Porn: the Pros & Cons

It amazes me how many people are anti-porn, whether they be on the feminist left or the religious right. As much as they disagree on other issues, the one common ground they have that I know of is the belief that porn is evil.

Well, I've got news for them. Porn is as old as humankind. It's been around ever since humans made paintings on caves. And it will stay around, come rain or shine, until Armageddon. The reasons for consuming porn vary from man to man, but I will outline the pros and cons that apply at least to my situation.

THE PROS:

1. Porn gives me an outlet for my sexual urges that real-life women can't. All my life I've never clicked too well with either sex, never mind the female one. Thus my dating opportunities were few in high school, and even fewer in subsequent years. Yes, there are women who love men and love sex. But if one does, chances are she's taken. So I've given up on dating, relationships, marriage and sex. When I get horny, I have porn (usually Literotica or Playboy) to fall back on.

2. Porn doesn't get mad at me for something I either did or failed to do. Many real-life women do that to their men so frequently, the men give up trying to please them. No matter what they do, it's never good enough. But with porn, I'm the only one who needs pleasing. It gets me off, no questions asked.

3. Porn doesn't get pregnant or give me STDs. No condoms necessary. Just a magazine or webpage plus either of my 2 good hands.

4. Porn never gets jealous if I view other porn. Playboy has been around since 1953. In 50+ years, there have been 600+ Playmates, ranging from women who are now old enough to be my grandma, to the current crop of Playmates who are a decade younger than I. Not one of those 600+ will ever care if I whack off to any of the others. And a few (Marilyn, Jayne, Dorothy, Anna Nicole) are no longer even alive to care.

THE CONS:

1. Porn can't keep me or my bed warm on cold winter nights. Of course, I can make up for that by rubbing myself against the sheets, thereby warming up both myself and the bed in little time.

2. Porn has no arms to hold me when I cry. I will concede that we all need the touch of another human being every now and then, and porn is a poor substitute in this regard. I do go to bars sometimes to get hugs and kisses from women, but I confine my interactions with them to the bars. I don't pursue them for dates or sex, ever. As I said earlier, they're all taken. Thus I seek affection from one source (real), sex from another (fantasy).

3. Porn is often expensive. Most Internet porn sites charge between $100 and $200 for a full year's membership. Of course, there are free and low-cost exceptions if one looks hard enough. Subscribing to the digital edition of Playboy's magazine is cheap (although its Cyber Club is more expensive). This very website, Literotica, is free, hence I call it "poor man's porn."

4. For some, porn does get addictive. I have heard/read stories about men indulging in porn so compulsively that they neglect their jobs, bills and other real-life responsibilities, and those who are married come to prefer porn over their spouses, even when said spouses are ready, willing and able to have sex. But porn, like alcohol, does not turn all of its consumers into addicts. (Given that this is Lit, I may be preaching to the choir, but I am confident that most who surf here don't get addicted to it. Besides, preaching to the feminists and pseudo-moralists would be casting pearls before swine.) And even if I were to get addicted, I as a single man have less to lose.

Some people's hangups about porn, I believe, are holdovers from America's colonial days, when the Puritans arrived. As a person grows, so does a country. Whatever values and beliefs are instilled into a person during childhood, tend to stay with that person throughout adulthood. And by the same token, whatever norms and mores prevail during a country's formative years will persist in said country for centuries. Yet just as there will always be people who condemn porn as evil, there will always be people like me who turn to porn for sexual satisfaction.