, and before that there was no seriously compelling pornography."
I wouldn't even argue that DVD/VHS technology was especially deep proliferation; but before that, it either required studio tapes or literature---mostly the latter. But even when our laws prohibited pornography, the lawmakers generally took the position that consumption of pornography was going to happen just given human nature: and while people caught with such material were subject to a great deal of judicial scolding and public shaming; they rarely went to jail over it. The law, however, was not so lenient with producers and distributors of it.
The changes in technology, have effectively made any discussion of bringing back the old laws a moot point; but that doesn't change the underlying science. But one important point that everyone seems to have missed in the whole recent debate is why our laws used to differentiate so sharply in terms of enforcement. This is because the consumer-end of the spectrum has no constant motive and, consequentially differing degrees of personal harm done. It runs the gamut from guys and girls who are just bored and having some naughty fun to hard-core porn/autoerotic addicts who can actually be quite dangerous. Porn traffickers, in contrast, rarely have lofty social goals in mind while engaging in their trade.
And this, to my thinking, is an essential difference when assessing the actual harm that pornographic consumption and autoeroticism actually do. To some men, it does little or no harm: but no one cognizant of the facts could argue that should ever become socially normative---let alone superior to---natural sexual relationships. We will discuss the reasons why in Part II. Meanwhile, men struggling with the issue can check out some of the interesting links that Mr. Berge has provided. It's clear that the issue is becoming more widely examined among men.
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