As a society we are further from turning off the porn than we
have ever been. Pornography is everywhere - it masquerades as "gentlemen's
entertainment" in the form of clubs such as Spearmint Rhino, it infiltrates
advertising and it will soon be available in our back pockets, thanks to a
deal by adult entertainment giant Private Media Group to beam porn to UK
mobile phones.
In its hardcore form, pornography is now accessed in the UK by an
estimated 33% of all internet users. Since the British Board of Film
Classification relaxed its guidelines in 2000, hardcore video pornography
now makes up between 13% and 17% of censors' viewing, compared with just 1%
three years ago, a rate of growth that is being cited as a causal factor in
the recent bankruptcy of Penthouse, at one time the very apotheosis of porno
chic but in recent years little more risqué than Loaded. In the US, with the
pornography industry bringing in up to $15bn (£8.9bn) annually, people spend
more on porn every year than they do on movie tickets and all the performing
arts combined. Each year, in Los Angeles alone, more than 10,000 hardcore
pornographic films are made, against an annual Hollywood average of just 400
movies.
Pornography is not only bigger business than ever before, it is also more
acceptable, more fashionable, more of a statement of cool. From pieces "in
praise of porn" in the normally sober Prospect magazine, to such programmes
as Pornography: The Musical on Channel 4 last month, to Victoria Coren and
Charlie Skelton's book, published last year, about making a porn film, to
the news that Val Kilmer is to play the part of pornography actor John
Holmes in a new mainstream movie, there is a widespread sense that anyone
who suggests pornography might have any kind of adverse effect is laughably
out of touch. Coren and Skelton, former Erotic Review film critics, focus on
their flip comic narrative, scarcely troubling themselves with any deeper
issues. "In all our years of watching porn," they write, in a rare moment of
analysis that doesn't get developed any further, "we have never properly
resolved what we think about how, why and whether it is degrading to women.
We suspect that it might be. We suspect that pornography might be degrading
to everybody."
With pornography, it seems as if the sheer scale of the phenomenon has,
in time-honoured capitalist fashion, conferred its own respectability; as a
result, serious analysis is hard to come by. Only occasionally, amid
porn-disguised-as-documentary that distinguishes much of Channel 5's
late-night output, is there broadcasting that gives any kind of insight.
Channel 4's documentary Hardcore, shown two years ago, told the story of
Felicity, a single mother from Essex who travelled to Los Angeles hoping to
make a career in pornography. Arriving excited, and clear about what she
would not do - anal sex, double-vaginal penetration - she ended up being
coerced into playing a submissive role and agreeing to anal sex. Felicity -
the vicissitudes of whose own troubled relationship with her father were
mirrored by the cruelty of the men with whom she ended up working -
eventually escaped back to the UK.
Hardcore offered a rare, unadorned look at the inside of the industry, as
did Pornography: The Musical, albeit in a more surreal form, with actors
interrupting sex to break into song. Yet what about the millions who consume
pornography, the men - for they are, despite pornographers' claims about
growing numbers of female fans, mostly men - who habitually use it? How are
they affected? Is pornography, as most these days claim, a harmless
masturbatory diversion? That episode of Friends, albeit with tongue in
cheek, suggested a heavy diet of porn might encourage men inappropriately to
expect sex. Is that true? And what about more profound effects? How does it
affect relationships? Is it addictive? Does it encourage rape, paedophilia,
sexual murder? Surely tough questions need to be asked.
The received wisdom, pushed hard by such mass-market magazines as Loaded
and FHM, is that men derive a pretty uncomplicated enjoyment from
pornography. That, certainly, is the argument put forward by such proponents
as David Baddiel, AA Gill, who has directed his own pornographic film, and
the musician Moby, who once said in an interview, "I like pornography - who
doesn't? I don't really trust men who claim to not be interested in porn.
We're biologically programmed to respond to the sight of people having sex."
Danny Plunkett, then features editor of Loaded, takes an equally relaxed
view: "We know that a lot of people enjoy it and take it with a pinch of
salt. We certainly don't view it as dangerous."
But is it as simple as this? One of my best friends is a man for whom
pornography has apparently never held even the slimmest interest. Moby may
choose to distrust him, but his sex life otherwise has always seemed to me
perfectly robust. He is, however, so much in the minority as to seem almost
an oddity.
For most men, at some point in their lives, pornography has held a strong
appeal and, before any examination of its effects, this fact has to be
addressed. Like many men, I first saw pornography during puberty. At
boarding school, dog-eared copies of Mayfair and Knave were stowed behind
toilet cisterns; this borrow-and-return library system was considered
absolutely normal, seldom commented upon and either never discovered by the
masters or tacitly permitted. Long before my first sexual relationship, porn
was my sex education.
