The Rise of Gonzo Porn Is the Latest Sign of America's Cultural Apocalypse

As usual, I find myself again on the back and forth with Chris Hedges. I believe I first met Chris Hedges when he was debating Christopher Hitchens over the Iraq War. This is the Chris Hedges that I can agree with. I then found Chris Hedges debating Hitchens again over the tactics and principles of the New Atheism. As an old atheist myself I have to concede that I found his arguments less convincing. Religious indoctrination does inculcate a kind of anti-intellectual deeply incurious world view amongst its flock at best, and at worst its the perfect breeding ground for violent irrational acts, ranging from flying planes into buildings to killing abortion doctors. That was the Chris Hedges I couldn't agree with. Now I see that Chris Hedges is taking on porn--I seem to vaguely recall him making an argument for the regulation of porn sometime back--and as an old atheist who runs a porn page I must declare that this must be the bad baaad Chris Hedges.

It's not just that I think that censoring porn is impossible but I think that you're misreading why porn is popular. Porn is popular in the United States and other oppressed places no doubt because its hard to get laid in the United States. If you want to rid yourself of what you think is the depraved fantasy of porn, then you would do well to legalize prostitution. I guess that would be difficult for the descendants of the puritans but there's your answer. We can always look to Europe and guess what? More prostitution seems to translate into less rape and violence. Who knew.

Philip Shropshire
www.threeriversonline.com

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Have we people forgot how Divine is it to MAKE LOVE WITH LOVE? To make love with the one you love, has no comparison! Oh, I'd like to see a Kirlian photo of 2 human beings in love, while making love... ;) There must come out something like a rainbow or similar.
Please AlterNet, maybe you can get one. Publish it for us.
It's incredible how people like, consent to fool themselves, creating a virtual reality inside another virtual reality and so on...
From my heart to yours...

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All this porn out there, holy shit. Corrupting our youth. Blah de freakin blah. I saw porn when I was a kid, and I turned into a lecherous man-whore. And SO FUCKING WHAT? What in the hell is the big freakin deal? It's just fucking. Much like shitting, people fuck a lot. In fact, short of finding food and sleeping, it's the main thing we do. HUMANS FUCK! Sometimes in weird, possibly disturbing ways. Stop making something out of nothing, please. It's just sex. Sheesh.

My problem is that the world's richest people are making all the profits off the backs of their workers, who they treat like shit, same as most every other job. Pretend you love this shit job more than anything. Kiss ass and you'll be fine. No fucking dignity in any job these days, you're 'lucky' to have one at all.

What's disturbing to me is definitely not the depravity, which is actually pretty hot if you stop to think about it for any length of time. It's that the economic opportunities available to people in this country are so fucking lame that literally taking it in the ass five hours a week is a pretty good job, aside from the judgmental assholes talking shit about you and people like you.

Anyone got a free video link for that 65 Guy Cream Pie? Lord knows the author rushed out and bought himself a copy. Dude's fighting a hard-on the whole time he's critiquing this stuff, it's almost creepy.

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The author, very early on, decides to equate the dramatized violence of pro-wrestling with the dramatized sexuality of porn. For a minute, you might think that he / she is on to something, but the example mainly serves as a snobby scare tactic: "If you think porn is sexy, you probably also are a dumb hick who thinks that wrasslin' is 'real'."

I'm not sure if the author has ever had a non-reflective, non-ironic moment in his or her life, but I can assure you that not all, and, from my experience, absolutely NO fans of professional wrestling have any illusions about what they are watching. For example, most wrestling fans, if they got into a bar-fight, would not try to elbow drop the person they are arguing with. Most wrestling fans, whether or not they can explain themselves in whatever trendy Bakhtin-referencing terms are hot now, understand that wrestling is a form of popular theater. It seems to me, however, that the reporter would prefer to spew class trash than to treat the subject fairly.

As a male who admittedly watches porn (often times with my completely sane, sexy, and absolutely happy fiance) I feel stuck with this article. I have a sense of impending doom about a million things in this world. And like many (i hope!) adults, I don't find anything terribly arousing about a woman having sex with 50000 men at the same time. Nevertheless, and barring the obligatory "it is the right of consenting adults" shit, I feel like I should ask the author: is the depiction of sexual acts really WORST sign of the cultural apocalypse you could come up with? Why is the specific example so old? Are you trying to convince your readers that 2004 was the last time you looked at porn?

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The revenues for the tech companies Hedges mentions (Netflix is as much a tech company as Walmart, but whatevs) are a combined $150 billion ... fifty percent more than the figure he cites as global porn revenue.

GM holds no stake in DirecTV Group, and has not since the last century.

These kind of glaring errors rendered moot any points the author was trying to make.

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Congratulations Mr. Christ Hedges for your lucid vision and brilliant description of our present world. This is probably the best article I have read in AlterNet so far. I think we all share a responsibility for allowing it to happen without opposition or protest. I think Zeitgeistmovie.com explains what has been happening very well, despite their unfortunate and wrong vision of the origin of religion, though they are right that religion has been used and abused for materialist interests.

Yes, the plan outlined in Zeitgeistmovie, plotted by the superbankers who rule our world, with the complicity of politicians and military, has been working very well. The formula is very old, dates back to the Roman empire, and has been adopted in the new US-Israel empire, or rather the Israel-US empire: give the people “panem et circenses”, bread and entertainment. Bread has been substituted by home appliances, cars and luxuries, and the Roman Coliseum is now Hollywood and TV.

Don’t let the people be informed and think, just give them misinformation and keep their minds busy with rubbish entertainment, so that ultimately their minds will become rubbish and our dominance of the world will be secured. And nowhere has the formula worked better than in the US.

But I am an optimist, believe that despite everything the US has been leading the world for the better, saving us from Nazi militarism and Communism, and hope that some Michael Moore will come out with a film asking Americans these three questions: 1) Which do you think is the percentage of media control by a group over which democracy becomes a joke, 51%? 75? 90%? 99%? 2) What do you think is the percentage of media control presently in the US? 3) Which group do you think has the main control?

Again, congratulations, thank God there are also Americans like you.

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With all the free and kinky porn available to young children on the internet today, don't be surprised if profoundly deviantly, disgusting sex becomes the new norm sex.

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Me thinks Chris Hedges is afraid of sex like the right wingers and we can see in America the consequences of their paranoia.
Chris, keep cool, it's just sex.
Why aren't you worried about brutal horror movies, violent computer games etc.? They have indeed a proven negative effect not even on children but even on adults.
But violence unlike sex is accepted in a society that has been influenced negatively by religion over thousands of years. Just read the bible. No other book glorifies violence against innocent people in the name of a higher power so much like this scripture which is often used by self-appointed morale leaders to punish persons whose lives, sex included, doesn't fit to their little perverted view of world.
And isn't the bible the biggest pornographic scripture of all time?
Slavery, pedophilia (story of Lot), cutting off the head of an adult by a child(David), mass killing of an entire population(story of Noah) etc.
But even children are instructed to read this book in order to receive positive influence. What a sad joke.
I think that the entire adult film industry is rather a movement against this established hypocrisy and sex paranoia which pollutes the minds of the population.
So Chris, if you want to know what real pornography is then just read the bible and the Old Testament in particular.

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http://goatmilk.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/gonzo1.jpg

We seem to think that more is always better, even when it's too much. More tattoos, more piercings, more cars, more reality shows, more reality shows about dancing...

As the article suggests, I guess that's the nature of consumer culture. Moderation and subtlety don't move the volume. Teens are the perfect market segment because they're young, impressionable, full of energy, and love to test the boundaries of excess.

The article is a bit over-dramatic, and thus is itself an example of the excesses it talks about. We always seem to need a crisis or threats of apocalypse to get our attention and feed our over-stimulated need for over-stimulation.

