Pornography: The Production of a Violent Addiction
In this generation, people are all about instant gratification — getting the thing they want as soon as they can get it. While that isn’t much of a problem when it comes to food or technology, it is most definitely a problem when it comes to sex. To be more specific, instant gratification is problematic when it comes to pornography.
While the porn industry has been around longer than some of us have been alive, it has not lost its luster. The common theme of the man being dominant while the woman remains obedient is still present but this industry is being elevated to new unhealthy extremes. In fact, pornography has become so common and easily accessible that it has been quite easy for people to become addicted to it. Anti-porn activists are raising awareness on the harmful effects of pornography and the stance they are taking is to fight the new drug.
Pornography compares to drugs in the ways that it has negative effects on individuals and on society. While items such as cocaine and ecstasy are difficult to come by, pornography is just a mouse-click away for countless individuals, and that’s the scary part. Porn, just like other addictive substances, releases dopamine into the brains of its users and the more that they get, the more they want. These users unconsciously desire more dopamine in their system and they build up a tolerance as the brain adapts to their addiction. In the same way that an alcoholic can’t get drunk off of one beer, a porn addict needs more than a single image/ film for his satisfaction, and that is when it can get dangerous.
Though pornography is made for those 18 years and older, many of its viewers are still under the legal age which can make them more susceptible to becoming addicted. Porn warps ideas about sex and most teens are getting their sex ed from watching these unrealistic pornographic scenes. The industry normalizes sex with strangers, group sex, and portrays constant unrealistic situations which also encourage aggressive masculinity. Pornographic films are notoriously known for being made up of degrading, dangerous, and violent acts that ultimately make for an extreme product. The extremity and vulgarity in these videos leads to a competition among porn producers about who can get more risky or how much sexual aggression they can fit into one film.
The foundation for pornography is built on physical violence and verbal aggression. Whether it is choking, pulling on hair, racial slurs, etc. the industry portrays aggression as a normal part of sex and this is detrimental to those who become addicted. Both physical and sexual abuse are encouraged in the ways that men are always in control and women should do as they are told. To make matters worse, these women are shown as neutral or responding with pleasure when they are the victims of sexual aggression. They are essentially “getting beat up and they are smiling about it.” Unsurprisingly, the more violent the porn gets, the more likely it is for the user to “support and act out violence” such as verbal harassment and even rape.
The addiction created from porn can be best described from the words of Friedrich Nietzsche when he states “seeing suffer feels good, making suffer even more-so.” It is common for a male porn addict to engage in risky sex and have no respect for women but the more serious problem comes when they choose to sexually abuse women. Take the Elizabeth Smart story for example, Smart was 14 when she was kidnapped from her home and then held captive for the next 9 months. She was raped constantly for that period of time and today, as an anti-porn advocate, she has stated that pornography made her living hell worse. Smart discusses how her captor would sit, watch, and stare at porn which gave him ideas about new ways he could sexually abuse her. Smart also goes on to say that her captor wanted more than pornography which led to him raping her “more than he already did - which was a lot.”
Not every porn addict will become a rapist such as Smart’s captor, but the problem in pornography has been identified. It gives boys and girls false ideas about what healthy sex looks like while perpetuating the roles of the male being the dominant person and the female being the subordinate. The porn industry paints a picture of the feeling of satisfaction that comes from venting power and has indoctrinated minds to believe that physical aggression is a requirement for sex. Pornography is in fact a drug and by appealing to both instant gratification and sexual fantasy, it has become a violent addiction.