Sermons and Confessions

I’m embarrassed to admit that I have watched, enjoyed and owned pornography.  I suppose it started as a teenager when like most boys I was interested to find out what girls looked like and what people did.  The few items of porn that were available from other, richer boys were exciting and fascinating and they fostered my burgeoning sexual fantasies.   It’s hard to explain the fascination and excitement that I felt at that time, it’s not true that boys think about nothing else, but in my experience it is true that their thoughts can turn very quickly and intensely to sex with very little prompting.    As an adult this fascination has matured and changed but hasn’t really gone away.  Of course I am married and have two children, proof to the world that I have had sex at least twice.  I own two pornographic DVD’s and I look at pornography on the internet although I haven’t ever subscribed or bought porn on the internet.  I’m not under any misconception that the stories reflect anyone’s real life and they certainly don’t reflect the sexual thinking or acts of any woman that I have been close enough to ask about the subject.My justification was that the movies and pictures were of adults who were being paid lots of money to perform under their own free will.  It enhanced my fantasies and sometimes made the fun activity of masturbation more interesting and exciting.  In short a fairly harmless practice. That view has been challenged in the last couple of weeks.  I recently heard John Safran and Father Bob (Sunday Night Safran, Triple J) talking to two women who have a ministry in Los Angeles that works with people in the porn industry.  According to these two women, ex porn stars themselves, most porn actors are victims of child abuse.  Their self esteem has been damaged and they try to make sex a meaningless act that they can do for money.  Often they have drifted from stripping or prostitution into the porn industry.  Often they are supporting drug habits.  They are vulnerable people who are used by organised crime to make these movies.  Many are suffering from STDs because most pornographers ignore laws that forbid the exchange of bodily fluid in these films.  Many of the actors are stuck in the industry, too afraid to leave and fearful of being recognized by potential normal employers.  Some are even suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I can’t say that I will never look at porn again, but I certainly can’t think of it as harmless any more.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS