Commodification of sex

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Aside from abuses within the industry, I have take no moral stance against the sex industry, whether it's prostitution or pornography. Sex as commodity is nothing new under the sun. Erotic art is nothing new, it's just evolved to reflect new media.

I have some concerns that pornography can have an adverse effect on the inexperienced in that it may overly influence their tastes/expectations. But so do a lot of things.

When it comes to sexual partnerships, it's probably best if both people share similar interests/curiosities, etc. I have seen a few couples wrecked by their diverging sexual interests. In one case, a woman I know had to deal with her long-term boyfriend's escalating interest in pornography. He wanted to watch it with her almost every time they had sex, which wasn't previously the case. She had a pretty liberal attitude about pornography until it seemed to overwhelm her relationship - became the basis of their sex life. It made her feel like the sex was all about him.

I wouldn't blame him, necessarily. Frankly, he turned into a jerk. But in that instance, pornography had a negative influence on a relationship. Or maybe it was just their shifting interests. Maybe they were simply falling out of love.

You just have to like what you like and go with your instinct and find partners with similar desires or an open-mindedness about how one individually seeks his or her own pleasure, and how as a couple pleasure is mutually achieved. When it comes to porn, it's often to each her own. I can't claim to watch a lot of it (though I have watched some and enjoyed it too) and pornographic still images almost never do anything for me. But erotic art and writing very often strike a chord, because both are connected to the act of making or thinking about something erotic. Part of the stimulation is the thought behind what I'm reading or looking at.