Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families

Ms. Paul feels that the debate about porn in the civic arena is stuck in the 1970s, oblivious to the rapidly deteriorating landscape around us. Most Americans now view pornography on a regular basis, and most of those viewers do not consider Playboy to be porn. Clearly something wild is afoot, something akin to a social earthquake or a drug epidemic. Porn today is far more intense, far more accessible, far more violent, and, yes, far more chauvinistic than anything we've had before, and we as a society are in denial. Pornography is now cool, and nobody dares transgress almighty cool. Somehow porn has progressed from the domain of dark-sunglasses-and trenchcoat-wearing loners to movie stars and A-list entertainers. Today it is cool for the male mind to gorge on the objectification of women, and decidedly uncool for women to complain. Paul's solution - "censure not censor" is a good one. For reasons from free speech to globalism in commerce, any large-scale prohibition of pornography is highly unlikely to have an impact on production or consumption. What is really needed, Paul argues, is good old-fashioned shame. As a culture we can regress in our crudeness. It has happened before.

After seeing Paul on C-Span, along with the president of the ACLU and some other authors, I knew I had to get this book. It's about time a serious journalist (and not someone with an agenda or an axe to grind) decided to examine the issue of pornography in society today. Not only is Paul's research incredibly thorough -- she had the Harris Poll do a nationwide survey and interviewed dozens of people froma wide range of backgrounds -- but she approached the subject in such a rational, methodogical way. (Which is amazing, given the insanity of some of what the people she interviews say). She not only interviewed men and women with a vast array of experiences -- both users and nonusers, fans and the disinterested, casual users and compulsive users -- but she got a diverse group in terms of background. It was nice to see an author who bothers talking to people other than just upper middle class white folks. The most impressive thing about this book was its objectivity in the face of a subject that gets people riled up beyond reason. Unlike some fanatical people on the far right and the far left, Paul sticks to the facts and leaves her political view (which is hard to discern) out of it. How refreshing! I'm sick of polemics masquerading as serious sociological works. My only wish is that she had written more about the impact of pornography on families and children. She only devotes one chapter to the subject, and while it is riveting and upsetting, it begged for more. I understand that the author wanted to beyond the usual "What about the children?" argument, but I still think it's a crucial issue and could have used another 30 pages or so on the subject. Overall, however, this is a much needed book and one that I would recommend to anyone, no matter what their opinion on porn is. I wouldn't be surprised if this were the book that finally opened the eyes of knee-jerk pro-pornography people who refuse to listen to any evidence that might shake their world view. Certainly, if someone I know starts nattering the same-old same-old rationalizations of porn, I'm going to buy them a copy of this book. It could only do them good.

For those who aren't into porn and don't want to be, this book is a helpful education. Paul manages to tell us what's really going on in porn without forcing us to walk hip-deep into the muck. She also makes it unblinkingly clear, both from important, documented studies and from porn watchers' own disclosures, that a steady diet of porn is indeed a slippery slope into worse and worse stuff. She provides the information needed to avoid getting sucked into the "it's just harmless fantasy" and free "speech" defenses while, at the same time, standing firmly against Puritanism and outright censorship as the only alternatives. Paul also makes it painfully clear that the kind of porn so easily accessible via the Internet today is nothing like the old Playboy centerfolds (which could be characterized as Hugh Hefner's endlessly adolescent fantasies). Today's horrifically hardcore stuff is distorting in the worst possible way even to adults but even more so to pre-teens and young teens just learning about sexuality. Saying that porn is an inevitable guy thing is like saying men truly believe they are helpless in the face of pornifed images, have no say in their fantasies or in what turns them on, that porn is the only way they know how to deal with repression and silence about sex, that what they learned at age 13 is good enough for the rest of their lives, or that they are incapable of distinguishing between the "forbidden" and their own internal standards. Even remaining totally within the realm of fantasy, it is perfectly legitimate to ask of porn advocates (ourselves or others), why would you even *want* to be turned on--even in fantasy--by the kinds of things porn purveyors produce? In the end, porn says virtually nothing about sexuality or the paid players. It says a whole lot, however, about the purveyors who for whatever reasons--some possibly even tragic--learned to associate and condition their own erotic feelings with degrading acts. And this association appears to be the monument to "speech" they wish to pass on to future generations. There are, of course, many additional aspects that are and could be discussed, and Paul's main points are that we need to stop putting our heads in the sand about the very real and negative effects this cynical and sometimes life-threatening activity is having on our lives and those of our children, that there are alternatives to the proliferation of this stuff, and that there are things we can do to bring about those alternatives.

I read this book to learn more about damaged relations between men and women (in the spirit of "He's Just Not that Into You"). Mission accomplished, and I learned more than I expected to. I knew pornography often screws the women on the receiving end--actresses and girlfriends and wives, but I didn't realize how much it victimizes men. A lot of shady people online and off are profiting like backstreet drug pushers. Paul's interviewees present compelling tales of how easy it is to go astray on the Internet, for porn and/or procrastination. I couldn't put this book down once I started to read it, because of their stories. Paul's handling is admirably sensitive--no wonder people felt so comfortable opening up to her--they were generous to do so, and I'm sure a lot of people will seek help because of their insights and the nightmarish ways in which they "bottomed out." I should note that not all of them did---this isn't a knee-jerk polemic. Paul doesn't advocate censorship, just a change of opinion and some brown paper. I recommend PORNIFIED to people who want to read behind-closed-doors accounts of the worst ways we tune each other out now.