It's the same as it's been for a long time, perhaps only worse. Musicians like Dylan who, ironically, is a good example of media over-deification, were saying pretty much the same thing back in the 60s (www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/its-alright-ma-im-only-bleeding).

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I am really impressed with the quality of the comment here. Not a flame job amongst ya. Bravo

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I like porn. It fulfills a need in me that is a separate one from sex with another human.

I don't expect any of the women I date to behave in a raunchy pornstar way, but when the occasional one does I am rather pleased.In the same way as I am pleased when they look like movie stars ( not a frequent occurrence ).

As the other guy said, it's all just sex what's the biggy?

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I think that's the authors point - it's not just sex.

Fifty or a hundred 600 guys standing around waiting for their 18 second chance to stick their dick into something and bust a nut is not just sex.

A woman who likes to be roughed up - smacked, punched, choked, whatever - while simultaneously being fucked by four or six or eight guys is not just sex.

It's been stated - and seems to be generally accepted and viewed as "normal" (???!!!) - that the new target demographic for porn is the 12-17 male age group. (Maybe it's not the openly stated target demographic, but supposedly, cigarettes are marketed only to 18 & overs, too...)

So what happens when a 12 year old - or younger - male child sees his first porno, and it happens to be a group of four or twelve or however many guys reaming out, smacking/punching/choking, cumming on & inside some soulless breathing fuckdoll, and then all of them piss all over her?

What kind of damage is that going to do to a kid when that becomes his first impression of what sex is?

And you call it "just sex"?

I'd say "psychological warfare" is a more apt term.

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as their gettin of on it! We cant assume that every girl in porn really enjoys it. A jobs a job and that job pays. All I know is ewww. You couldnt pay me a million bucks to have 50 men cum in my ass and suck it out and spit it in my mouth. If shes having fun more power to her... but I highly doubt its real. Its a male fantasy that pays for her lavish lifestyle and her career will be over in 3 years. I hope she saves her money.

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My only problem with porn now is that the women are all butt ugly skanks and all the guys are shaved bald-headed rejects from a Mad max audition. Do women find these losers attractive? Does anyone ever screw pussy any more? What is the preoccupation with anal sex? Hey ladies, it won't be so much fun when you're in your 30's and you can't hold in a stool.

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The last paragraph is nothing but an assumption and elucidates more about the author's fears and perceptions about the supposed connection between sexual abuse and pornographic stars than the actress's.

If no evidence of the author's perceptions can be verified, the firetruck story, along with the actress's on-set enthusiasm, must be taken as is. This article without that last paragraph would then be a celebration of the pornographic world, and would shed light about open sexuality, choice, and new experience.

I understand being critical of all depictions of identity in media, but leftists sometimes have trouble dealing with supposedly anti-third wave feminist portrayals of women that show them as overtly heterosexual and open to what some would call derogatory act. Some people just like to fuck, ya'll, and try to forget all the bullshit surrounding political correctness, because after all, that stuff is boring as fuck anyway and sex is fun.

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Grandpa Hedges seemed to be in an especially crotchety mood when he wrote this. "World's going to hell in a handbasket, I tell ya!"

The desensitization towards violence in US pop culture is far more worrying than porn.

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A product is on display. People see the product and like it. They then willingly fork over the cash to purchase the product. And they come back to get more of this product or something similar.

It's a business thingy. None of that "apocalyse" or cultural decline crap. Don't make anything more that what it really is, chris.

Btw, the porn industry is usually on the forefront of the latest internet and marketing technologies. Other industries benefits from the R&D money spent by the porn industry to make their products more tasty and attract more customers. Back when VHS was king of the media, customers was able to buy children's films like Snow White and Cinderella for a song and dance and NOT for 99 dollars each because of the marketing strategies adopted by Walt Disney and other similar outfits that originated with the porn industry. Who knew, eh?

Rather than dissing porn, embrace it.

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Who cares about culture, morality and the rest? A far superior thinker to this wrote a book decades ago called "To Hell With Culture", Sir Herbert Read.

Chris Hedges is writing an anti-sex diatribe couched in manufactured concern about how people like to have sex. Who would ever believe that fantasy is not a part of sexuality? What concern is it of his if some girl wants to have sex with 65 guys in one session. I think that's pretty hot myself.

It's great that 12 to 17 year olds see through all the crap being thrown at them by people such as Hedges and are exploring all of the erotic possibilities that they could possibly wish for, real or imagined. What great dreams these make!

Chris Hedges should have a good dust-up with Camille Paglia.

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Oh wow, sounds like this might have been a nice convention to check out!

RT
Online Privacy when it Counts

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Wasn't there a recent article about vibrators and another about the sex lives of young women, with provocative pictures? These don't seem to have much to do with anything. They push buttons and get comments. Is porn good? Is it bad? Years of articles (much like the veggie or atheist articles) don't settle anything, but they certainly get many comments.

Is it okay to examine the world of porn, or does that automatically, undeniably make one a prude?

Will the usual anti-feminist comments pop up, always mentioning Dworkin and always leaving out Jong? Read Erica Jong, anyone who thinks that feminist writing always leaves out sex. You'll like her books better than you like porn, I'll wager.

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Article talks about illusion/delusion. Seeking happiness in a "thing". Doesn't matter what that thing is. Could be seeking happiness in arguments "I'm happy when I'm right". Tell me I'm significant (notice me). Happiness through religion, political affiliation or anything we can "attach" ourselves to. All illusory. Nothing real there.
Noam Chomsky talks about it in "Necessary Illusions". The powerful world benders use illusion and fantasy like a drug to put people to sleep. I don't know anything else about the author other than reading this article and looking at the cover of his book. But he states his purpose plainly and repeatedly. I'm kind of intrigued with the "why" in the discussion about porn. Are we sleeping?

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However distorted the paradigm may be, the above does clearly demonstrate the sexual power of women over men. Ms Jollee can take that many men over and over again, but NO MAN could take that many women in the same fashion, ever, no matter how much Viagra and Ecstasy he ate.

"The natural superiority of women is a biological fact, and a socially acknowledged reality." ~Ashley Montagu

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Funny, I'm casting a MILF gang bang shoot now. The woman who will "star" came to me and asked me to put the group together. I have done a couple others with her before. Her #1 reason for wanting to do this was she craves the multi-partner sex. She got her first taste of groups of guys on a Football Team Bus that she sneaked on with the goal of getting shagged by the team. She has a cute little saying "Dicks are like potato chips, One is never enough" She does this without cameras rolling.

Point is lots of porn today is woman-driven, semi-pro and amateur stuff, it's like couples hobby

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Hedges makes the usual mistake of BELIEVING the porn industry when it says how much money it's making. They're not exactly the most organized or honest people, you know.

Also--most people know full well that the girl in 65 Guy Cream Pie is lying when she talks about what turns her on. How does he know that the people who watch it can't distinguish between reality and fantasy?

Those people probably know full-well that it's a fantasy. It's a fantasy that works just barely well enough for about 5 minutes.

That's the real problem with porn--poor quality. Bad acting, no scripts, fake-boobed, fake-tanned, fake-blonde actresses that all look alike. No variety. No soul.

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"the economic, political and moral collapse around us"!!!

Yup...the evils of porn are to blame.

We're all too busy jackin' off to the hot stuff to take note of the coming Apocolypse!

In the 1950's, rock and roll was supposed to send us into the moral sewer.

In the 60's it was racial desegregation.

