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DISPATCHES
posted 3/14/2000
Despite some of the toughest restrictions on sexually explicit materials of any Western industrialized nation, the United States is by far the world's leading producer of porn, churning out 150 hardcore video titles a week. In 1996, Americans spent more than eight billion dollars on hardcore videos, peep shows, live sex acts, sex toys, computer porn, sex magazines and adult cable programming, an amount much larger than Hollywood's domestic box-office receipts and larger than all the revenues generated by rock and country music recordings. — Charles Panati, Sexy Origins and Intimate Things
It's safe to say the majority of people consuming porn are male. Men and visual pornography have a long and tight relationship. For decades, American boys have looked at "girlie magazines" during formative periods of their sexual development, and ever since porn films infiltrated hotel chains across the country, they too have reached a mainstream audience. There is little doubt that these images affect heterosexual male desire in subtle ways — the cropped body hair of porn models, for instance, is preferred by many men — but there is more controversy over whether these images encourage men to objectify or mistreat women.
Though most American men have consumed, we would wager that the great bulk of them also feel a sense of shame over it, and a broader sense of guilt over the carnality of male desire. Now, with porn so easily accessible and prevalent on the Internet and with more and more sexually explicit images (deemed pornographic by some) being used to sell products, these issues are particularly resonant. Should the porn go? Should the shame go? Does porn have positive effects or only negative ones?
We've gathered together a group of heterosexual men with various perspectives on and relationships to pornography: Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight, Perv — A Love Story and the cult-classic porno Cafe Flesh; Ian Gittler, author and photographer of Pornstar; Matt Labash, staff writer at the Weekly Standard; porn star and producer John "Buttman" Stagliano; and Rufus Griscom, CEO and cofounder of Nerve.com. In four installments, they'll wrestle with these issues — and their own testosterone.
NerveCenter Message Boards
To participate in the virtual roundtable discussion yourself, visit
"Men, Smut & Shame"
in the VoiceBox folder of NerveCenter Message Boards.
