Porn is not for everyone.

Porn is objectification.

Porn is not illegal (most of it, anyway).

Porn is frequently more of a problem than an asset.

What maters to each of us is how porn makes us feel and how it makes our partner feel. Replace "porn" with any other issue, and the discussion should spin on respecting our partner's wishes to not feel cheap, objectified, dirty. But mention porn and we Liberals feel like we suddenly have to defend all or nothing, just so we don't sound like some Right-wing moron. Well, neither one of us should feel awful about intimacy, we should be made to feel loved and respected if we are to share ourselves. Please keep that in mind before some of you go off on a rant about porn.

This, at last, is madness.

Brilliant, Cary. Just brilliant. You brought tears to my eyes with that last sentiment. Thank you for explaining the feelings porn evokes in me with such a unique clarity. You are absolutely right.

but let's set aside for a moment whether or not someone is being objectified or used or debased or whatever.

i like porn. i like my girlfriend. the two are not mutually exclusive. while i can (sort of) appreciate the letter writer's wish that she is the only woman her boyfriend finds attractive, i can tell her unequivocally that it isn't the case. you may (and for your sake i hope so) be the only one he loves. but for you to be the only woman he ever thinks is hot, or sexy, or desirable (be it only physically) simply isn't how men are wired.

before i get pilloried, i'm not suggesting that women are wired to only find one man attractive. i'm not a woman, so i have no idea. maybe yes, maybe no. beats me.

the letter writer's previous boyfriend used porn as a club to make her feel bad. that's bad. it's good that he's previous. if her current boyfriend just likes to watch it, and maybe even with her, then great. or maybe he prefers to watch it without her. that's ok too, as long as he doesn't end up preferring porn to her. that would be bad.

let me be the first to say that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. porn is too. unless one of you makes it something else.

You are being unrealistic. Victorian. Maybe what your being could even be considered retarded.

Excellent essay, Cary. Judging from the billions that the "industry" takes in every year, there's a lot of people on this particular form of crack. It ruins relationships. There's no way a real woman can compete with the hyper-sexualized images featured in porn.

I have never been able to fully articulate why porn makes me uncomfortable as well . . and Cary you really made some very very insightful, well articulated thoughts . . . all I can say is wow, and point to your response and say, "That's why it makes me uncomfortable." Thank you.

Porn does have danger and you don't have to be a fundiewacko or a humorless feminist to be uncomfortable with porn and how it affects you.

Re: the exploitation aspect of it, I've met several women in the sex trade (strippers, phone sex operators and call girls), and as a group they are the most emotionally fucked up people I've ever known. Yes, they are in the biz voluntarily, but most women (or men, for that matter) don't go into that kind of work unless they are damaged in some way.

Also, had to comment on this:

i'm not suggesting that women are wired to only find one man attractive. i'm not a woman, so i have no idea. maybe yes, maybe no. beats me.

No. No matter what your girlfriend tells you.

Watching porn is watching another person engage in sexual activity for your sexual gratification. In most porn, an actual, real live human being is engaging in real sexual activity for your gratification.

I don't see any reason why this shouldn't make a partner uncomfortable.

Most of us would be uncomfortable if our partners drilled holes in their neighbors walls to watch them have sex. We would probably also be uncomfortable if the neighbors invited our partners over to watch them have sex. Or if our partners decided to buy some pictures of our neighbors engaging in sexual activities. Why is it OK to not like our partners to get off on watching the neighbors but we can't object to our partners looking at porn? What's the difference?

Is it that we've convinced ourselves that the actors in porn aren't real people, therefore what our partners are doing aren't real? Oh, but they are real people. They are as real as your neighbors. They are real, live people doing sex acts for money and our partners are their clients.

That sure as hell makes me uncomfortable and I feel no shame in that whatsoever.

Thanks, Denise Riffle, for articulating what makes me so uncomfortable with porn (in practice, not in theory). I don't particularly care whether other people watch their neighbors have sex, and I'm not even sure why I don't want my boyfriend to watch our neighbors have sex. But I really, really don't! And in the same way, I don't want him to look at porn. It gives me the squeebies.

As a 55 year old man who has had many, many heterosexual relationships, and has been in one with a beatiful women for the last three years and counting, much more of my sex life lies in the past than in the future, I am sure.

Drawing on my own experience and that of friends and aquaintances, I would say that porn is rarely a force for good.

If viewing porn makes him more horny for you (best scenario), there is a danger that eventually he won't be able to become aroused without the porn.

If viewing porn becomes an alternative form of sexual release for him, then you (his female partner) will feel like crap.

If he gets off on both porn and you, which seems to be where you are now, maybe that is OK, but don't count on it staying that way.

The trouble is that the sexual arousal from porn is different from the sexual arousal of being with a woman. Let me explain.

Last week I saw a woman in the supermarket. First I saw a gorgeous butt, then I saw shiny hair, then I saw the curve of her waist, then smooth skin and bright eyes. Even though she was two checkouts away, I could actually feel myself approaching her, putting my hand on the curve of her waist, feeling the softness of her skin, the scent of her hair against my face, and I started to get aroused (just a bit). Then I said to myself, "get a grip, American, do you want to get arrested?"

But it isn't like that with porn, because porn is not one-on-one, it is not participatory. Porn is voyeurism, and while theoretically a man might equally enjoy regular one-on-one sex and voyeurism, chances are that over time he will favor one over the other. And that ain't good.

Most people, in my opinion, would improve their sex lives a lot by making love with the lights out and focusing on communication by touch, because once you learn to associate arousal with being touched in a certain way, rather than with visualizing certain images, you are more likely to become addicted to that form of arousal and to the partner who knows how to turn you on.