The age of porn

“They say that most of the activity on the web is porn,” he said. “Did you know that?”

“It’s to be expected,” I said.

“How so?”

“Look at all the roads we have. No wonder traffic is congested. The more roads the more people will be encouraged to use them, even if it means taking five hours to go 150 miles.

“It’s the same with porn. There are all these porn sites, all our devices and twenty-four hours of accessibility seven days a week. Since sex is mysterious nobody should be surprised that so many people watch so much porn and are as addicted to it as they are to their cars.

“Internet porn gives people a sense of freedom, just like cars do.”

“And they can watch it in their cars during a traffic jam,” he laughed.

“Maybe that’s why more and more cars have tinted windows,” I said. “You seem to be worried about porn. Tell me.”

“Don”t people have anything better to do?” he asked. “I can see it if you are young and once in a while you and your friends get drunk and watch a porn movie. Or if you are married and once a week you and your wife watch a film and do the weird stuff they did in the movie. But it does worry me that there is an epidemic of it in our country.”

“It worries me too,” I said. “But more because people lack imagination than because they are immoral. The easy access to it makes it natural that a man who can’t get pussy, a guy who lost his job and cannot afford to go out and a married man in an unhappy marriage watch a lot of porn.

“In this age of instant communication nobody seems to know how to communicate. The guy who can’t get laid is not taking advantage of all the free sites there are to teach you how to improve your skill with women. The man with no money at least has an excuse because he cannot afford to go out with a real woman.

“The married guys though, that is what bothers me. It is easier to turn on porn than to talk things over with your wife or to try to make changes to yourself that well get your wife interested in you again.

“It probably never crossed the mind of a married porn addict to say to his wife, Honey. Let’s watch a porn flick to see if we can get our spark back.”

“I don’t know,” he said as he furrowed his brow.

“I don’t know either,” I said. “It might not work. His wife might scream at him. Or she might not have the courage to accept his invitation or to admit that she is part of the problem. But it is a daring, if not a courageous thing for the husband to say. He is making an effort.

“These are lonely times,” I said. “Many people are afraid of taking chances. Porn is safe. There are a lot of categories of sex to choose from. You move from one topic to another feeling you are free, that you have freedom of choice, that you are always high, that all these women you can’t sleep with are yours, especially the sexy ones in their late twenties and thirties.

“It’s exasperating. You know you have a problem but you like the problem. It’s what you live for but you don’t realize you should be sleeping with a real woman and spending hours with a real woman or going on dates with a lot of different real women.”

“You don’t realize you are a coward,” he said.

“You are right on,” I said. “It doesn’t cross peoples minds like the married guy who admitted to his wife I/we have a problem.

“The cowardice you talk about is part of being a contemporary male. Few men want to have kids or get married. Men are unemployed or under-employed. Men feel overwhelmed by the world they feel they have no future in, so it makes a lot of sense that so many men watch porn.

“The desire for sex will never go away. It will be acted upon through masturbation, porn, going to a prostitue, being promiscous or having a woman.

“In some of the porn videos the actress will snicker to her viewers, You’re going to jack off watching me.

“The reason I mention that is because one guy told me that he would watch porn naked for an hour, challenging himself not to slam the ham. He waited until he went to bed that night or did it in the morning.”

“And that’s good?” he said.

“That’s great,” I said. “He doesn’t have a real woman to practice foreplay with but he knows it’s important to have restraint. When he finally has the courage to date he will at least have a sense of drama and what to do with a woman.

“Let me digress a minute. The woman who makes fun of her viewers for jacking off to her video has the contempt for men common in the sex trade.

“A lot of men who go to prostitutes and watch porn look at those women as sluts. But the contempt these males have for sex working women is not as great as the contempt sex workers have for their male viewers and clients: What’s wrong with these turkeys? Can’t they get a real woman? So many of these guys have the money to attract a real women but they don’t have the balls. That’s a great description of us men.

“We don’t have the balls. We aren’t much of anything. We’re little men.

“It’s funny,” I continued, “that as the media tries to destigmatize sex workers and to show that porn actresses and hookers are real people with children and close families, there is no compassion for the lost and lonely men who have no kids or friends and are not close to their families.”

“It’s also funny,” he said, “that all these screwed up men with no kids or friends watch sex movies without love and with no children longed for or in the picture.”

“You’re right,” I said. “The age of porn is the age of no kids. The more porn the fewer kids people have.”

