porn

i love porn. i watch it, i read it and i look at it. i am a (self)abuser of porn and i have never denied it.
i don’t think i am particularly unique in my love and consumption of porn. i don’t think i am particularly special in my ability to tell the difference between the porn fantasy and the real world (and i suspect most consumers of porn have a better understanding of the division between reality and fantasy than many of the fans of soaps….)
anyway here i am scanning through the internet (and not just looking for porn) when i come (geddit!!!) upon this story on the bbc website.

now i feel sorry for the mother who has lost her daughter.
and i have no sympathy for the man who committed the deed, and would not shed a liberal tear if he was locked away for good.
but i do have problems with the fact that one person who had an obsession for porn is somehow typical of the rest of us who have an obsession with porn. you would have thought by now that this sort of argument had been knocked on the head. especially as it has never been proved when it has been aimed at violent movies (if we are such a violent society now why are films such as driller killer (very very boring …. oh i couldn’t help it , but it is a dull dull stupid film) i spit on your grave that were for so long banned as video nasties are now in the bargain bins of hmv? ), when it was argued that heavy metal lyrics were responsible for suicide or shooting up your school friends or when it was computer games or tv or well anything that could be a handy excuse.

sometimes i think the grasping for the “reason/ excuse” is because people do not want to think that other people can be evil, and would rather find a reason that in a sense absolves the person for responsibility.
maybe it’s because we know that people are evil and we can’t do anything about it so we choose to look for something we can ban, something we can blame.

but lets be honest if porn, even violent porn, had this sort of effect (and this goes for video games, movies, tv and music) on all the people that consume it there would be rioting on the streets and we would be living in a state of constant fear and chaos.
we are not. why? because the people who commit these sort of murders are few and far between. furthermore they would commit these crimes sooner or later and all they are waiting for is a trigger and it could be anything.
but do we ban everything that might have been an obsession (or just an interest) for the person?
if the criminal in question turned out to be a philatelist i doubt very much there would be a call to ban stamp collecting.

one of the things i do find interesting is that none of these people are saying that the art that populates the national gallery, for instance (and one of the finest places to be to see art) should be removed from the public gaze because of what it might cause a person to do. frankly if you want to see sex and violence then go to the national gallery and see torture, see naked men and women, see violence with naked men and women, see rape, see murder and see naked babies. it is all there in glorious colour, but it is art. and because it is classical art it is fine.
yet it could be argued that because the art in places like the national gallery the art is generally viewed in solitude, there is little context for explaining the images and the viewer is often alone and is not going to discuss it with others. yet often computer games and videos are social events and discussed avidly between viewers and players.

the argument that watching this sort of material causes you to become a murderer is a fallacious one, and it is just has hard to prove as it is to deny.
for me it is an argument that holds as much truth to it as andrea dworkin assertion that all men are rapists.
in short it is utter tosh.