PJM column: Is control over porn really control over men's sexuality?
I have another PJM column up:
You can read the rest here.
Does porn distort men's attitudes as much as romance novels and Lifetime TV distort women's?
You can read the rest here.
Labels: PJM column
posted by Helen at 2:57 AM
23 Comments:
I was surfing through the TV channels yesterday and I ended up on Lifetime. Comcast had a feed going on the bottom of the screen, something about Lifetime going digital and I wouldn't be able to watch it anymore unless I got some sort of digital box and pay extra. I couldn't believe my eyes, I thought it might be an April Fools joke. So I surfed the Internet and found my dream had come true, as of April 7 NO MORE LIFETIME! Can they do the same for ABC Family and Hallmark?
I know this had nothing to do with porn but I'm just so excited about this. I'm giddy.
Generally, married men turn to pornography when they either have a dried up sex life or have to really work for any sex with their wife. Married men are entitled to a normal, healthy sex life (even if he is generally incompetent in bed) in that same sense that a married woman is entitled to her husband's full support for her children with him (she is also entitled to have him work to support her in a traditional marriage, since she is dependent upon him by virtue of staying home with the kids).
The divorce rate is also dropping, so maybe porn is helping marriages stay together. God knows there are a multitude of reasons for marriages breaking up. Astute readers of this blog and those who keep up with divorce issues know that women initiate most divorces.
But, of coure, they blame it all on the men. The lack of introspection and insight by many women, especially feminists, into this "problem" is astounding.
Count me with Cham in the giddiness department. Not only will I not have to dodge the channel on my way to less headache-inducing fare, but one less bastion of... whatever you call that peculiar philosophy, one less source of its reinforcement is a good thing.
And I support the idea of that news in this thread, for reasons which are oblique but probably fairly obvious.
I think there are many reasons that marriages are not working out, but porn seems to be the least of the problems. And I wonder — does porn distort men’s attitudes as much as romance novels and Lifetime TV distort women’s? Maybe we should discuss the many social institutions that are giving women unrealistic expectations of men and a sense that they have the right to control men, and men’s sexuality, in their own interest.
That paragraph would amount to changing the subject if placed at the beginning of your piece. Placed at the end, it's a devastating coup de grace. Brava, Helen.
Your writing merits a better venue than the ever-lamer PJM site.
TO: Dr Helen, et al.
RE: They....
Maybe we should discuss the many social institutions that are giving women unrealistic expectations of men and a sense that they have the right to control men, and men’s sexuality, in their own interest. -- Dr. Helen
....don't call it the 'Nanny State' for no reason.
As was mentioned in a thread earlier this week, the 'Temperance' Movement was basically a women's thing.
Now that we have people like Nancy Pelosi and her gaggle of hen-peckers in charge of legislation....
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....]
Another column, another reason Dr Helen is awesome.
gs,
Go ahead and start your own site and try to come up with content. I'll continue to contribute to PJM as long as the checks clear.
TO: Ronnie Schrieber
RE: [OT] Soooo.....
I'll continue to contribute to PJM as long as the checks clear. -- Ronnie Schrieber
....it's all about the money.
Thanks for that bit of intell about how PJM works.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. I'm going to start my own site and call out PJM for being nothing more than a lot of the people they like to decry.....
Lifetime is actually quite mild compared to Hallmark. Hallmark is positioned at the midpoint of a group of channels that I like so as I surf I am temporarily tortured by its drivel. A few days ago I stopped briefly on Hallmark for just a few seconds. There were 2 women on the screen, one a wedding planner and the other a STB bride. The conversation went like this:
Wedding planner: "You'll need center pieces on every table because all brides want centerpieces now."
Bride: "Of course, help me pick out a nice centerpiece for my special day."
Then the 2 smiled at each other with their perfectly straight white teeth. My thought on the matter was: What world do these 2 live in? Who is paying for this unlimited budget wedding? What does the groom think about centerpieces and why wasn't he at this meeting of the minds? and lastly, I'm so glad I don't live in this plastic world where a wedding planner gives directives.
Almost every single Hallmark movie is the same. Successful bitchy urban career woman has some sort of reason to visit the country. When there she finds a rugged handsome stoic country man who has a outdoors but lowpaying job. Hijinx ensues. The successful bitchy urban career woman suddenly grows sweet and submissive, quits her high-paying job in the city and moves to become a penniless country bumpkin with her new mute hillbilly love interest.
Luckily, I've done a little research and have found out that the Hallmark Channel is bleeding money and its parent company, Hallmark, is hesitant to sink any more money into it. So its just a matter of a long drawn out wait for its inevitable death.
There is one show on Lifetime that respects the men in it: Army Wives.
Porn is a convenient scapegoat for a generation that has:
1. Made a dogma that a wife's almost complete neglect for a man, coupled with the demonizing of his desires for her, as nothing she should accept any responsibility for. These are usually the same women that gave their men a sex smorgasbord when they were dating and engaged.
2. Created a situation where wives get paid an insane sum of money for divorcing their husbands, even if they make false allegations, moved the kids 2,000 miles away, and shacked up with one or more drug dealing sex partners, etc.