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While I do disagree with the author that this is somehow the end of the world, the comments I've seen have either missed the point or are completely f-ed up. The author's point is that this is not sex, this is an illusion/fantasy and one that is especially derogatory (please note the way she speaks of her body in the third person). The fact that her body no longer belongs to her is represented clearly here, she in fact belongs to the porn company/pimp (if you really believe most women choose to do porn you are just fooling yourself). What's worse is that even though a lot of commenters have stated "It's only for money, I know it's not real" or some other crap, you forget that when you consume this stuff you are training yourself to be aroused by acts that are continuously becoming more inhumane (what the hell was with that commenter blaming women for anal sex? Do you really think most women like that? Are you just a fucking idiot?). I'm not opposed to sex, and I don't care if sex is graphically displayed, but I am opposed to patriarchal abuse being displayed and consumed.

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play with my balls.

I have a tee time @ 11AM.

This entire section was borrrrrrrrrrrinnggg.

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In the early days of the WWW, porn was in all likelihood the most profitable venture for small basement-operated ISPs to make money. The cost of bandwidth was outrageous compared to today's rates, and no one was making money off of dial-up accounts.

When AOL and Mindspring added WWW, Usenet was getting packed and trolled and spammy, and so admins added "U2" or Usenet 2, a new batch of groups that you had to have a shell account or a non-corporate ISP to tap into. Most of the interest groups were pretty mundane but what was interesting was that the porn groups were all suddenly filled with top-notch scans, subtly advertising a pay-for web server.

That was when it really hit home, that the profit centers of the internet, at that time, were all intertwined with porn.

I don't expect the internet is going to be an arena where Hedges' ideas are greeted with ribbons. It's like walking into an opium den and telling people 'drugs are bad for you.'

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It is not just sex.
It is a degrading anti-love illusion being sold to the masses so make them think that Bush and Palin are geniuses
It is a massive mind control tool.
And it is not only puritans and right wingers who can see this.
The author is right. It is a sad state of history.
And I do not expect some pigs who commented before me to agree with me.

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There are problems in our culture in distinguishing fantasy from reality, but porn in not the area in which these difficulties lie.

It is rather in our pathological belief that force solves everything whether within our borders or outside them. The fantasy that we have both the ability, and the obligation to maim, kill and destroy in order to change others to our own standards of behavior.

It is this belief in Imperialism, war and imprisonment that will cause our downfall, not some sexual images, stories or fantasy.

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Chris Hedges strikes me as one who pines away for the simpler days of yore; when porn was under the counter, unregulated and sometimes used as an excuse by conservatives to clamp down on art and political expression.
And back when racism and sexism wasn't considered a problem because it never found its way into the media spotlighting of society's daily abuses.

I'd rather remain true to Wilhelm Reich's philosophy of sex positivism than resort to a hasty retreat because of some of the ridiculous (and sometimes grotesque) excesses in the porn industry. There are laws in place to deal with the true crimes.

For the rest, it has more to do with an overall social value pushed by the media -that in a sense is a backlash to the perceived threat to the male identity by feminism. The MSM is still largely a male dominated industry run on testosterone. The misogyny perceived in the porn industry is just a reflection of a greater section of the male faction of our collective libido. Suppressing it won't make it go away or turn it into something "beautiful"... suppressing sex itself will just incite another sexual revolution.

As long as conservatives bang the drum calling males to circle wagons and push traditional stereotypes of male image in its tv, film and radio images... then whining about bad taste porn is going to be a huge waste of your time and emotional energy.

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...in any way shape or form but in the interest of facts:

GM has not owned any interest in Direct TV since 2003.

The mid-to-late 1990s saw a number of important initiatives in GM's non-automaking operations. In 1994 the renamed Hughes Electronics unit introduced Direct TV, a satellite-based direct-to-home broadcast service. The 1995 sale of the company's National Car Rental business was followed by the spinoff of EDS the following year. One year later, Hughes Electronics was revamped through the sale of its defense electronics operations to Raytheon Company and the merging of its automotive electronics activities (Delco Electronics) into GM's auto parts subsidiary, Delphi Automotive Systems. Hughes began concentrating on digital entertainment, information, and communications services and made a key acquisition in 1999 when it paid $1.3 billion for the direct-to-home satellite business of Primestar. In early 2000 Hughes would make a further divestment of a then noncore unit, selling its satellite manufacturing operations to the Boeing Company for about $3.75 billion. Delphi, meanwhile, would be completely separated from GM through a May 1999 spinoff to shareholders.

For your info:

GM’s Principal Subsidiaries:

General Motors Acceptance Corporation; General Motors Investment Management Corporation; GMAC Commercial Finance LLC; Saturn Corporation; Holden, Ltd. (Australia); General Motors do Brasil Ltda. (Brazil); General Motors of Canada, Ltd.; Adam Opel AG (Germany); General Motors de Mexico, S.A. de C.V.; Saab Automobile AB (Sweden); Saab Cars Holding Corporation; Vauxhall Motors Limited (United Kingdom).

GM’s Principal Operating Units:

GM Automotive; Financing and Insurance Operations.

The cable industry has been among the most critical voices at the FCC regarding media giant News Corp.'s purchase of a satellite distribution system that competes directly with cable.

In 2003 it was announced that News Corp. would purchase General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - News)'s 19.9% stake in Hughes Electronics Corp. , which owns DirecTV, and a further 14.1% of Hughes, giving it control of the satellite service.

I know FACTS get in the way of issues these days but where does that leave this now prurient article now (to me anyway), with some facts getting in the way?

Probably like most things, this article may be interesting to think about, but if you faced the reality of actually doing this fantasy, I imagine most would pass. But to each his or her own, I guess.

I go by the old rule, that if it does not hurt anyone then it is your own moral issue to deal with. I am sure there may be exceptions, but they escape me at the moment. Maybe just ask the question, "Do I feel better for doing this afterwords?"

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I just find it interesting that whenever I click on to read another comment, I'm invited by some scantilly clad/sensuous babe to purchase some piece of shit product or service. Oh well, the price we pay for free internet sites like this one!!!

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Care to make it 51 Ariana?

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It's pretty telling seeing all the paranoid comments up here... like Hedges wants to take away their precious porn. His point is the danger of uber-escapism. And his chosen escapism at this time is porn. THe man writes exhaustively on other topics, so calling him a prude or sex-obsessed is an easy way to dismiss what he's talking about THIS time.

Most people ARE sleeping. The ones up here claiming a 21-year-old who likes to be gang-raped by 65 men can have a healthy psyche just floor me (and, by the way, I know one porn star and believe me, there's a hell of a lot of pain there).

The people who get super-defensive about their porn are the ones yelling "Slut slut slut!" in the arena and don't even know it (if these comments are any indication).

Of course it makes sense, though. Once you are in the throes of the illusion, an article like this is threatening, because it asks the reader to accept that perhaps they have blinders on. These commenters and those that bury themselves in porn - or video games, or the new-age & religious b.s. Hedges mentions (which I find imminently more dangerous than porn) - are simply terrified of reality.

I find reality very challenging, and depressing at times, but having cut out the "escapism" in life, I find there is no going back. I no longer find all that crap entertaining. I find reading and enjoying nature and the arts and making friends and spending time with them infinitely more rewarding and pleasurable.

Is a little escapism good? Sure. I wish more folks wouldn't take the easy route, though. Why not take a brilliant hike instead of sitting in front of the TV with a box of kleenex and KY jelly?

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If you don't care about the effects of porn on women and you think consuming porn is fine for men, think again. Ten years ago I divorced a man who became so addicted to internet porn that he developed a condition called 'masturbatory impotence'. In this condition a man becomes so dependent on hardcore porn, the extreme fantasies it produces, and the feel of his own hand that he can no longer perform sexually with a real woman, yet he demands constant sexual performance from his partner. Porn changed my ex into a narcissistic monster who who denied he had a problem. In fact, he kept telling me I had a 'sexual problem'. I sure did; it was him.
I'm remarried now and the sex is great. My advice to women would be to stay far away from men who are into this sick stuff--and a lot of internet porn truly is sick, much of it is just ugly. It degrades women and destroys men's sexual and mental health. A porn addict will eventually try to get you involved in his compulsions and then call you a prude for not wanting to, but there's nothing at all wrong with you for wanting loving beautiful sex. Don't waste your precious time trying to help him; you may now have to leave him in order to find good sex again.

