Don’t Blame Porn When A Man Can’t Keep His D*ck In His Pants

No, just. No.

Pamela Anderson is currently in the news for co-authoring a piece for the New York Times.

That’s not surprising. Pamela Anderson is a great writer. If you didn’t know that, that’s fine, sexism has a way of convincing us that beautiful sexy women can’t also have ideas and brains. 

Unfortunately that’s where my defense of Anderson ends today. That’s because of the meat of her article is about the evils of porn. More specifically, how porn is to blame for Anthony Weiner’s repeated sexting that led to the end of his marriage to Clinton advisor Huma Abedin.

That’s right, porn is to blame for a grown man violating his relationship with his wiferepeatedly and then lying about it not just to his partner but to the public whom he sought to represent in office.

I want to make one thing very clear before we go on: I don’t care that Anthony Weiner sent sexts to other women.

I don’t even care that he was married when he did it. A relationship between two people is only defined by the people in it, it’s not my business to question her reasons for staying or his reasons for seeking out sexual titillation. As a resident of New York, I only care that he lied about it. Not once. Not twice. Not even three times. But constantly.

Is it sex addiction? No, because sex addiction isn’t real. Is it because of the evils of porn? Absolutely not. Sorry, Pam.

Men have objectified and sexualized women since cavemen painted on walls. Our sexual grooming is defined by what we see in porn, but it’s not how we view all sex. Sure, if porn is your first introduction to sex, you’re in for a reality crash landing, but so is every single person whose introduction to romantic love came courtesy of romantic comedies. Porn may be real sex, but it is not in the market of selling “real”.

I think it’s dangerous to tacitly excuse Wiener’s behavior as a byproduct of porn and our sex-obsessed culture. It’s same kind of thinking that people apply to rape cases, this ridiculous notion that men just can’t help themselves. 

I was raised by a great man, I have great brothers and great male friends. While I believe the patriarchy to be a huge problem in this country (and the world) I also know in my soul that men can be kind, smart, respectful, leaders of their communities.

I think men can watch porn in the same way I do, for stimulation and release.

Then they can go out into the real world and be a person. I watch porn regularly, but you won’t find me sending out sexts (much to my boyfriend’s consternation I am sure).

It’s good and right to worry about where your porn comes from. It’s going to sound ridiculous, but I’m pretty rigorous about where my porn comes from. I may not be able to shut down every operation featuring underage, abused, mistreated and even enslaved women, but I can do my due diligence to make sure that those sites don’t get my money.

But to ban all porn, or blame porn for bad choices? No. 

Watching porn is normal. It’s also always existed. Even in the ruins of Pompeii there are dirty drawings on the wall. Our society isn’t becoming more sex-obsessed, we’ve always been that way, and it isn’t obsession, it’s integral to how we’re made.

We’re sexual creatures with normal natural desires. We can be that way and be good people. I don’t understand why this is so hard to put into practice. 

Pamela Anderson shouldn’t blame porn for Anthony Weiner’s penis sexting problem. She should blame Weiner. It’s so important that we stop letting men off the hook based solely on dangerous gendered stereotypes.

We’re not just doing them a disservice, we’re hurting ourselves too.