Perhaps I was naive, but I never used to have a problem with pornography, especially where, rather than being exploited themselves, adult women had the power, if they so chose, to exploit others’ interest in their bodies for their own gain. But, whatever my impressions in my younger, more masculine and more innocent days, I’m convinced that today’s porn represents a clear and present danger to the fabric of society.

My attention was turned to this industry when I received an unsolicited offer of a contract from a pornographer.  That led me to research, which in turn led me to nauseous disgust.

The porn industry is dealing with many challenges these days, not the least of which is the availability of free XXX movies online, in any flavor imaginable.

The industry – or at least a certain segment of it – has responded by trying to up the ante by dreaming up ever more extreme versions of perversion – as if this will make the free clips obsolete, like last year’s smartphone.

Any sane person would realize this is nonsense.  Anything they do will be online and free in short order, and force them to push the line even further; there is no way to keep up.

But, much more importantly, they are degrading humanity. 

In the most intimate and obvious sense, they are ruining the lives of the girls they are treating like human garbage, even if they are paying them well, and even if these gals are consenting adults.  I have no intention of revealing the gross details of the kinds of things they do to these young women, but some are worse than what you imagine, and getting worse by the day.  (One may – and probably should – ask why someone would consent to being treated that way…)

On a more profound and society-damaging sense, they are harming the viewers, desensitizing them to acts that should really make them uncomfortable, assuming they had a modicum of empathy for other human beings.

Instead, people are pleasuring themselves to these scenes, creating a strong psychological bond between what they are seeing and their most primal pleasure – a really strong positive feedback loop.

It cannot end well.

Too often, I meet men who see women in general and trans women possibly even more so, as instruments for their sexual pleasure and nothing more.  Witnessing this new pornography gives me some idea where this attitude comes from.

I have never had anything against pornography.  But, it was always fantasy.  And even the fantasies never crossed a certain line.  Nowadays, the scenes are so realistic that it is hard to doubt the authenticity of the degradation and disrespect, and the “creative ideas” are so gross that they pass beyond my tolerance for live and let live.

It says a lot about the people who make porn that their solution to the encroachment of widely available free porn was “more extreme” instead of ”more intimate.”  More intimate – like individualized cam setups where the viewer can interact with the scene and the actors – is impossible for these free sites to match, and returns humanity to sexuality.

But, maybe it says more about society than it does about the pornographers.  Challenged on the outrageousness of his productions, one pornographer (who, for clarification, is not responsible for any of the disgusting content to which I was exposed in “researching” this story) retorted with unassailable logic: “My job’s providing Quality Fantasy Entertainment to my customers. When you stop buying, then, I’ll know I’m doing it wrong…”

It’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing though, kinda like new technology.  We never knew we needed it until they made it.

But, with porn it is more an incitement to our baser instincts.  We all know how people can be stirred to hate – but we don’t condone it.  Similarly with this type of degradation, yes, people will feel the animalistic tug.  But we shouldn’t condone that either.