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Stella Blue is the broken angel with the guitar, in case you missed the 60's.

It is all well and fine to blame the deterioration of society and the current upswell of apathy and excess on the bloated forces of capitalism but there is a direct link that doesn't require an essay. Eight million amerikan children are being taught daily via forced television viewing that excess and groupthink are the norm:

Joy of Pepsi

How the hell can math compete with THAT?

Manipulated Kids - "It's not really a commercial--it's just a commercial sponsored by Pepsi."


Uh, when I was in school we watched NFB stuff, "Paddle to Sea", "To Build a Fire" and my perennial favorite "The Point"

I was 6 yrs old, summering with my parents in the Yukon wilderness, when I first read Alice in Wonderland. Two years later, my best friend's draft-dodging pilot dad introduced us both to Tolkien. From then (tv was a strictly rationed 2 channels) it was an omnivorous diet of library books (back in the day when The Electric Koolaid Acid Test was still in the school library) ... until I found Tom Robbins.

That rabbit hole is still out there, for anyone who's interested.

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I wouldn't be surprised...
I know when I am watching 65 Guy Cream Pie (because now I am morbidly fascinated) I will be acutely aware that what I am seeing on the screen is an illusion and not reality. I think the only person who has a hard time distinguishing between the 2 is the star, Ariana Jollee.

It would have been more fascinating if the author had written a book about Jollee. Like what has her life been like? Why does she star in Gonzo porn? Was she sexually abused? Is she saving all her money? What are her hopes and dreams for her life? And tied that into the ethical collapse of American society because the two are inextricably intertwined. Failure to distinguish between illusion and reality is just a symptom of a much much larger problem.

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How on earth anyone can read this article and then think that 12 to 17 year olds - mostly boys - viewing 50 men ejaculating all over a woman like she is a pile of dirt, and that woman squealing ecstatically as though being shit on was a wonderful thing -- how can viewing that portrayal of male and female sexual roles be good for society? I am no prude, but degradation, mostly of women, is hardly entertainment, nor is it informative in any positive way. It teaches males to think of dominating and degrading females, and it teaches females to think of themselves as objects that have been created for the sexual amusement of males. The female in the article is basically stating that she was gang raped by firemen, and that it was a grand experience and she wants even more! Would any of you want to hear your daughter say that?

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...has it's avuncular curmudgeon proclaiming the end of civilization. As so many of the posters noted above, "nothing new here".

Is it just a function of getting older that makes the soon-to-be-passing generation proclaim that the world is going to Helena Handbasket - or Ariana Jollee? (I know... he's only 53, but the point remains.)

In the end, we have survived Jazz, alcohol (and it's prohibition), the "Red Menace" and McCarthy, Rock-and-Roll, the Sexual Revolution, "crack cocaine", the "Culture Wars" of our blessed St. Ronnie and his ilk, violent video games, you name it. We've faced all of these so-called "culture killers" and we have muddled through and staggered into the future.

Change is not always de-volution or degradation. I guarantee you, you will not die in a world like the one you were born into. That's life. Especially in this modern age.

I get fleeting images of Tipper Gore railing against "explicit lyrics" in Congressional hearings reading this article (another thing we seem to have survived without succumbing to anarchy!).

Porn today is somewhat analogous to drugs in the '60's insofar as some people will use it responsibly, some people will abuse it, and some people will have a pathologial relation to it.

And, as one of my favorite Hippie songwriter/poets once put it, in regards to sex;

And when it comes down to just we two, I ain't no crazier than you..." -Dave Mason

Pax...
Pope Urban XXIII

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Why is it there is never shortage of more than eager and willing American and other women to participate in their degradation and exploitation..?

Is it all that different from marriage when you think about it..?

I'm just sayin..

I know, I'm a terrible terrible bad bad bad person...!

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I've read some books about this industry that mostly take the same general view as this article. And I don't disagree with most of this article--I think we are amusing ourselves to death.

My principal complaint though is a common thread of moralistic assumption on the part of the authors as to what is going on with the porn stars and their audiences, usually by taking individual comments and unreasonably assuming they represent the entire business or all of its consumers. This article quotes Ariana Jollee as referring to her body parts without saying "my this" and "my that" and immediately makes a big leap in concluding from that language that the poor girl "no longer consciously recognizes [those parts] as herself." Hedges has the special power to make an instant psychological assessment and read her mind? Simply referring to some part of your body in some vaguely distant way does not mean you suffer some kind of psychotic dissociation from yourself. One could maybe even argue that Hedges is objectifying her, making her into nothing more than a mindless yet pitiable victim.

"...so I saw the sunrise on the left and realized I was facing south."
"OMG you poor thing, you said 'the' left and not 'my' left. Don't you love yourself? Don't you see how something-you-do-that-I-don't-like is destroying your identity?"

Another example is a book I read in which some porn star or producer guy was quoted as describing some particular porn actress as being "born to fuck." One isolated quote from one individual, yet the author then seamlessly extrapolated that all males in the porn business and in its audience view all women as lifeless objects whose sole purpose is to sexually pleasure men.

Is it not possible for a straight male to have healthy and loving relationships and great sex in real life with women he respects... and enjoy watching strangers have sex on a screen?

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Nostalgic for the days when porn was shot on film in roughly feature-length episodes and actually had a story line, however preposterous it was. Gonzo porn is just a retuen to the old 8mm loops in a longer format. It's possible to watch Barbara Broadcast or 8 to 4 and enjoy them as films as well as sources of titillation or gratification.

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when she's wearing diapers at the age of 30. Or when she becomes a "has been" and they move on to prettier, younger girls. But, it's her life - I did a few stupid things when I was her age. Fortunately for me (and others of my generation), we didn't have cameras EVERYWHERE to make a permanent record.

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if it doesnt make money for you?????

How many women with a good husband, some kids an interesting job, good health insurance, a mansion, aHummer are willing to have men pissing all over her body (of course this is female freedom). for a lousy $ 250.
Just look on Elite Pain @ and Hedges is right
there is few dignity and honor left.

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I can understand why a pop rock group might target 12- to 17-year-olds, hoping they'll save up their allowance or get Mom to buy the CD. But Mom's not going to buy Junior a month's subscription to fuckmelikethecrazedsexkitteniam.com, and they don't take cash.

So it seems to me a bad demographic for the porn business. Do 15 year olds have credit cards or PayPal-able checking accounts? And if they just surf for the free porn, then is there any target market?

Well, on second thought, maybe it's an investment-over-time thing like Joe Camel appealing to kids. Maybe they can't get those cigs now (or it's tough to) but they will become regular customers once they turn 18 (or in the case of the porn, whenever they get a credit card).

Yet on third thought, I really doubt the porn industry really has to "hook 'em young" to ensure continued revenues in the future.

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General Motors hasn't owned DirecTV in six years. It sold its interest to Rupert Murdoch in 2003. It's now owned by Liberty Media.

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Scanning the comments, I think I would agree with most of the responses that take the author to task for his cultural scare-mongering and snobbery.

I had to rely on the comments, because I couldn't read past the following sentence in the opening paragraph and take anything from this guy seriously:

"The more we sever ourselves from a literate, print-based world, a world of complexity and nuance, a world of ideas, for one informed by comforting, reassuring images, fantasies, slogans and a celebration of violence the more we implode."

