Hardcore Porn-etry

Sex and sexuality are hot button topics. Not surprisingly, they are topics that also draw a lot of powerful sentiments out of people that have something of a long-distance relationship with reality. Opinions for the opposition can range from "porn is degrading for daring to depict women enjoying sex, causal or otherwise, and is a tool of men for oppressing women" to "The idea of porn isn't inherently offensive, but [porn needs to do more to depict love and caring/it's harmful for children, who need to be protected from its grasp/has some unfavorable side-effects that need to be dealt with/is too commonly used, and I'm running out of clean socks]".

                                     "Oh yeah; that's it. You like cuddling, you whore. You love your satisfying and loving relationship, don't you, you dirty girl?"

Rather than continue on with my normal style of critique, I've decided to give it another go in limerick form. I will return to this issue in time, once a certain article comes out from behind a journal's six-month embargo wall.

Porn, it would seem,
has a reputation unclean.
It seems innocuous at first,
but soon gets much worse,
making our sexuality mean.


"Those who watch porn",
the activists shout with scorn,
"will soon turn to rape
because of that tape,
and women will be left to mourn"


"While it might hurt your wrists,"
the research insists,
"There's no connection
between a porn-based erection,
and sex in which someone resists".


Still feeling the alarm
because porn just must do harm,
"Then the effects are more subtle,"
is the proffered rebuttal
"and leaves men with no sexual charm.


All those men will think,
when they catch some girl's wink,
that she likes it rough,
and she'll do all that nasty stuff,
without so much as a blink"


The research is taken aback
by this newly formed attack.
It seems a lot like the last,
as if formulated too fast
and delivered by a similar quack


"It sounds like you're reaching,
in the service of preaching.
Before you celebrate,
you'd be well-served to demonstrate
that it's actually the porn doing the teaching


It seems reasonable,
or, at the very least, conceivable,
that porn's not to blame
and is far more tame
than you feel is believable.


If people can tell the difference between
reality and the porn on a screen,
they are capable of inquiring
about what their partner is desiring,
instead of relying on a fantasy sex scene"


Perhaps there's some underlying reason
for this open porn-hunting season:
If decided by a cognitive system,
that "porn harms" is the dictum
Other ideas may as well be treason.