Pornography isn’t what it used to be.
Maybe it is, but it’s sure not in the same places. As porn makes its way through society, finding a home on MySpace.com and “On Demand” cable and creating cultural icons such as porn star Jenna Jameson, it has become a more visible part of American lives. One local pastor is asking if we have become desensitized to this “pornification,” or is the overload making us desensitized to each other?
“Pornography offers sex without commitment,” said pastor Sean McCartin of the Eastside Faith Center in Eugene.
McCartin is giving a two-week series titled “Porn Sunday,” in which he explores the growing presence of porn in society and its effects on culture.
Many college students would cheer at the idea of no-strings-attached sex, but McCartin says it can lead to serious issues. He refers to a person’s risk-free relationship with porn as “a fantasy that clouds your reality.”
Craig Keith, 33, was an extra in a porn movie titled “Frat House Fuckfest 2” and worked at adult stores in both Eugene and Albany, Ore. He said porn can be a healthy part of both sexual relationships and individual sexuality, and he thinks it has the opposite effect of desensitization.
Porn: healthy or addictive?
The porn industry has proven to be ugly, sexy and a lucrative business, but when does healthy become dangerous and choice become addiction?
While McCartin said there is a wide array of effects of the growing presence of porn in society, he focuses on three in particular for his sermon.
The first is desensitization to sex. He said porn numbs people. Consumers continue to desire more, turning from soft- to hard-core pornography.
McCartin said this increase in a person’s need for porn leads to declining interest in maintaining human relationships. McCartin said a person can lose compassion for others, especially women.
Derek Johnson, a sex addiction expert for AllExperts.com, supports McCartin’s opinion in an online post he wrote about porn addiction.
“Not only is it highly addictive but it is highly destructive to how men view women. It causes them to see women as objects for their personal gratification,” Johnson wrote.
The third point of McCartin’s sermon deals with a person’s decline in “sexual imagery,” which he said most people would think has the opposite effect. Porn makes it more difficult for a man to stay excited during sex after being repeatedly exposed to pornographic images, he said.
“Viagra probably loves pornography because more and more men are becoming impotent because of those images,” McCartin said, adding he counsels couples who have gone through broken relationships, emotional adultery and guilt as a response to porn obsessions.
McCartin said he and his church are supporters of sex between couples, which can be very powerful.
“We don’t want to come across as prudish and sexually oppressed,” he said. “It’s just when it gets out of the boundaries it becomes distorted.”
Keith, who now lives in Las Vegas, doesn’t believe porn is distorted, but he said it can be part of a healthy sexual relationship and is something he and his wife enjoy together.
“It’s so mainstream these days,” he said. “It’s got its place (because) people have been making it for a long time. People aren’t going to stop making some version of pornography.”
Keith and his wife decided to be in a pornographic movie when they visited a friend in Los Angeles who worked in the advertising department of a porn company. The couple played extras in the film and neither partook in the on-screen sex.
“It was kinda dumb, kinda funny and kinda eye-opening all at once,” he said.
Technology: The new porn medium?
McCartin said in addition to the growing porn film industry, the Internet is a huge medium for pornographic viewing.
“The Internet and explosions in technology have been utilized by porn like no other technology,” he said. He said 60 percent of all Web sites are pornographic.
With the increasing infiltration of porn on the Internet, people are exposed to these images more often and at a younger age. McCartin said the average age of a male’s first encounter with porn is five years old.
Overexposure can lead to addiction, McCartin said, an addiction Johnson believes can be as strong as drugs.
“An orgasm releases the exact same chemicals in the pleasure center of the brain that heroin does. So as the man floods the pleasure center of the brain with these chemicals, he bonds and becomes attached to whatever it is that was the cause. In this case porn,” he wrote.
McCartin believes technological advances don’t only supply pornography, but encourage its use with the promotion of instant gratification, whether it’s news or sexual release.
“Our culture is speeding up (and) we’re used to stuff fast and now,” he said, adding many people have become slaves to their impulses. “You don’t have to masturbate every time you feel like it.”
An important part of a healthy sexual relationship is being patient and respective of your partner’s needs, even if that means waiting until they want to have sex, he said.
“Unfortunately porn has become something that is more and more accepted in the world today. Men, and some women, think it is something to be thought of as ‘normal’ and acceptable and even healthy,” Johnson wrote.
While Keith agreed with McCartin’s belief that sexual partners need to be respectful of each other, he said if both partners are interested in porn, “it can be very cool” and educational.
“It depends on your partner 100 percent, like my wife. She probably buys more (porn) than I do,” he said.
Keith said he does think that with the widening-array of porn out there, parents should keep a better eye on their children by installing filters and blocks on their computers and televisions.
Women: Victims or empowered?
With respect to how porn portrays women, Keith said from his experience working at adult stores, he thinks women aren’t portrayed as sexual objects as much as they used to be, a trend he sees continuing with the power women are gaining in the porn industry.
“Some girls might make more in one scene than guys do in one or two movies,” he said, adding women are in control of what they are and aren’t willing to do, unlike in the past, when women often had no say.
Producers such as Jenna Jameson are making big money behind the camera as well; meaning the business of porn is becoming more profitable as it becomes more mainstream. Jameson has become a household name, and Forbes.com reports Jameson made millions on-screen and plans to make millions more with her Web site and new film releases.
McCartin understands how much money the porn industry makes, and he doesn’t expect them or the legislature to do anything to change it. He hopes people will turn away on their own and adapt a healthy view of sex.
“I don’t want college students to get burned out,” he said. “They have their whole sexual future ahead of them.”
Pastor McCartin’s second installment of “Porn Sunday” will be given this Sunday at both 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. at the Eastside Faith Center, located one block west of Autzen Stadium, on the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Centennial Loop.
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