What Liberals Are Saying About Porn
Comedian talk-show host Chelsea Handler is notorious for her dirty mouth and no-topic-is-sacred approach to interviewing. The new talk-show-style Netflix series, Chelsea, has given Handler a medium to spread her token vulgarity with little to no constraint. Thus, it came as no surprise when one of her most recent episodes aired with an emphasis on pornography. What did surprise were the anti-pornography views expressed by her guests.
In the past, anti-porn movements have been populated by moral conservatives; maybe the odd feminist here or there. But Gabe Deem and Noah Church are young, fit, handsome, liberal, and both agree that pornography should be treated with the same level of caution as cocaine or heroin.
The young men expressed their views to Handler, stressing that they do not view pornography as a moral issue, but as a serious health concern. Both Church and Deem experienced physical consequences, including sexual dysfunction, due to overuse of pornography.
Deem’s struggles and eventual triumph – he’s been “clean” for 5-years – over his pornography addiction led to the creation of Reboot Nation, a community for those battling porn-related issues. Church, author of Wack: Addicted to Internet Porn, overcame his porn addiction and now advocates for more education on the effects pornography has on the brain.
Talking about why he became addicted to pornography, Church commented, “I was getting an unnaturally high spike of dopamine and other neurochemicals, and it was a high; it was like a drug. But it was a behavior and without realizing it, I became addicted to that.”
More than a Moral Issue
In April, Deems and Church were featured in the TIME Magazine cover story, telling their stories of porn addiction along with countless other stories and statistics indicating at least a correlation between erectile dysfunction and pornography use.
“The first generation of men who grew up with unlimited online porn sound the alarm,” the article sub-heading reads.
Deems and Church grew up in a world where pornography was normalized and readily available. They’re not unabashed anti-sex conservatives; they’re sex-positive liberals speaking out against pornography – and they’re not the only ones.
Gail Dines, professor of sociology at Wheelock College in Boston, wrote an article for the Washington Post in defense of Utah’s decision to declare pornography a “public health crisis.” Dines wrote,
“The thing is, no matter what you think of pornography (whether it’s harmful or harmless fantasy), the science is there. After 40 years of peer-reviewed research, scholars can say with confidence that porn is an industrial product that shapes how we think about gender, sexuality, relationships, intimacy, sexual violence and gender equality — for the worse.”
Porn: What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, according to the results of a recent Economist debate. Cindy Gallop, advertising consultant and founder of MakeLoveNotPorn, and Robert Jensen, journalist and Professor at the University of Texas Austin answered the question: Can porn be good for us?
Cindy’s arguments were based on the idea that porn could be good for us if it offered a less racist, less misogynistic, less hardcore take on sex. Jensen was not convinced and neither were 81% of the readers, who rejected the motion. In his closing statement, referring to Gallops argument for pleasure for pleasure’s-sake, Jensen wrote,
“Such claims cannot wish away the fact that the pornography industry has in the past three decades produced images that are steadily more cruel and degrading to women, and more overtly racist. Nor can it magically eliminate the concerns not only of many women but also of an increasing number of men who feel trapped by their habitual use of pornography.”
Celebrities Against Pornography
Hollywood is notoriously cavalier in its attitude toward sex, yet more and more celebrities are coming forward against porn. Comedian Russell Brand — a self-described sex addict – posted a nearly ten minute video expressing his anti-porn stance.
Brand condemns even soft-core porn, referring to the Fifty Shades of Grey movie as “soft porn smog” and citing his exposure to pornography (all types) as the main reason he cannot relate to or maintain a relationship with women.
Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt released his directorial debut, Don Jon, in 2013. Don Jon offers a commentary on pornography, addiction, and objectification. Though the movie is unsavory and graphic in its depictions of porn addiction — definitely deserving of its R-rating — its message about the toxicity of porn on one’s ability to form real, meaningful relationships could not be more clear.
“I always wanted to tell a story about love, and what gets in the way of it. I am fascinated with the way the media impacts our private lives and our culture, and it seems to be that different aspects of the media have given us a checklist of expectations like never before,” Levitt commented in an interview with BBC.
If this awakening to the “perils of porn,” as Chelsea Handler put it, continues, we’ll be seeing even more liberally minded individuals take a stance against pornography. Sometimes, the most compelling warnings come from the people who were in the dregs and trenches, dealing with an issue first-hand. In the case of porn, even those who were once porn-positive are now saying, “Don’t do it.”
