How Porn Impacts Us, Part 6: The “So What”

I work in an industry where I tend to do a lot of writing reports and giving presentations, and I’m often asked to distil complex topics down to simple concepts. When I’m preparing such reports or presentations a phrase I often hear is that I need to “get to the ‘so what’.” In other words, it’s all well and good to explain complex concepts in simple ways and educate my readers, but the main thing they’ll care about is, “So what? How does this impact me?”

Porn and Remembrance

Author’s Note: Why would I name this post with a pun based on a book so few people have read? Sure, it works thematically, but nobody will get the joke but me...

In a previous post from the “My History With Porn” series I mentioned my early history with pornographic magazines, and the fact that my mom found them at one point and made me get rid of them. After that I got “smart,” and going forward any time I came across new magazines I did a better job of hiding them: I’d rip out the “good parts,” and then insert them into the middle of a Mad Magazine. I had a billion issues of Mad, so it was easy to just slip this particular issue into the middle of the pile.

How Porn Impacts Us, Part 5: What About People of Colour?

Wow, this series just won’t die, huh? Why am I still blathering on about this instead of writing about, I don’t know, the sublime sensation (or sight) of a cockhead inserting itself between pussy lips? (Or anal sphincter?) Who knows? (Answer to rhetorical question: not me.) 

How Porn Impacts Us, Part 4: Attitudes Toward Women

The last post in the “How Porn Impacts Us” series was long. Long! It was really, really long. 

How Porn Impacts Us, Part 3 (long): “Context”

I’m not sure I would have chosen the title Context for this post – though context is part of what I’ll be talking about – but I’m writing at least in part in reaction to a post from Danny Wylde with the same title on Boinkology so I’ll go with it. This is not a direct response to Danny’s post, I’m not trying to start an argument, but we’re coming at an issue from different angles, and, yes, there are some things in the post I disagree with. (It’s just as well that I’m not trying to start an argument, since I doubt Mr. Wylde will ever see this in the first place. An argument with only one participant is a lonely argument indeed.)

I’ve been writing about porn’s impact on us (from a purely amateur, “armchair sociologist” point of view), and I don’t think any discussion of porn’s impact on society would be complete without a discussion on whether and how our consumption of porn impacts our views on sex. Do the images and videos we see on our laptops and tablets and smartphones colour the way we think about or carry out activities in the bedroom? Do the depictions of sex we consume impact our views of the real thing?