I have a post up over at The Good Men Project titled “Technology, Shame, and the Death of the Porn Store“. In it, I riff on a topic that I’ve mentioned before – the waning of shame with the increase in cheaper and more easily accessible porn.
If my experience with porn is at all normal, porn watching often comes paired with shame and guilt. Even those men who think that a certain amount of porn viewership is a normal and even healthy expression of sexual drive can wonder if they are addicted or if they are doing something wrong. Our shame may possibly develop into a larger self-degradation and latent self-esteem issues. My question: has access to faster, freer porn diminished the shame instinct? I believe that just as porn has become economically cheaper to consume, it has also become psychically cheaper. And this is a good thing as we negotiate between the virtuous cycle of technology and the vicious cycle of sexual self-gratification.
As it pertains to The Good Men Project and, thereby, men:
But hiding things is rarely psychically healthy. Add all of this slinking around and hiding – which was also done with VHS or DVD – in with actually watching the material, and you have several layers of shame stacked on top of each other. And it is shame, male guilt, and the feeling that we, as men, have no moral standing that has led to the types of conversations taking place on this site.
If you are so inclined, please read and comment over there with your typical veracity and, if the piece calls for it, unwavering scrutiny.
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I like this post and your article. Both men and women carry shame. I wrote:
Not shaming sluts does not reduce the shame within sluts</a
These shames are not healed unless talked about. And when I write about the shame I sense in women, it brings to mind my own shame. It seems that the power of shame persists until exposed to light, and the recovery only can happen in relation to a person of the opposite sex that is non-judgmental and mutually honest. This is a very rare person!
interestingly enough, I know a fair share of women into porn….
last time I was at a porno shop, it was almost 50/50 male/female, though this place wasn’t just porno, it had gag gifts like spencers. lingerie, lotions, sex toys….
stoner,
my fledgling theory is that porn stores do all of the novelty stuff in order to minimize the creepy/dirty stigma. it’s kind of like Facebook.
How did you end up writing at Good Men Project?
alright, I read your article and tried commenting at the awful GMP, maybe I’m banned cause my comment didn’t show up….
That manboobz bigot put up a post mocking men who use pocket pussies. He’d never mock women who use dildoes and vibrators…. What are they? Empowered. Don’t believe me, google jezzebel/vibrator and a whole bunch of articles come up. How come a woman who putts her pleasure in her own hands (yep, that’s a pun) is empowered but a guy who does the same is a pathetic, incel, nice guy(TM) who can’t get any?
I think it goes back to concepts of masculinity…
A “real man” should go out to bars and “game” real women. (Never mind all the talk of how bad game and PUA is–personally not a fan or proponent though.) He should be putting himself out there and getting numbers or at least drinks thrown in his face. If he can’t get a girlfriend, he shouldn’t whine because that’s what those subhuman “nice guys (TM)” do. He should work harder at his job, because that’ll make him more of a catch. He should go to the gym and work harder… How dare he indulge in “instant gratification” like the “empowered” women do.
….all that being said, I doubt anyone is on their deathbed saying “I shoulda watched more porn when i was younger.”
I wrote about this here:
http://stonerwithaboner.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/more-manboobz-misandry/
AlekNovy left an interesting comment….
stoner,
yeah, novy’s comment sounds about right. i had missed futrelle’s post on that topic. didn’t contain any of the usual links to Spearheaders’ comments which means that he’s just straight up criticizing men’s choice to stick their dicks in inanimate objects which has been the purpose behind his blog the whole time. he’s not railing against misogyny; he’s practicing misandry.
stoner,
Interesting point. Maybe if men are to be shamed for using “pocket pussy”-esque sex toys by the Jezebel-feministic complex, they should instead “man-up” and pull themselves up by their boot-straps, hit up the bar scene, and use “independent” and “empowered” women as disposable semen repositories?
Straight White men, as the de facto leaders of the planet, are held responsible for every ill afflicting humankind.
Miley-
men get shamed/blamed no matter what they do….
I suppose use porn or don’t just don’t let someone who doesn’t care about your best interests control you with shame…
I personally don’t like the bar scene, but to each their own. I certainly like dark beer. If women fall for RooshV’s lines, doesn’t effect me. I will admit that I’m jealous of him because he travels the world while I’m trapped at a stinking job….
Imagine that, the feminists say that I’m privileged to be able to go out and work (or otherwise starve) but to me it feels pretty oppressive….
Wow. Looks like someone abandoned all credibility to blog for the man-haters and pray for some Hugo Schweitzer- esque fame.
So, you got the Obama sticker yet on your car?
In Madonna’s world all things reduce to a physical origin. The descent into porn is really just evidence of the heterosexual white male liberal embracing de facto homo-ism. But because most in the West have been radically liberated they only know of the “liberated” notion of homosexuality and so the incorrectly believe this to means that they will do
other males. Meaning, they only know homosexuality as the sexual attraction to the “same” and so a descent into de facto homo-ism is seen as a gained sexual attraction to males. The reality is that homosexuality IS A SEXUAL AVERSION to the “other” (the female) AND THEN the discovery that one is sexually attracted TO THE SELF (a self-sexualizer). Only over time and with a need for greater sexual gratification (self-sexualizing is now boring) does the homosexual move on to the SAME, but the fundamental desire DOESN’T CHANGE. The desire is still radical sexual autonomy. The desire for radical sexual
autonomy is epitomized by the self-sexualizer and he simple moves from SELF to SAME. The self-sexualizer is self-evidently a self-annihilator. As in, a homosexual is self-evidently a self-annihilator. His nature demands that he snap the chain of life.
So the battle intensifies as the white liberal male heterosexual (read many in MRA and some in HBD/alt-right) descends deeper into de facto homo-ism, i.e., self-sexualizing. Porn is the signal that blares internal shame for being addicted to the “jerk” like a drug addict versus the embracing of a radically liberated tolerance that seeks to obliterate that natural disgust one can see in the eyes of the healthy-minded man.
That’s what porn is all about.
Porn is cheap, easy and clean to the “jerk” junkies.
But it’s also clear-cut evidence that one isn’t a man. One is a de facto homo. An Eve-hating, male-pedestalizing self-sexualizer.
lol thordaddy eve is the reason we’re no longer in the garden so why shouldn’t guys hate that bitch
I commented over there and got some church lady type totally misunderstanding the thrust of my comment, and digressing into a lecture. Then her male minions started salivating over her.
From now on, why don’t you post on your own blog, where the commenters have at least some understanding of the subject at hand. My comment, by the way, was essentially the same thing Stonerwithaboner said.
Days,
Yeah that woman is a rambler. She just wants to grind an axe about how women are mistreated by porn which has absolutely nothing to do with my piece. But I post plenty of material here for people to comment on, and when I wrote on the topic here the first time there wasn’t much reception. The subject matter fits GMP better; plus, extra channels is the name of the game, right?
just curious, any of you seen this:
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