“Or maybe it’s the other way around,” he said.

“That makes more sense. You got me thinking about the amount of rectal intercourse in porn. There was not rectal intercourse in porn when I grew up. People are terrified to have kids and so afraid of love and the future that they revel in having sex with the hole that emits deadness rather than the hole that oozes life. They are metaphorically speaking hammering it home that kids are not important and that having kids is not the purpose of sex.

“The glorification of rectal intercourse was a logical next step in the industry and the logical next step in a nation that does not want to have kids – that is terrified to love. With rectal intercourse you do not look into your partners’ eyes.”

He went silent.

“I want to talk more about the industry and relationships.”

“Ok.”

“It is astounding that there are so many pretty women in porn. Men think how can such a pretty woman be a slut. Well how can such a handsome man be a porn addict? What you look like has nothing to do with your sex drive or hang ups.

“Some of the women in porn got into it as a new challenge. Some of them have great skill in computers or constuction. Some of them have always been hams so porn was a logical next step. Others want to try everything under the sun so they go to the STD-free porn industry rather than be picked up by a hundred strangers.

“And people in porn really enjoy working with some of their colleagues. I don’t think porn addicts make friends with anybody.

“Imagine a psychologist talking to his porn addict client. He would never call him a little man. The psychologist would give his patient a six month challenge. At the end of six months I want you to be going out to dinner twice a month with a gentlman friend. I want you to approach the best looking women at the bar, dance, party even if you are terrified to do it. You still might not get any and you still will probably not have a lot of pride, but at least you will be doing what you are supposed to be doing.”

“But how will he get to the psychologist?” he said.

“If he’s married because of his wife. If he’s single maybe because he realizes it isn’t his immorality but all the time that he wastes watching porn. You’re right. Most single guys won’t see a psychologist to heal their porn addiction.

“But some men’s fear of women is not because of having no money or of having psychological hang-ups. It’s political.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was reading,” I said, “that a lot of young men go to Tijuana to hire hookers because they fear that a woman they date here will accuse them of harassment or a sex crime.”

“And going to hookers in TJ is a good thing?”

“If a man never had a problem approaching women and if he likes to have sex, I think it is. His fear of false accusations is understandable. I’d rather see these guys retain a human connection than give up and watch porn.”

“You are way out there,” he said.

“That may be,” I said. “I am full of wonder and curiosity. We Americans are not full of wonder and curiosity.

“We’ve given up. Porn makes us feel we are alive. But really we are cowardly, unimaginative and dead.”

Mental Health

“What do you think of suicide?” he asked.

“I find it amazing,” I said, “that the mental health profession begs people who are suicidal to get help, but then betrays them.”

“How so?”

“Look. A nineteen year old who doesn’t fit in, who’s full of passion but does not know how to direct it, has been thinking about suicide for a long time. Finally things get so bad he realizes he has to do something.

“So he goes online. He sees the suicide help number. He calls it. When the recording comes on it says that calls are recorded. He slams the phone down and swears. He doesn’t want anybody recording his conversation about committing suicide.

“He’s in a panic. He looks up all the counselling services in his neighborhood, goes to their page, scrutinizes their philosophy, reads the bios of the counselors.

“Then he makes a call and a voice message comes on. He swears again but knows he has to say something. He leaves a message vague and desperate.

“A few minutes later the phone rings. ‘Oh shit!’ he thinks.

“It’s a woman. They say a few words. ‘So you’re thinking about taking your life?’ she says.

“He stammers. ‘I don’t want our conversation recorded. I need to talk.’

“‘Ok’, she says.

“The woman does some juggling of the staff’s schedule, makes an urgent call to a clinic, then calls him back. ‘Can you come in in two hours?’

“‘Yes. How much is it?’

“So he goes down. It’s a woman counselor. She promises not to record the conversation.

“They talk about his social awkwardness, the job he hates, the soul killing society he lives in. ‘No. I’ve never been abused. I had a great family life.’

“‘What do you expect from us?’ she asks.

“‘I want to see you guys one or two more times. I don’t want to come a lot and I do not want to spend a lot of money. I should be all right after that.’

“‘You are not all right now and one or two more times are not going to do it. We need five more sessions to make you stable. Can you do it?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘It’s commendable that you had the courage to seek help. You are less flustered than an hour
ago. More relaxed. So let’s make an appointment for three days from now.’

“He doesn’t like her telling him he’s screwed up. ‘OK,’ he says.

