|
|
|
Dear Suey, I'm a 34-year-old guy, and I'm no shrinking violet. I'm comfortable asking waiters for menu advice. I introduce myself to strangers at parties. I can hold my own when it comes to dirty jokes and various other rituals of modern manhood. But when it comes to buying skin mags, my skin crawls. Walking into a 7-11 and purchasing a Penthouse is pure torture: I just know that everyone in the store is staring at me. Worse, I'm certain that I'll run into my boss or an old friend with the incriminating evidence in my hands. The whole prospect is so loathesome I can only muster the courage about once a year--by which time the, uh, novelty value of the last purchase has worn pretty thin. At the same time, I can't stand the idea of a subscription, lest my housemates discover what's inside that suspiciously plain brown envelope. Is there something wrong with me? Dear Sweaty, Of course, this doesn't apply to women in general, who look at smut to study women's sexuality as idealized by society. It also doesn't apply to gay men, who affirm the cultural contributions of gay artists by viewing male nudes. It doesn't apply to young men, who are still exploring their sexuality. And it's not relevant to boomers, for whom Hugh Hefner, Larry Flynt and Harley Davidson represent enduring vitality and rebellion against the status quo. That leaves straight men between 28 and 42. These men have lost the old ways: They no longer drive out of the city to Clackamas, Seattle or Idaho to buy porn, set up post office boxes for skin-mag delivery, insist to store clerks that the dirty pictures are for a curious girlfriend. They know of only relationships, astrology and sushi. They are the cultural relics of a defunct generation. Lingering like so many autumn leaves in the dating pool, these men were raised on the Hite Report and Erica Jong. A zipless romanticism encouraged them to believe that sex could be free of pain, free of hang-ups and free of charge. And yet even while they were trained to be sexual libertines, they were supposed to know better than to view women as objects to be bought and paid for. They were supposed to wear tight pants yet exercise careful control over their wallets. Now these same men have been charged with a cultural mandate to get comfortable with porn. Sex work is no longer viewed as degrading or exploitative--it's just another way to pay for law school. But men from a certain time haven't been brought up to date on that. Somewhere in their primitive, outmoded brains, they still can't believe that Jordache Jeans have been replaced by body piercings, that one-night stands are out, or that the new Star Wars could be so awful. And here is the root of your dilemma, Mr. Sweaty. You're attempting to judge a 70s morality by the lofty standards of the late 90s. Of course it looks bad. I suggest you split the difference, take a contemporary therapeutic approach to your antiquated mindset: Get on the Internet and tell everyone about your problems. Your roommates will understand if you upgrade the phones to DSL; you can get your porn fix, confess your guilty habit (in chat rooms) and preserve your anonymity (with encrypted files), all for one monthly fee. But ultimately, it's not possible to get comfortable with porn. Porn
is supposed to be dirty, transgressive, a barely acknowledged monster
of unconscious desires; that's its role in life. So in the grand scheme
of things, you're right on track: If it doesn't make you nervous, then
it's not porn to you.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
