Everything Old is New Again

A pop culture reference by Dean Swift

The proliferation porn is nothing new, as a matter of fact our desire to see naked people doing the “mommy/daddy dance” is as old as dirt and has led to some of the greatest advancements in visual technology such as paint (not to mention VHS and streaming internet video). What has changed and will continue to change from time to time is the overall cultural acceptance of our inherent desire to see people portraying “the monster with two backs.” This pendulum swings back and forth between prudish and perverse like… well, you get the visual image. We as a people have created an infrastructure that allows us to instantly access any erotic image (no matter how obscure or perverse) and at the same time express outrage over the availability of such images. It reminds me of Captain Renault in Casablanca when he exclaims “I’m shocked… shocked! To find gambling in here!” as the croupier hands him a fistful of his cash winnings. But we do that a lot. We develop telephones that can be used in our cars and complain when people talk while driving. We develop the technology to bring hundreds of TV channels into our living rooms and complain that our population is being “dumbed down” by watching TV. We spend billions of dollars going to the theater to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster and complain that nobody makes good independent films. In reality… we really do get what we want, we’re just too ashamed to admit it. If you don’t believe me, just sneak over to the house of one of your highbrow “I don’t watch TV” friends and peek in through the window. Chances are, you’ll see the familiar glow of “Desperate Housewives” illuminating the dusty bookshelf.

The word pornography has its etymology in the Greek (πορνογραφία or pornographia) which means “writing about prostitutes.” Since the Greeks and Romans of the great ancient civilizations did not have DVD players, they had to get their porn the old fashion way, in large theaters with live actors. Think Babes or Danny’s constructed of white marble with a bronze pole instead of a brass one. Since magazines weren’t to become popular until a few years later, these toga-clad, high thinkers used the walls of their houses and their courtyards as their versions of Celebrity Skin and Oui. A quick glace at some of the art found in the ruins of Pompeii makes me inclined to believe that this place was populated by the forefathers of the guys who send all of the “get a bigger penis now” spam for my hotmail account. So perhaps this desire to eye-hump the opposite sex is hard wired into our psyche. They had the frescoes, we have the internet. They had the Skankus Maximus, we have Headliners. I for one can testify to the fact that as a teen, I would have chewed my way through an acre of barbed wire to get my hands on a dog-eared copy of Playboy. Let’s face it, we as a species care more about sex (647 million Google hits) than we do about world peace (307 Google hits).

So what are we to do about all of this porn? Well, nothing. These things have a way of working themselves out. Just as rushing water will eventually calm and find its own level, so will just about any hot-button topic. In years past we’ve panicked over SARS, UFO invasions, communist infiltration, marijuana, mad cows and to what avail. I haven’t noticed any flying saucers landing on High Street and enslaving us to a life of communal labor where we smoke pot when not coughing up a lung from our SARS ravaged bodies. As a people, we tend to do pretty much the same thing day after day, generation after generation, era after era. We get up, get dressed, go to work, come home, seek some form of entertainment, have occasional sex, go to sleep and start all over again. It doesn’t matter if we wake up in a yurt or a condo, put on a toga or a jumpsuit with our name stitched on it, spend our days gathering berries or writing c++ code, watch gladiators hack on each other or Jenna Jameson do her thing, we’re still the same old creatures with the same old habits and semi-secret desires.

What is different now is the amount of porn available and the ease at which it can be accessed. This can be good or bad, depending on your views on the subject. To me it’s kind of like the people who get all excited about Ford vs. Chevy… I don’t get it. Since I really don’t have a passionate position on either side, I’ll try and make the argument interesting by taking both sides. Those opposed to ogling the “jiggly arts” often say that watching porn incites rape. That one is easy to debunk. According to the FBI, forcible rape is declining and has continued to do so since the advent of the internet and all of its porn-at-your-fingertips fury. Hmmmm? How do we explain that if the demon porn is turning us into rapists? We don’t, that’s the great thing about hysteria, those who practice it don’t have to use facts, they just have to tug on your emotions. Now on the other side of the coin, those who staunchly defend their rights to watch two dudes high five each other while acting as the bread on a cracked out girl sandwich will tell you that watching porn makes them more virile. Not according to a study by the web site no-porn.com (that’s a shocker). They say that over exposure to porn leads to desensitizing of the porn addict and the loss of a strong libido. Hmmmm?

So what does all this mean? It means that like any other controversial subject, both sides will sponsor studies, grab headlines and make outrageous claims in order to advance their opinions and objectives. How many times have you heard this: “The scourge of ___________ (porn, crank, crack, rap music, video game violence, microwave popcorn) is the most destructive force in society today! We must wipe it out before it destroys the fabric of our civil society!” Frankly I’m getting tired of all the hysterical warnings. Yes, there are threats to western civilization and we as a planet, a community and a people tend to find solutions before things go haywire. In the humble opinion of this smart-ass columnist, the biggest threat to our way of life is extremism from all sides. Think about it. How many moderates that you know of are ever involved in riots or propaganda campaigns? Ever seen a moderate terrorist take someone hostage and demand that people chill out and not get so worked up over x, y or z? I’m sure that some moderates have given some thought to taking up a picket sign, but they probably thought better of it and decided to catch a movie instead.

I guess the final answer to me over the porn issue is this. Anything taken to an extreme is bad. Now if you will excuse me I have to get back to writing my moderate manifesto, right after I go online and check out carstuckgirls.com.