What is it about the pornography industry we find so distinctly revolting? The money shots, the women still sore from surgery, or maybe the proliferation upon our society of some seriously raunchy shit? In the past I always felt that porn was something personal, something you didn't share with others. Of course, that might have been because of a Pentecostal upbringing that naturally denounced the act of masturbation as unnatural. Watching porn ironically helped unshackle me and with every fuck my own inconsistent self-hatreds were laid bare.
My mother once told me that masturbation wasn't "bad", but it wasn't good. She said that the problem lay with lust, no pun intended. In order for most people to masturbate, she explained, they'd have to fantasize about someone who is not their husband or wife. She didn't see anything wrong with masturbation as long as it was included in a loving Christian marriage. That didn't help me too much, as most of the time I was fantasizing about lesbians while I got off. Then I'd ask god for forgiveness:
"Please, Please God!"
"I'm unnatural to be lusting after two women who're doing the pink on pink!"
"They're SO HOT!
"Oh Gawwwwwwwdddd!"
It was a never-ending cycle of self-hatred, as I would go for months on end without, only to give in and cry later. I honestly thought I was going to hell, mostly because I thought "evil" thoughts instead of pure heterosexual ones. Like other teenagers (albeit boys), I played the under the mattress game. I would hide all my porn, usually erotic stories and assorted pictures printed from a computer, under the bed. Months would go by, and then it would be gone. My mother never said anything to me, she just threw it away. After such a loss I would always spend more time praying and asking absolution, for the sin of "spilling my seed". That's the only biblical example religious types will give you against masturbation. Of course the person in question was a man, who jerked off rather than sleep with his dead brother's wife…but somehow people still stand by it as the last will and testament to masturbation. I would think that it points only to men, but alas, the patriarchy!
Thanks be to god, I came to college where I could download over a T-1 line to my heart's content. Classes like Women's Studies introduced me to people who weren't afraid to flaunt their sexuality, and bask in an afterglow. I started trading good web sites with friends, while I gathered with the guys to gag over the latest posting on bizarre.com. I've seen a lot of porn I'm proud to say, from ping-pong balls, to fake snuff, to this weird one with an amputee I just won't get into. I've watched porn with UCLA basketball players, straight women, gay men, and lesbians. The experience was always the same no matter the audience, shouts of "gross" and "whoa" followed by long silences. So we find ourselves in a conundrum, we all watch it and we all deny it.
We reject porn in all its glory because it shows us our deepest fantasies in cruel Technicolor reality. When you hear the slapping sticky sounds you know their truth, because we've all been active participants in the roles these women and men act out for us. In our need to reject them as dirty, nasty freaks we satisfy our own self-rejection and self-hatreds. What's so dirty about pleasing yourself regardless of who helps you along the way? Nothing. There's nothing wrong with some healthy self- love. You won't go blind and the backs of your hands won't go hairy. Don't feel shame, don't be embarrassed, and don't feel dirty, unless you're into that kind of thing.