Note to feminists and other left leaning women: I never said a woman should be her husbands slave, I just cautioned that neglect has no place in marriage. It' sad that is cause for argument, especially when their is consensus that husbands shouldn't neglect... and we force them not to by law.
it is a shame that a woman feels that she can only get what she wants by being sexually controlling.
for me, sex is about mutual pleasure, not survival....but i`m called old-fashioned, even prudish.
porn is a product of a society set amongst it`s self for profit.
follow the money and you`ll find who is in control.
in our town the billboards traditionally offering real estate services and new car models are now being usurped by a small stag shop...and the ads are now appearing on bus shelters as well. i guess people without cars need porn too.
bread and circuses.
Excellent article. (I'm not sure that *all* men watch porn, however.) I do not thing there is much good about porn (models are selected for their physical characteristics because it's a business, not Candid Camera in most cases), and people get some wrong ideas about sex if that is their primary source.
But most people have sense enough to know that both men and women are paid (not well paid, though), nobody is holding guns to anyone's head and so forth. Lesser known is that prolonged sex scenes include "Cut!" and some cool-down time before resuming and editing.
The very wholesome show "The Family Guy" (sarcasm) had something I really liked, a "tag line" for Lifetime: "Men are bad and will hurt you." I know women who do get influenced by the nonsense on that channel. Or are the ones I'm thinking of influenced because they already hate men?
Well, if you do the research and find out what the meaning of the word "pornography" actually is--from the Greek--it means "the writings of prostitutes." So it has been for thousands of years.
Sex is a natural bodily function. To say that sex is sinful is to say that any other natural bodily function, like urination, is also. This is ridiculous.
It is the obsession with sex, not the act itself, that is the sin.
Personally, I don't get it. I mean, I enjoy sex as much as the next guy, but I don't obsess over it. To me, it's a man and a woman who like each other and want to make each other feel good. To enjoy each other and have fun. Nothing more than that.
It's that people keep trying to make it out to be something other than what it really is. An enjoyable experience.
Traditionally defined, a marriage is a union between a man and a woman, who are co-equal partners, for the purpose of raising children, which are at once equally (gentetically) half-father and half-mother. Naturally, sex is the source of this union.
However, pornography, which is sex for sex's sake--that is, which emphasizes the act without the consequence--is the road to ruin. It detracts from the beauty of a natural act and renders it tawdry and dirty, meaningless.
That said, I do not believe pornography is the cause of marital problems or divorce these days. I do believe it cheapens the sexual act, but that is not the source of the problem.
The real source of the problem is with the marriage contract itself. What was once a sacrament is now a license to abandon, betray and bankrupt.
And if that isn't pornographic, I don't know what is.
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Tether, your hate-filled rant contributes greatly to this discussion, and I thank you for it.
Pathologizing a husband's behavior is nothing new. Porn is especially convenient during a divorce when the soon-to-be ex-wife wants to keep the kids and maximize alimony and support payments. (In prior generations, alcohol was the old standby, though claiming emotional spousal abuse is still even better [though a woman being frigid is non-starter for a man in a divorce, especially if he's a "sex addict."])
Without Lifetime, where are all the washed up actresses going to get work?
BTW, this is why programmable favorites lists were invented.
Here's a therapist who says that "sex addiction" is another way wives control their husbands' sexuality.
http://sexualintelligence.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/an-epidemic-of-sex-addiction/
....it's all about the money.
Thanks for that bit of intell about how PJM works.
I don't know how PJM works, I'm just a freelancer who makes money by selling articles to them. What's wrong with free enterprise?
I make money writing stuff. They pay for stuff I write. If they don't like what I write, they don't pay me.
I don't have to 100% agree with 100% of what a publication publishes to sell them something I write any more than I have to agree with 100% of what my embroidery shop's customers do.
I also contribute to The Truth About Cars, and The Truth About Guns and I don't agree 100% with everything at those sites too. I doubt they'd want me to contribute if I did, since editors at both sites like alternative points of view.
A couple of years ago, Roger Simon asked me if I'd help PJM with automotive coverage. The guy has credentials as a writer and I respect other writers there like Victor Davis Hanson and Michael Ledeen so I'm pleased to see my name near theirs, as well as Dr. Helen's as well.
Chuck(le)
P.S. I'm going to start my own site and call out PJM for being nothing more than a lot of the people they like to decry.....
When you have enough readers and advertisers to have an editorial budget, let me know and I'll see if I can come up with something you can use.
It's hard to get traffic. PJM and TTAC both get millions of page views a month. It's even harder to monetize that traffic. Both sites are still in business and as I already mentioned, beyond the facts that the checks cash and the fee schedules I don't know anything about the financials.
Either way, as a writer you want to grow your brand and sell your stuff to as many customers that will buy it.
Some people's opinions are worthless. The going rate for mine seem to be about 5¢-15¢ a word. How much do people pay you for your opinion?
I read some of the comments in the article. Some are unduly nasty. I would wager that of the nasty ones, 90% of them are from the "kind and tolerant" people on the left.
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