There is nothing inherently noble, complex, or naunced about print. Nor is there anything about print media that inherently protects us from reassurance, fantasy, slogans or violence.

Anyone with a shred of knowledge about culture and media knows that this kind of essentializing argument has always been bullshit. These kinds of claims were just as bogus back in the 18th century, when they were used, as here, as a misleading foil for this kind of 'culture is doomed, ZOMG!!!!' mania. Except that back then, these arguments were just as often AGAINST print for *creating* all the cultural ills that this guy thinks print will save us from now.

Hedges should pull his head out of his ass.

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porn and sex have been around since we crawled out of the mud. Look back at history if you have any questions. Read the Bible if you want to read some sick shit. Read about the Greeks and Romans; and on and on. It has not led to any collapse of any culture quicker than any other aspect of culture. Repression is worse than liberation, whether the liberation fits within a particular paradigm or not.

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The main thing that bothers me about the idea of 12-17 year olds looking for porn, is that this is the time when they should be learning how what they like and what feels good.

The idea that boys will try and get girls to duplicate something they saw on-line because they have some vague idea that this "what you do" is terribly sad.

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In the dictionary, LIBIDO is defined (first definition) thus:

(psychoanalytical) "All of the instinctual energies and desires that are derived from the id".

Thus, according to the Jungians in particular, all creativity derives from the libido. In other words, the libido is a basic human energy that can be channeled into a number of ways by which it can find expression and outlet. Sex is the fundamental act of creation in all species.

But if humans devote their libidinous energies primarily towards sexual gratification, all this degree of their creative potential gets focused in that direction. Like a powerful spotlight, it goes where we point it.

This country, which cuts spending for the arts whenever money is tight, is doing a great job of draining the libido away from focusing upon and rewarding creativity in many areas (science is also creative, of course). Kids need to learn to value creativity; we need venues and outlets and encouragement. It involves a little effort.

Instead, by default, if you will -- this "culture" allows for endless, E-Z, vicarious, libidinous thrills through porn access (thus stroking our basic infantile need for physical pleasure).

Look around. What/who is sought-after and glamorized in this culture? Creative achievement (in ways other than new and ever-more thrilling adventures in porn highs?)
and individual inventiveness? Or dumbed-down celebrities competing to reveal their sexuality with less and less clothing, and cosmetics and idiot magazines whose use and advice make women more desirable fuck-objects?

Look: sex is cool; sexual gratification is very important; sexual attractiveness is one vital component in attracting attention from whatever the opposite or same sex one favors. No reasonable person would argue this. HOWEVER -- the caveat stands: don't put all your Lidinous eggs in the porngasm basket.

Pornography is dangerously addictive. There go other creative venues. After orgasm, the male of the species just turns over, grunts, and goes to sleep. No energy left even for mowing the damn lawn.

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I read almost every comment on this thread, and a few people point out that all the others are making this out to be an article on porn. It clearly is not. The point is that many people are totally distracted by the illusions and are distanced more and more from reality -- seeing this as an article about porn actually reinforces that point. I think some celebrities (and maybe even some non-celebrities) feel that if whatever they do or say doesn't happen in front of a camera, then it didn't really happen. Life can always be re-shot and editted for these folks. That is the point Mr. Hedges is aiming for. When did life become about WATCHING life? Learn a skill, work on your car or house, help a neighbor with babysitting, get a new hobby, do charity work for the community -- DO something instead of watch something. At least the poor folks participating in this video are participating -- even though I think it is a very sad endeavor. Remember the words of Gil Scott-Heron -- "The Revolution will NOT be televised".......

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The above essay is not merely an anti-pornography polemic but a small portion of a longer work.

The editors of Alternet.org, however, like editors everywhere know that sex, like violence, attracts a crowd.

What I think the author is saying is, what many Americans believe is reality is actually fantasy and they are unable to differentiate one from the other.

For instance one of the most prevalent fantasy lifestyles is that of the "biker outlaw" which Harley-Davidson has successfully nurtured, with the aid of Hollywood, to first return to profitability and, maintain it.

Another is the "hunter" fantasy lifestyle, which the firearms industry and ancillary sporting goods industries fosters to the tune of...who knows how many millions, perhaps billions of dollars in profits per year. I'm sure we've all seen myriads of men, and a few women, sporting cammoflage pattern shrits, pants and shoes in a decidedly urban setting.

These are but two of the most prevalent of fantasy lifestyles among suburban white men.

Now I must fulfill my fantasy role as a home-remodeler.

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Judging on the introductory part of the article, Chris Hedges has not porn in mind, but kitsch in its broader sence: everything we touch in our culture is a fake.

The Czech writer Milan Kundera, in his book The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), defined it as "the absolute denial of shit". He wrote that kitsch functions by excluding from view everything that humans find difficult with which to come to terms, offering instead a sanitized view of the world, in which "all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch)

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Some of the comment discussions here reminded me of a study I read about in which male rhesus macaque monkeys will forgo a treat of juice in favor of looking at photos of female monkeys' behinds. I thought that was pretty interesting!

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Good essay. We must ask the men and woman why they star in porno films.They whant to make money.No brainier. I work in a large Atlanta area medical center. Many nurses there are good looking and intelligent woman.But the work is very hard, sometimes demeaning and abuse is common from families, doctors and the management.The pay is not great, however. If a good looking woman wants a shot at becoming very rich with her body / Why not. Why put up with the crap of working for a oppressive cooperation?Yes being a porn star is risky, but so is contracting a disease from a patient or the risk of bodily injury from lifting overweight patients and getting hurt.
Or many other on the job injuries that occur in the millions every year.The pornographer is , however as psychopathic as the CEO. so pick your poison.

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From Mother England was inherited the obsession with cultivating the subject -- subjectivism. The positive valuation, the intensification and the celebration of subjectivism deeply rooted in English cultural ways and daily pounded into the consciousness by the entertainment sector, the PR sector, the Marketing and Advertising Sector and all the propaganda engines private and public that lavish praise on egoism and "self-interest" has brought us to the incurable state of bona-fide psychopathology and an almost complete detachment from reality.

Who needs reality?, they say; there's virtual reality and making imagination substitute for the world.

Pathetic. "Make your dreams come true!"

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If Alternet runs another story with the word GONZO in the title I am going to go fucking bananas. You are defacing a writing style that you have no hopes of ever attaining.

Rape and pillage another adjective please. Using Gonzo in the title doesn't give your pablum more edge.

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I like pornography like the next man but I have limits. 50 waiting for sex with one woman is tiresome. For the woman, she is numb or else in pain from being rubbed raw. It is more a spectacle of self abuse than erotic. Maybe a gang sex scene with many men and/or women I would find erotic, depending on how it is done, but 50 isn't. Even 10 is too much, but with some they just escalate and this poor woman has decided to take the escalation as a meal ticket. Hope she is alright with that and doesn't regret it later.

Bush and Cheney along with the other presidents since Reagan have been giving us and the world a taste of their fantasy world templated, if not hammered into reality. The blood makes a good lubricant.

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Fine writing by Hedges. An excellent description of the culture. You can draw a parallel between food and pornography. Cheap food is replacing real food and addicting the users with sensations they can't understand or control. And Gonzo pornography is like most new television, devalued and cheap content create enormous profit for the license holders and distributors. In the porn industry many of the old timers decry the way in which cheaper and cheaper porn is pushing out the "quality" work. Hedges has done a fine job of explicating the way in which this corporate cycle plays its game of capture and destroy.

