Source: Adult Industry News
By: Company Press Release
Pornography as prevention, now there’s an interesting thought. The Good Deeds of Porn, by Rich Moreland
Porn can serve a sundry of purposes. One of the oldest goes back to the stag films of a bygone era: education. Peddled to fraternal organizations and social clubs, blue movies taught men the mysteries of the female anatomy and showed many their first blowjob. In small towns and hamlets across America, the road show huckster clandestinely brought in the films for a guy’s night out. Plunk down a few dollars, drink up, have a few laughs, and learn something new. Go home to the wife and see if you can “persuade” her to be adventurous.
Times have changed. The business of pornography, especially the Internet, has reshaped American sexual fantasies into an open marketplace of everything possible. Though the average citizen seems un-phased by all this, anti-porn fear mongers still flourish. The nation is losing its moral compass, they insist, porn degrades women and children, smut spreads disease, etc., etc. The beat goes on.
A recent article in the New York Times entitled “Caring, Romantic American Boys” challenges some old thinking. University of Massachusetts professor Amy T. Schalet, examines the changing landscape of teenage love. Yes, I said love because apparently adolescent boys are romantics at heart, at least according to recent studies.
Teen romance still leads to intimate frolicking. Schalet reports that over half of unmarried 18-19 year olds have done it at least once. No surprise there.
But here’s the catch; The sexual activity of 15-17 year olds has dropped significantly since 1988, down to less than 30 percent overall for both sexes, with boys dipping from a previous high of 50 percent, a stunning 20 percent decline. Does romance douse teen hormones? Probably not, but it’s prospects do affect how teens view their future.
Looking for reasons for this downturn, Schalet cites a collection of fears: unwanted pregnancy, AIDS, and the belief that sex other than in marriage is “risky.” Today’s teens are concerned and boys, the Romeos they are, apparently more so than girls. And guess what, the boys say they’re nervous about the consequences of sex and are likely to use condoms the first time.
Here’s the kicker hidden within the article: “Combined with growing access to pornography via the Internet,” Schalet says, “those influences (the fears) may have made having sex with another person seem less enticing.”
If I read between the lines, Ms. Schalet is suggesting that teenage boys (and girls perhaps) are looking at porn. The boys, in particular, are getting their self-stimulating “jollies” from Internet smut. Rather than pop their girlfriends and take chances, they watch free stuff online and save the real thing for the proper time.
(Now I don’t endorse anyone under the age of eighteen accessing porn just as I prefer people not carry guns or drive while texting, but I’m smart enough to know I can’t stop those behaviors either.)
Schalet implies that real sex is losing its allure partly because of porn, but I don’t read her comment is an indictment of the industry. Other than to make sex “less enticing,” porn apparently has little adverse influence on romance or sexual activity among teens. An interesting conclusion since the Internet has blossomed since 1988 during the period teen sex has declined.
I would think Schalet’s findings are welcome news for the high-minded who insist that teens be abstinent until marriage. There’s less fooling around until the soul mate arrives.
Perhaps teens are smarter than we think. Adult film is not reality. As Nina Hartley says, it’s a live action cartoon. The average young woman who seeks romance doesn’t want to reach the promised land of marriage and family via deep oral thrusting, gangbangs, and DPs. I imagine teenaged boys would agree with their thinking. Leave the sexual acrobatics to the characters of porn. It’s entertainment.
Most girls, and we now know boys, want love the old-fashioned way and porn is not preventing that. In fact, it may help to preserve virginity in those too young to be sexually active. The conclusion is unavoidable; pornography serves a purpose as birth control and, coincidentally, a fighter of STDs. Such are its unintended good deeds.
Of course, the moralists, with their blinders firmly in place, will fall back on that old saw about porn corrupting the moral fiber of the young.
The Times article disputes that assumption. Recent research (2006) found America’s teen males “To be just as emotionally invested in their romantic relationships as girls.” There’s more. Schalet concludes that romance among teens has “largely flown under the radar of American culture,” so what would the moralists know because they pay attention to nothing beyond their self-constructed damning of the sinful ways of others.
Teens are now choosing when they will have sex and with whom and want love to play a role. Moral destruction does not seem to be in the picture, but wisdom certainly is.
Bottom line? Pornography is not bringing our nation to its knees. It still educates anyone who accesses it and just may be easing raging hormones in teenage boys, helping to combat the misgivings they have of unwanted pregnancy and STDs, preventing mistakes that can misdirect young lives.
By the way, I know this is not popular but what kind of statement would the industry make if condoms showed up on those Internet screens . . . at least now and then?
Amy T. Schalet’s article can be accessed here: www.nytimes.com/2012/04/07/opinion/caring-romantic-american-boys.html? _r=1&scp=1&sq=Amy%20T.%20Schalet,%20Caring%20Romantic%20&st=cse
