Seven contradictory myths of pornography: criminal, immoral, addictive

The first videocassette recorders were invariably seen as a device for watching porn movies as the first VCRs became available to a small group of high-ranking Communist Party bureaucrats, Foreign Ministry officials and a handful of rank and file with connections in household electronics dealerships in the Soviet Union of the mid-1980s. The phrase “they’ve got a VCR” was a declaration of envy; it always stood for “they watch porn.” Lousy copies of martial arts flicks featuring Bruce Lee were the only notable exception to the rule.

To a certain extent, watching porn is like playing with yourself. The similarity partly stems from the fact that people normally masturbate after watching a porn movie. Everybody does both things from time to time yet just the few have the guts to admit doing it – another reason for drawing parallels between the two activities.

There is yet another similarity. Some die-hard advocates of moral principles were busy making up scary stories about the so-called dangers of masturbation one hundred years ago. You know, masturbation leads to masturbatory insanity; those committing the “heinous sin of self-pollution” are likely to grow hair on the palms of their hands etc. Nowadays the like-minded defenders of public morals make a lot of effort in a futile attempt to condemn pornography.

One can really feel envy at the flight of imagination displayed by modern moralists at times.

Myth No 1: Porn is for freaks and perverts

In actuality, the world annual sales of porn materials total $57 million. About 800 million copies of porn movies are either purchased or rented by Americans each year. As regards the Internet, 12% of all web sites deal with pornography; one forth of users’ queries via search engines have to do with pornography too. It is understood that the demand on the Net is mostly generated by most active users. However, about 70% of all male users aged from 18 to 24 years visit web porn sites at least once a month.

In light of the above, it would be logical to arrive at one of following two conclusions: either society is composed of freaks and perverts only or the stories about the porn fans’ abnormality are more fictitious than previously thought.

Myth No 2: Pornography is criminal business

Looking at the issue from the point of view of the Russian penal code, the statement is correct. The manufacture and sale of pornographic materials is illegal in Russia, and therefore anybody involved in porn industry is a criminal. However, homosexuals or private entrepreneurs were considered criminals in this country a few years ago. Will pornography remain a part of criminal activities should it be made legal in this country just like it is in many foreign countries?

Some opponents of pornography stress the point that the making of porn movies goes hand in hand with violence toward actors, child sexual exploitation and other hideous acts. In fact, criminal groups are involved in the production and distribution of child porn and snuff movies (violent hardcore pornographic films supposedly featuring the death of one of the actors) but filmmakers dealing in “regular” porn movies have nothing to do with the above.

Moreover, a pornographer is supposed to act in correspondence with his professional ethic (pornographers do have their set of rules) and report any case of child porn or snuff movies to the police.

Myth No 3: Woman is portrayed as a sex object in porn movies; thus they form a misogynous philosophy

Well, there is nothing to debate here. We can only assume that the authors of this opinion have seen the wrong movies, somebody might have sold them a war epic disguised as porn, something that has bloodcurdling scenes of atrocities committed by occupiers against innocent civilians etc. Women constitute a third of all users browsing adult web sites. Maybe those women have masochistic tendencies and loving it. That is probably why they come up with judgments like that.

Actually, an actress starring in a porn flick is paid to convince the viewer that she takes lots of pleasure in having sex. Incidentally, the plot of Deep Throat (1973), one of the classics of the genre, is built around the idea of showing off a woman’s utmost pleasure from oral sex.

Anybody who intends to use porn movies as a teaching aid is likely to learn two basic things: sex is a pleasurable activity for both men and women, and there is no such thing as “dirty” or reprehensible ways of having sex.

Myth No 4: Pornography leads to an increase in the number of rapes and other sex crimes

The origins of the myth apparently lie in the reports on vast collections of porn materials often found by the police during searches in the hideouts of serial rapists etc. However, the formal logic clearly indicates that a deductive conclusion reached on the premises “after that means because of that” would be rather incorrect, to put it mildly.