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The problem with your thesis is that we cannot actually ever distinguish between reality and illusion. No culture has ever been totally able to, and we see this in the past:

Plato's allegory of the cave is describing a similar phenomenon to the spectacle of Debord or the simulation of Baudrillard. They are all describing the making of an object into the image, the reification of the image, making it the real. The image and the real are never completely distinguishable, this does not cause cultures to collapse. We can retreat more into the image, and that will not necessarially cause the culture to collapse as the image does generally approximate the real in many things. Which side is better is uncertain, but people will not wake up, they just like staying where they are (they could react violently, as they do in the allegory of the cave). I do not think that we will change out of this and I do not think it will crash our culture. If the image is totally shattered, the people would probably cause the collapse of the nation, of the culture from pure culture shock.

I do not think it is symptomatic of a collapsing culture either, as all cultures and all peoples have this same phenomenon: reification.

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Really. The only thing left is to place snuff films under the protection of the First Amendment and that'll be that. People simply do not understand that sexual desire is a basic instinct and could care less whether you love the person you are having sex with or not. It only cares that you are horny and willing. The only purpose of a basic instinct is to satisfy basic needs and to propagate the species. You can enjoy sex all you want, but that's besides the point.

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Yeah I guess it is a lot harder to get laid in America considering I've lived here all my life and never fucked any girls, yet when I visited Italy there were many girls and had sex with one that I really liked. That was my first and only time tbh, but yeah, I work out a lot and say I have a very nice figure yet it's impossible for me to find a decent girl in America that doesn't just completely piss me off with immaturity. Maybe I just need an older woman? Maybe the teenage chicks are too superficial and don't want a serious relationship which is what I want..

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This entire thread of conversation seems to be about the good/bad concerning Porn. I think when one looks at the reason porn exists the problem is much deeper. Consider that every main-stream religion looks at one of the main reasons for living (sex) as abhorant and thus creates many toxic ways we attempt to access something that should be as natural to us as breathing. Perhaps once we finish dealing with the scam that is our health care system, the mess religions have made out of our world might be a great clean-up project.

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So much for alternative media. I was thinking of donating to Alternet but I will pass.

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Chris Hedges, and a lot of the commentators here, are annoying me to death with their "concern" for the poor, poor gang-bang porn star. Why don't they see the males' roles in the gang-bang porno film as degrading? They're waiting in line to fuck somebody, and being paid less for it to boot. Oh no wait, that wouldn't be in accord with the image of woman-as-helpless-victim, would it? I doubt that Ariana's nearly as enthusiastic about being fucked by 65 guys as she's acting, but it is consensual sex. She made a choice to go into this business and do these types of scenes, and who are you to declare her less of a person for it? Also, she's not portraying it as a hateful forced experience either, but as something she's "insatiable" for. But that doesn't fit in well with your victim ideology, so you ignore it.

Yes, women need more economic opportunities so they're not forced into sex work. But those who are in the business are not helped at all by your "concern".

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There is nothing on Earth as thrilling and important as a heightened sexual orgasm. The porn industry attempts to make that goal obtainable. reality and a powerful orgasm can never be more synchronized.

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I wonder if this writer has ever seen a pair of sissors. Man has been gazing and women have been exhibiting (their genitles) since the beginning of time. There are cave drawings to support this at Lasqoux, France that you won't see in your 8th grade history book. As my Swedish Ma used to say: "You don't have to open a garbage can to know there is garbage inside." For peeing out loud! When are these nutty liberals going to get it! You can't legislate morality. Respect for men and women comes from good parenting not from our idiot government. I think even Obamamammy gets this. Why is it that Libs, think that porno is only about sex/or the lack of it; when in fact, prono is the trashing of the mind? What Hitler, Stalin, Castro, and Mao did is real phongraphy of the soul. Nobody holds a gun to one's head to buy Penthouse or their ilk, but they do hold guns to your head to believe in their political filth. Grow up, get a job and get over it!

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Bottom line. Keep giving power to the thought of the end of the world and you will create it. Talk about a sick fetish. How about we give our thoughts, words and actions to making a better world instead of all the time blabbering about the end of the world? Just a thought.

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Who watches all that porn that is making people rich, rich, rich. And what happens to the discarded "actresses" later is tragic, tragic, tragic. It has nothing to do with appreciation for one another and everything to do with making people and their genitals into objects.

And, BTW, are those porn ads running at the top and bottom of my screen from alternet? Yuck.

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It's been widely reported that the porn industry has been hurting economically. Larry Flynt even suggested a federal bailout, half-jokingly. This made a lot of news recently and it's surprising the author doesn't mention it, even in passing, nor do any of the comments here (unless I missed a "RE:" or two).

While there is more and more FREE porn put on the internet by amateurs, the sensational example of supposed moral decay cited by the author - a woman taking on 65 men for the camera - is apparently an example of old-fashioned porn for profit. (Isn't it? - did I miss something there?)

The article claims that the new hard-core porn has a target audience of 12-17 year old boys. But as one poster notes above, that audience doesn't have credit cards to pay for online porn.

Something here doesn't add up!

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William Shakespeare's bawdy comedies and tragedies were pretty much forgotten, along with the Bard of Avon, soon after his death. He happened to have a few admirers who kept his plays safe.

We are a species that fantasizes about sex. We also masturbate weekly or daily. We cannot stop. Ascetic monks have complained that they can't stop.

The author seems to think that our fantasies, sometimes acted out by actors of both genders for centuries, are wrong, evil, and lead to perversion. Our culture is about to die!

Generations of average people have fantasized about committing or experiencing rape, or about amazingly available and/or stupid (pick one) sexual partners. Our hormones want these scenarios and our bodies follow, while we lie alone at night, thousands of times over our lifetimes.

We are animals. Many, many people have tried date rape or something akin to going too far, something not agreed to previously by the lover or partner. It may well be that these rough sex movies about multiple male partners and willing, happy, highly sexualized women have nothing to do with reality on the street, but the image goes way back because it's genetically bred into our hormones and subconscious. It causes generation after generation to go crazy over love and eventually to unwillingly create millions of children. That's who we are as a species. Crazy!

This is from my male viewpoint. I understand that female-oriented pornography (see "Sex and the City" for example) has a considerably different focus on being helplessly swept away in love affairs. Is this equally the death of our culture?

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The first half of the article is a typical Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire-esque commentary on the decay of our society; it is also a fairly accurate assessment.

The second half, on the other hand, is an equally typical politically correct apologetic intellectual "gosh, how can these poor, defenseless women not know they are being degraded? Too bad they can't be educated by someone like me"-esque, out-of-touch-with-the-working-class take on pornography.

Whence this puritanism about sex on Alternet?

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What is disturbing about porn is not just its dehumanization/mechanization of the act of sex. There's also a deeper, underlying dynamic that shows up in other aspects of capitalistic culture. This is the dynamic of dissatisfaction: what you have isn't good enough; you should always want MORE. (This shows up in romance novels, too, by the way.)

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...but more to the point, this article was relevant for me in other ways. I had managed to make it to age 38, with 20 lovers, and no one asked me for anal sex (a few guys asked if I'd ever had it, but the conversation never went past my "eeuww"). My current beau of 3 months made a very compelling case for me doing it with him. I kinda enjoyed it 1 out of 4 times, but mostly didn't understand what all the hype was about. Once I felt what I thought was blood vessel burst, had the confirming drops of blood afterwards, had pain while pooping for a week afterwards, had lubed-up semen dripping out of me another time, and a general uncomfortable feeling during the act. Earlier this week, my butt seemed slightly leaky, so I attributed it to some stomach bug that my body was fighting. I had told my boyfriend that maybe I need to talk to some gay guys to find out how this thing is supposed to work. However, thanks to a couple candid posters here, I realized I'm setting myself up for hemorrhoids the size of grapefruits, wearing diapers, and anal reconstruction, at the rate I'm going.

