Porn and Prostitution

           We looked at the keptchup bottle as she shook it and we both had the same dirty thought. We're men, we can't help it. See, my sister's a journalist, my brother's a doctor, and I'm a movie director. I've directed all kinds of things from Hollywood to College Film Projects. So, we talk over the meal and it goes from the polite bullshit like what's the weather been doing lately (who the fuck cares?), sports, but then we get to the more interesting stuff like politics and porn. Most of us in the family are Democrats and we say that with pride. We talk about how horrible the Supreme Court decisions are and we start talking about the freedoms of women. Now, I think a woman should be allowed to make money selling lap dances on the internet and in person as strippers. This is their First Amendment Rights. Then, though, she started talking about prostitutes, female enslavement, revenge porn, and other things. Now, I'm for the leglization of prostitution if the women are over the age of 18 and it's consentual. But, my sister talked about slavery. I asked her what slavery has to do with prostitution. 

           Then, she started explaining to me that young girls are kidnapped from their parents and taken to places where they're forced to have sex and/or masturbate. There are women who are told the person has dirty pictures of them that they'll put online unless they undress for this individual on camera. I never thought of it. She told me there are women suing websites to get their unconsensual videos offline. See, with certain porn sites anyone can post a pornographic video if they're a member. Then, underage girls, women who made private videos for their ex-boyfriends, and peeping tom videos can be put online, too. See, I always thought those videos were scripted, like everything else in porn. So, I thought about it and said maybe she's right and we should ban porn if women are being abused. But, my sister told me it's more complicated than that.

           See, although some of these websites have unconsensual videos, some of them have consensual women who do this for a living and need these websites to put food on their and their children's tables. So, it's a more complicated issue. 

           So, after some discussion, I became confused. Are porn sites good or bad? Blessings or curses? So, after the meal, I went home and slept on it. The following day, I started a blog survey for women to ask their opinion about porn, gentlemen's clubs, pornography, etc. The result was unusual. Some women said porn had saved their lives. It was the only place they could find a job. Some women told me porn objectified women, gave an unrealistic expectation for men and women about what sex was supposed to be like, none of the videos included clitoral stimulation, some women said they wished they could lose weight so they could look like the women in those videos. I got everything from breast envy to women saying porn had ruined their marriages, to everything. It wasn't all black and white. 

           So, I called my sister and asked her what the solution is. If women need this to survive, banning is bad. If women are being rapped, banning is good.  She said we need to set new standards in website supervision. We also need to use responsible porn websites and have a verification on the websites that there are only consentual videos. But, it's up to the consumers. As long as consumers like me keep looking at and buying porn from crooked websites, they'll keep providing what the customer wants. I thought of all the videos I'd seen on the websites: Menstruating women, lactating women, women getting pierced, incest fantacies. 

           I go through my browser history and delete all the porn sites I'd looked at. I can always watch NC-17 movies from America. I have a collection. But, I was able to change. 

           Then, I think about the erotica stories. How many of them are about the fantacies I've seen on the poen sites. Things like sibling insest, sex while she's sleeping, exploration, etc. and I wonder if pornography has become a meme of our society and if that's true it's too late. Eliminating this kind of pornography would be like eliminating the word “the” from the English language. 

           I decide to invite my sister our to eat so we can talk about it more and see if I can get clarification. We go to a local Jewish Deli she likes. We start with the usual bullshit. We hug each other, ask how we're doing, give the usual bullshit “fine,” but then she asks why I called her for this and we talk more about porn. She tells me there IS no easy solution because it's a complicated issue. But, maybe people need to start learning about the ethics of porn in high school, when most curious teenagers start watching and viewing porn, if not sooner. Middle school? It's in our books, libraries, movies, tv shows, everywhere. 

           She says we need to start teaching kids what appropriate porn is and what inappropriate porn is. Certain teachers, parents, and kids won't like it, but they will get used to it and the world will be a better place.  They'll still have free will, but imagine if the websites where women were objectified went down not because of censorship but because of supply and demand. 

           Then, imagine pornography, prostitution, and being a stripper became normal professions people looked up to. My mommy's a nurse, my mommy's a secetary, my mommy's a stripper. Imagine if it was normal and the government knew everyone in the profession wanted to be in the profession. Imagine. No more revenge porn cites, no more sex slave cites, because the people demanded they get taken down. 

           Imagine a world where women who were in this profession got married, had kids, and supported their husband and kids with this honorable profession. Just imagine. Imagine if the people in this profession had bodies of normal women instead of anarexes, bolemics, or other eating disorders. Imagine seeing stretch marks, wrinkles, and white hair on the stars of the show and that being the fantacy instead of turnoffs. Imagine real, normal people doing porn. Imagine. 

           But, my sister said that'll never happen or it'll be decades before that happens. But, even though some of the websites we're objecting to contain material which is hurting people, if you look for it, it contains ordinary people too. People like you and me sharing their sexual fantansies with each other. Maybe there is a happy medium and maybe there isn't. But, it isn't a black and white issue (and I'm not talking about race). There's benefits to pornography and costs to pornography and each of us has to look in our hearts to decide which is greater. Now, though, if I go to a porn sight, I think about the porn sight and understand some titles are fantacies but some titles are realities. Son-of-a-bitch. Some of it's real.