Stuff I’ve Written: An Article Blaming Porn for Everything

Have you heard of Anita Sarkeesian? She recently successfully ran a Kickstarter to analyze how women are portrayed in video games. And immediately was threatened with rape. Her image on Wikipedia was replaced with porn. People drew images of her being raped.

Or how about this story. Two women go to a comedy club out of boredom. Comedian Daniel Tosh starts harping on why rape jokes are okay. One of them bravely shouts back that rape jokes are never okay. Tosh responds by saying how funny it would be if she were to be immediately gang-raped. (Note: he later apologized, if The Twitter counts as an apology.)

Because this is how I process, my mind has jumped about two dozen different places in response to these horrors. First, that we need guys – preferably white and rich so nobody can accuse them of having an agenda – to stand up and say “This is wrong and it has to stop.”

(“But that’s sexist to specify guys,” you say. And, “I thought we moved past the whole Damsel-in-Distress thing. Didn’t you watch Brave?” I’m as much a self-rescuing princess as the next girl, but when guys…dragons…whatever attack self-rescuing princesses precisely because they dare be self-rescuing, then having a horde of self-rescuers isn’t going to stop them. Not that women shouldn’t speak out, but things may get better if men do too.)

I went dozens of other places mentally. Two stand out. First, why would anyone in our supposed pro-women, pro-feminist society possibly think it would be okay to defend the treatment of women as sex objects? See also: the video game subjects of Sarkeesian and the person and audience of Tosh. Closely related is this: why would anyone think it’s okay to actually portray women in this way? I’m talking the impossibly sexualized poses of female superheroes on comic book covers, and the impossible armor of female game characters. Where would this come from?

(Fun historical/lingual fact: Did you know that the word “Amazon” literally means “Without breasts”? The lady warriors would literally cut off their breasts because they got in the way of their bows and arrows. Mr. Game Artist, please keep this fun fact in mind next time you design a female character.)

So, these two questions. Why is this sexism okay? One of the undoubtedly many reasons answers both questions.

It’s porn.

And I’m being serious. Single-issue-serious, but serious.

The direct connection is that a study has shown that people who watch porn want a lighter sentence for rapists than those who do not watch porn. (Because, among other things, porn normalizes violence.)

For the rest, you’ll have to read my article.

How Porn is Ruining our Future… And What We Can Do About It

In the recent summer blockbuster The Avengers, the character Captain America has been recently awoken from a 70-year sleep. Throughout the film is a running gag about how out-of-touch he is with modern life; he doesn’t understand a reference to Pilates, and he still believes in quaint things like heroic self-sacrifice and a world with only one God.

This is played for laughs in the movie, but it’s also reflective of very real societal shifts. These are illustrated beautifully in a recent study by Focus on the Family.

• Only 21% of Millennials are married by age 28, compared to 54% of the so-called Greatest Generation.
• Millennials are twice as likely to have children out of wedlock, compared to Baby Boomers, and are more likely to cohabit (although they still have a strong desire to marry).
• The four generations (Millennials, Xers, Boomers, and Silents) were also asked what set their generation apart from the others; while the older generations listed things based on values or morals (like worth ethic, honesty, and respect), the Millennials’ list included highly superficial things like pop culture and clothing.

It’s little wonder that Captain America would feel out of place.

Read the rest of the article.