What is relevant to the topic of this article is that my boyfriend's impression of what is "sexy, unforbidden..." and normal, was based on the fantasy illusion glamorously portrayed in his porn stash. Anal sex seems to serve men with a tight fit (at least initially?) and low rates of pregnancy. But, it doesn't seem to serve women. Especially if the guy is bi, has multiple partners, etc.

I'm all for him obtaining sexual gratification through visual stimulus and manual manipulation when I'm not up for the act. However, I don't know how much that medium is affecting his satisfaction in the real world. I don't know that his wanting me to get implants, regular brazilian waxes, moaning like the porn stars, with camera-ready action shots... and all his talk about wanting to cum on my face... I'm not sure that's the direction I want to be going in.

I'm sure my boyfriend objectifies women to a small degree. I'm trying to figure out how much, if any, of that is okay and can be part of a healthy relationship.

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It is just facing it folks:

http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/07/is-obama-nigger-rich/

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Thank you for your share of points in this article

you have indeed saw through some of the bigger
imminent underlying problems in this society

Please don't mind all the negative comments,
just know that there are people out there who
support your points made here in this article

people should know that if they continue to be
blindfolded and try to "wrong the right" rather
than supporting what is really to "right the
wong", then they are only just creating more
problems within and disencourage many people from speaking anything that aren't congruent to what they feel or the norm. Like your article said, people have indeed become a lot more selfish and mainly at the expense of other peopl,that we can indeed tell. In fact, most of them have already been deluded.

Everyone has been programmed into loving
sex. However, porn doesn't create positive
consequences on the purpose of encourgaing good sex. Porn is all about self-gratification and selfish orgasms. It's one of the oldest, yet lamest excuse that has encouraged us human to behave like uncivilized animals, a backwards technique toward better
potential, deeper relationships between people and healthier progress. (notice that porn in this era is a lot more accessible than before the internet age and in fact,almost everywhere)

To those who will have read my comment, you can think whatever you would like to think and say whatever you would like to say, but I don't care because I already saw through the core of every one of you

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I've read a number of comments and I'm surprised at many interpretations. The piece doesn't have anything to do with porn, it's just a vehicle. he could have talked about these reality shows where over weeks someone picks the love of their life....

it's about our wholesale retreat into illusion. and porn is illusion. illusion, like anything else, in moderation, is fine.

in this country we are becoming soooooo drawn to illusion that you can see people have a hard time differentiating illusion from reality. i mean, have you looked at fox news ratings?

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Sex is a private matter between consenting adults. It should be done with love and mutual respect and not with aggression and certainly not violence. What is seen in porn movies is not real and in many instances is a crime. The men and women who act in them are idiots with no other marketable skills nor do they have any shame or modesty. The crap that is shown when then used as a "teaching" tool for first timers sets such a bad image that I'm surprised there hasn't been a decline in the population because no normal person could live up to such abnormal standards. Those that use it as a substitute for sex since they don't have a partner quickly find that it creates even more tension rather than relieve it. All it shows is that women are to be degraded and that makes the jobs of those who fight for women's empowerment that much harder. I want unashamed sex with unbridled passion but only with the person that I know I will wake up to every day. Empty sex without responsibility and accountablity is for cowards - mostly men - which leaves women still the scorn of society when she becomes a single mother who then is not entitled to have sex anymore or risk having her children taken by the same government that actually promotes pornography snd permits men to continue to screw as many women as they want. I say ban all pornography or at least give it back the stigma it once had.

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Why is it so darned hard to read alternet's comments. It's not worth the trouble.

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What's the big deal about porn and related sexual activity? We all recognize that mankind is a sexual animal like other animal species; it is just a hormone driven event (the reason there are so many of us.) It is a proven fact that sexual repression leads to deviate sexual activity. And repressed sexual activity is a religious phenomena propagated by religious fundamentalists who need to control. In countries and societies where there is no sexual repression there is no need for porn.

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im thinking that since women are now in the workplace, marketplace, every other place besides sitting at home waiting to take care of a man..maybe men get off on this fantasy of total and complete degradation? i mean..if your wife/girlfriend/sister is now considered an equal..or even worse..your superior..maybe those are the guys consuming this porn. really a fantasy world where women are put in their 'place' so to speak.

who knows? everyone keeps saying 'porn is fantasty. its not meant to be real.'

i think that means our fantasies should be examined- i mean..what is it saying about society in general when an ultimate sexual fantasy involves one woman getting violently penetrated in several orafices for hours? or killed? or beaten? fantasies are things that in your 'fantasy world' would actually happen, right?

sometimes sex is just sex. but sometimes violent degrading sex is much more than just sex..to the consumer and those performing.

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"The more we sever ourselves from a literate, print-based world, A WORLD OF COMPLEXITY AND NUANCE, A WORLD OF IDEAS, for one informed by comforting, reassuring images, fantasies, slogans and a celebration of violence the more we implode" [stress added].


As log as the neo-liberal agenda--i.e., unfettered market depredations and unregulated Wall Street speculation--is permitted full sway, as long as DC endorses that hideous, money/power-obsessed "ethic" which underwrites our day-to-day reality then the quality of our lives is lost to us. We forfeit that which we need for our own sense of well being, i.e., our complexity, nuance, the ideas which help us to imagine and (re-)create. Of course we will then seek outlet in fantastic, health-sapping escapism: drink, drugs, pornography, etc.

We are swept along in the money/power torrent--whether or not we approve of the money/power agenda is beside the point: we are involved on some level. In that it is informed solely by greed for personal gain capitalism cannot be rehabilitated, i.e., it must be contravened. It is the very antithesis of the complexity and nuance, the world of ideas, which is our own Life mainspring: it--i.e., Empire--is destroying our souls.

We need not be surprised when we read of the pecuniary gain to be had in pornography: capitalism itself is an obscenity, and pornographic films are merely one of its natural expressions. War in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan--and, soon, Iran--are another.

Welcome to hell kiddies. Abandon all hope ye who enter here...

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If all this regurgitated mish-mash of commentary sloshing down a growing drain-pipe column against the article by Hedges is any indication, it appears that the over-whelming force of opinion -- the "conventional" consensus -- STAY AWAY FROM MY BLOCK!!!

A troop of baboons scraggling around in an arid wasteland is ACTUALLY MUCH MORE ADVANCED AND EVOLVED than all those textual grunts and shrieks exemplified by a great number of those comments. That they are well-trained in typing is beyond question.

STAY AWAY FROM MY BLOCK! This is a human and social alliance of free men and women -- and we're armed and prepared to meet you if you should fantasize any moves to come around here.

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this is the liberty that the USA is promoting all over the world. The Liberty to live in illusion and leave enough space for the haves to act and dominate the others. The poor others who by ignorance think they are really living.

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since we readers couldn't see the woman's face when hedges thought he saw "a brief tremor that crosses her face, an almost imperceptible sign of ambiguity or doubt," that we can't determine the accuracy of the statement. since chris seems to have real problems with porn, i suspect he was seeing things [barely, since he uses the words "almost imperceptible"]that he hoped were there....a truly awful article

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It seems the entire sector of this site dedicated to the category: Media and Technology, all those "geeks", "nerds", "gamers", "Po-Mo's" and who knows what other identity hats they wear are wholly on the side of Capital and the capitalists -- none, it seems, is even near any position that could be even vaguely described as part of the "left" or "liberal" or "progressive". The men and the women.

Since the '70's all these so-called "feminists", "techies" and miscellaneous other "identities" completely abandoned the REAL human individuals around them and everywhere, and jumped happily and ecstatically into the arms of corporations and the State.

They call this "Empowerment". True, they gained the power, by melting into the corrupt and rotting center of capitalism.

Maybe 6% of the participants in this sector of the site are worth considering liberal, progressive or left. The rest are part of the PROBLEM and the corruption, the rotting corpse of capitalism.