“‘But before you go I need you to promise me something.’

“‘What?’ he asks.

“‘That you will not committ suicide when you get home. If you can’t promise me that, I will call the police to take you away.’

“‘Traitor!’ he thinks. He squirms a few moments. He doesn’t like being insulted or threatened. He thinks it over. ‘I won’t kill myself at home.’

“‘You’re sure?’

“‘Yes.’ Session over.”

“But suicide help lines and local counselling offices have to protect themselves from lawsuits,” he said.

“The message machine should give people the option not to be recorded. How can I trust somebody who is recording my conversation about suicide? Who knows where the conversation will end up.

“The police thing is even scarier. I’m going to get help, then the counselor tells me she will call the police and humiliate me if I can’t promise that I won’t kill myself. It’s especially troubling when women, who are the most vocal about people getting help, and the most trusted by men to give help, put the police threat onto a client.”

“But the family of a patient would be outraged if their loved one was allowed to leave the counselling office without promising not to kill himself, then committed suicide.”

“That may be,” I said. “As far as minors go, I accept that argument. But not as far as adults go.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because that 19 year old I just told you about might never see another counselor again. As grateful as he is for having the woman help him, he doesn’t want the worry about recorded phone calls, the stress of having to choose between lying that he won’t committ suicide when he gets home and being honest then humiliated when the police cart him away like some junkie or a slob living under the freeway.”

“Most people disagree with you,” he said.

“I’d say 60% of people disagree with me. There are lots of people who think that the new suicide hot line really isn’t the great healing thing it was cracked up to be. There is still the threat of police intervention. That makes people like the 19 year old even more likely not to seek help again.

“I want to keep talking about the police. Suppose somebody was betrayed by a counselor and the police are called. So he flips and gets violent and the police kill him.

“The police don’t want him going home to possibly kill himself. But because his fear of them and the humiliation that he feels for thinking he could trust the counselor overwhelm him, he gets murdered. The police would claim it was Suicide by cop, but that’s a lie.”

“You’re too extreme.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s funny that the mental health folks are outraged when a cop kills a lunatic. The mental health people demand that a counselor be required to partner with police when somebody calls the cops about a nutcase.

“But it’s the opposite in the situation I am talking about. ‘We don’t trust you so we are going to call the people who we don’t trust and who you don’t trust to drag you to the ER to wait in line with drug addicts and gang kids.’ Then the psychiatrist, who you don’t trust, will decide whether you are stable or crazy or whether you need to take medication you do not want to take.

“If you haven’t lost your cool on the trip with the cops to the emergency room, you can give the psychiatrist a line of gibberish and thank him profusely for his service. But when you get home you’re a wreck. You don’t trust anybody.

“You need to talk to somebody about your betrayal, but what will someone think?

“They might say it’s a good thing the cops took you away. Now what? ‘I just wanted to talk to somebody’.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying lots of things.”

“Tell me.”

“One thing is to leave the police out of it. I wonder how many guys lost their cool when a counselor who they thought they could trust called the cops on them. Calling the cops was a trigger for the person thinking of committing suicide.

“Now he is dead because of the police or on a list of officially deranged people or locked up for resisting arrest. The words from the public service message keep haunting him. Get help.

“We hear that the mental health profession does not want people with bad mental health to be stigmatized. There is a photograph of a positive looking woman who has depression but is celebrated for being ‘a mom’, a professional and an all around wonderful woman who happens to have depression.

“The same thing should be said of people with chronic suicide ideation. This is Steve. He has had thoughts of suicide almost every day since 1991. He gets help when he needs it. There are a lot of wonderful, competent, loving men like Steve who know their suicide thoughts will never go away, but who desperately want to embrace the world. Make arrangements with a counselor to get yourself help when you need it – no shame, no blame – and most importantly – no police.”

“Wow.”

“I’m not finished. The mental health professionals do not want to look bad if one of their clients committs suicide. That is their greatest concern.

“The counselors do not have the maturity to say ‘It’s not our place to tell you not committ suicide. We can tell you that you have a warped brain and that you need to admit to yourself, if not to us, that you have a warped brain. We can counsel you to the best of our ability'”

“That’s it?”

“Almost. People with chronic suicide ideation can leave $1000 with a counselor. Such desperate people will know that they have somewhere to go and someone to trust explicitly the next time and the next time and the next time that they are terrified of their suicidal thoughts.”