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Cary, I wouldn't read Salon but for your column. I really need to know that others in my socioeconomic demographic are suffering too. But that said, you really went off the rails on this one.
The letter writer and porn sufferer's problem isn't really why she feels uncomfortable about porn. All sane women should feel uncomfortable about porn. Not because it's bad (it isn't--it's as necessary an evil as methadone). Women should and do feel uncomfortable with it because it's an alternative to one of the few priceless commodities that any woman (or man for that matter) possesses--the ability to provide one's body for sex. Put another way: to men, women are Starbucks, porn is Sanka. Does Sanka fill the bill all the time? Hell no. But in a pinch, you heat up the hot water and shovel some Sanka into the cup to get through the afternoon at the office. Get it?
Her problem is that the alternative to her commodity will (and should) always be there for men and women because there is an inexorable gap between what one needs in one's sexual life and what one can generally get from the world around them (through girlfriend's, wives, prostitutes, groupies, whatever you have access to). It may be a small or large gap, but there is almost invariably that gap. So her problem is how to somehow accept and deal with the reality of porn in her life. That is a tough one for some people. But that is what you needed to advise her on. Because porn will, and should, always be available, ubiquitous, cheap, and handy.