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OMG! 12 to 17 year-olds are the main consumers of porn!!! And here is an example: A GANG-BANG! OMG, OMG!! Oops. That's internet porn, it isn't defined, the statistic is unproved, and no resultant harm is documented.

A) Pornography has been conclusively proven to cause ... masturbation. Nothing else - except that widespread availability of porn has been linked - in study after study since the 60s or before - to lower incidence of sexual violence. Of course, if you define consensual sexual acts as rape, you can skew those numbers.

B) Hedges uses all the favorite techniques to lie with statistics. First, he just makes them up, second, he manages to conflate his one example - hardcore gonzo porn - with every Showtime movie that shows a bare tit (re his Direct TV "porn streams").

C) The largest consumers of internet porn have been shown to be the residents of Utah - sexually repressive Mormon country.

D) Few teenage boys will pass up an opportunity to see a little T&A; that doesn't mean that they are big consumers of the hardcore stuff - which is expensive and difficult for a 12 year-old to come by.

One commenter keeps repeating that everyone who disagrees with her POV "completely missed the point of the article."

Bullshit.

The article is about how the country is going to hell in a handbasket because porn is available - and it's another disingenuous attempt to convince us that unless we act right now thirteen year olds are gonna be pulling trains on every innocent girl in the neighborhood. That's the subtext - and it isn't particularly subtle.

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No one sees the parallels between the macho-minimalist movies and all their fantasy car chase and wrecks, only-a-nitwit-would-believe martial arts fights (or UFC "contests"), and all the rest typical of the genre and the goofy unreality of pornography? No one relates the preposterous gas explosions and the bizarre protrayal of a guy ejactulating on a woman's face (did anyone ever do that in reality?)

No one connects the flight from reality of pornography and the pornographic loss of touch with reality that has resulted in women in combat? The weird rhetorical reality that can - has - turned the killing of a baby into "reproductive rights?"

Six years ago when I started my research into the terrifyingy - for the normal, i.e. - morphing of the society into irrationality, I was led from "celebrated diversity" and "affirmitive action" in government employmnent, to "no child left behind" education, to one liberal humanist social experiment after another' and, finally, to the losss of morality it all required. The latter led to pornography and an effort to see how it might parallel the rest.

I also, near the end of my project, joined and began reading websites like this one. I hope this one stays posted long enough for me to read it all. I expect that it will add another parallel to my data.

I've also, by the way, acquired new interest in the history of Ancient Rome.

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What a great thing to live in a culture where people are free to explore their sexual fantasies, no matter how different they may sound or how non-conventional! This is what makes us stronger, not weaker. This could not happen in so many parts of the world today - and that thought is scary. We need to cherish the freedoms we have. I could not disagree more with the author. We need more people exploring their fantasies openly and breaking out of the prudishness and sexual/moral constraints imposed by those too afraid or too angry to allow others to be happy. This girl is harming no one - in fact what she is doing might even be called healing. He has no right to throw stones at nor judge her - perhaps he needs to make his own porn videos to break through his conditioning!

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The author reminds me of someone when he's quoting the girl and observing. I dare say it's Pynchonian in it's flat rendition of pop attitude. However, the glaring difference between novelist and "journalist" appears quickly, and renders the entire scene oblique, and almost worthlessly contrived in the end, when the attributions set in. I see the reason for the decision, a bit of poignancy which made an impression on the author, but a generally disappointing turn in my view. Suddenly it seemed all science, and nothing human. We don't generally surmise motives from absences in the profession, nor should we when leaving our chops at the door and interviewing porn stars on gang bang sets. You wouldn't say, "and then Dick Cheney looked off into the distance, probably reveling in some future scheme to fuck people over somehow," however obvious and tempting it might be.

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As a woman who makes porn, I just have to say...

Well, it seems to this dude, everything that is not fine lit is a sign of the Apocalypse. We have some stats, but no documentation for them once again, and why yes, the utter ignoring of the fact that Feature Films outsell gonzo...oh yeah, and a whole lot of assumption about how the performer he observed (ariana jollee) thinks about herself, her body, and her sexual experiences. No confirmation on this from Jollee herself, he just assumes it for her. Ah, typical!

I have to ask, you know, as the apocalypse grows nearer and people are more entertainted by (hahah this is rich_ gossip and Jerry Springer than news - when did this style of journalism become news itself?

News is "Three autoplants shut down in (insert location), there was a house fire that killed two firefighters in (insert location), today, off the coast of (insert location) a swimmer was bitten by a shark. The (insert team) beat (insert team) 6-3. And tomorrows forecast is...

NOT some man who does not even know the woman who is speaking saying "The degradation she endures has turned her body into something she no longer consciously recognizes as herself."

That may not be Jerry, but it is damn Dr. Phil- and if you think this guy actually believes what he is talking about when it comes to "cheap entertainment" he is JUST as bad when it comes to bringing on the Apocalypse.

Ah yes, once again, porn people making great pity and assumption fodder, great examples, but not exactly...oh...human.

And once again, shitty school work with un-validated stats.

Amazing how some folk who hate the sleaze and violence of porn, wrestling, or whatever else go ahead a profit off it just like the rest of the "sickos" by writing books about it, eh? Oh, the humanity!

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JFK: SERIAL ADULTERY (yawn)

Secret Service: JFK Met Marilyn Monroe at Justice Dept. for Sex
August 5, 2009 1:14 PM By: Jim Meyers

President John F. Kennedy had secret trysts with Marilyn Monroe in a loft above the office of his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Ronald Kessler reveals in his new book about the Secret Service.

“In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect,” released Tuesday, features startling disclosures about presidents from JFK to Barack Obama.

Newsmax Chief Washington Correspondent Kessler is the first journalist to penetrate the wall of secrecy that surrounds the U.S. Secret Service, and his book is based on interviews with more than 100 current and former agents.

Agents told Kessler that D-Kennedy had sex with Monroe at New York hotels and in the loft above D-Bobby’s Kennedy’s office at the Justice Department…..

CRAWFISH NOTE: Permit me to enlighten the younger voters on JFK. The hero of HornDog Klinton was and has been a known serial adulterer despite still having pre-teens in his family. Remember JFK was a democrat so he “got a media pass” akin to Klinton “getting media excuses”.
Its widely written the agents called two WH secretaries part of this married democrat’s serial adultery ring. Server space prohibits listing all those in the Klinton serial adultery ring. Don’t look for this “revelation” in modern college texts anytime soon.
The only startling thing about this factoid is the word “startling”.

How about some revelation on why JFK promised air support against the Castro forces taking over Cuba then sent none to save that nation from communism? Maybe he was busy trysting?

http://conservablogs.com/theconservativecrawfish

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Fascism comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
This begins my comment and I do believe it is relevant when you remember much of society in 1930's Germany and Italy when fascism was on the rise in both countries- so was pornography. Corporations, particularly militaristic corporations, supported both Hitler and Mussolini and managed to combine militarism, corporate economics in bad economic times and false patriotism and pornography in society. I also think about Fellini's film Satyricon based on Petronius's take on Nero's Rome- (although it was fascism without corporations as such)
Catt

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What we see in this is only a minor symptom.Major symptoms are evident from the News/articles in Alternet, for example-Kids are a pain the ass,40 ways to avoid kids,Bisexuality is normal,Channels glorifying Marijuana,concept of living together,dumping parents in old homes,shooting at schools, unwed child parents,glorifying Bachchus,spending beyond means, destruction of Family,rudeness in the guise of'being open',indisciplined way of living hiding under the garb of freedom of expression,$ is the God are few other symptoms.

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videos and many will not open, but if I go to a porn video it opens and downloads rather quickly.

coincidence or big time censorship???

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