The unbearable coolness of porn

Vancouver progressives are still pushing sexual exploitation as cool and edgy

I’ve spent over a decade embroiled in an ongoing battle with Vancouver wokes, once called hipsters (or desiring to be, at least…), perhaps better described as progressive urban elites.

It became apparent while I was in university, completing a women’s studies degree, that the most educated, most privileged, and most invested in social status — as well as those most commonly representing the left — were also deeply invested in viewing and promoting pornography and prostitution as cool, edgy practices that were not harmful to women, but potentially empowering.

This trend represented the beginning of today’s now-normalized “woke” politicking, wherein economic and social elites reframe reality (particularly the realities of the poor and traditionally marginalized) to suit their grad theses, business ventures, and political aspirations.

A little over ten years ago, I began to notice I was nearly alone in my view of things like prostitution and pornography as disturbing, harmful practices. Within the women’s studies departments that were being transitioned into “gender studies” departments, the common approach was to view the sex industry without “judgement” — one could not truly know the situation of every individual woman or girl in prostitution, so who is to say, for certain, whether she is personally happy or unhappy; exploited or not. Within the left, the fight had become focused on legalization — sex work was work, they said, and the question was one of labour rights and little more.

This was silly, to my mind, because no woman or girl in her right mind would “choose,” never mind enjoy, sex with strange men for money. It was an inherently dangerous, soul-destroying practice. And even if a few women did “choose” to sell sex, paying for sex is coercive – we all know that when people want to have sex with one another, they do it for free. No one needs to be paid unless one party is not enthusiastic about the sex.

Pornography, which is essentially filmed prostitution, could be viewed as a little more complex, in that sometimes people offer it up for free, and in that sometimes young women believe they enjoy the validation and sense of control they experience in selling men images of their objectified bodies. But when we are young, we believe (or tell ourselves that) we enjoy all sorts of things that aren’t good for us, that don’t promote self-confidence in the long term or a positive body image. Young women can choose to self-objectify if they like — I can’t stop them — but that doesn’t mean predatorial and unethical men should have the right to exploit youthful, misguided experiments in sexual empowerment. Just because a person offers something to you doesn’t mean you have to take it.

We know that the large majority of those who end up in the sex trade are either forced, literally enslaved, groomed into it through molestation and childhood abuse, or lead to sell sex out of desperation (poverty and addiction). The fact that middle and upper class hipsters living in Vancouver — one of the most expensive cities in the world — would fight so hard to normalize and celebrate sexual objectification, abuse, and exploitation on account of the fact it is either “chosen” (Good for you! What a great choice!) or compensated (as though exploitative or abusive practices magically become ethical if a person is paid) is shameful. These are people who, for the most part, would never be in a situation where they had to allow strange, repulsive men to pillage their bodies in order to survive. They are people who can afford the privilege of theorizing about such experiences, or pontificating about them on social media — using the emotional, mental, and physical scars branded onto other women as a means to gain social credit among their equally as elite and ignorant peers.

Regardless of what you know personally about the inner worlds of others, I have long wondered about the purpose of and motivation for normalizing the sex trade. Why is it important to convince others to accept practices that dehumanize us? Why is it important to learn to reject a visceral feeling of discomfort or disgust in an attempt to force acceptance or titillation?

What was once baffling has become more clear in our current world, wherein the very same characters who sold strip shows as edgy art, under the banner of “burlesque,” and who told us sex was simply a job like any other (you know, like being a barista but with a dick in your ass), are now telling us we must accept men in women’s change rooms, and drag performances for children. These elites are insisting we put every natural instinct and ethic aside — to put the material reality of sex and bodies aside — to squash discomfort and boundaries that have traditionally protected us, even subconsciously, in exchange for “non-judgement.”

While they may not realize it, these modern libertines are promoting a form of “open-mindedness” that allows abuse to thrive. They are creating safe spaces for predators. Men who waltz around naked in girls’ change rooms are innocent victims who we must pretend are not adult men at all, but just one of the girls — well-suited for a sleepover and a pillow fight — just like how men who happen to enjoy gangbangs and gagging women with their penises are just ethical employers, paying women fairly for a job well done.

This problem extends beyond the wokes of Vancouver, who are showing Deep Throat, the first truly mainstream porn film, at The Rio tonight. But the fact that this has been promoted and treated as a fun night out — vintage objectification! — is just one more thrust in this decades-plus project, wherein the haves get to have their evening of photo ops for Instagram — a means of convincing their boring, skinny boyfriends they are cool chicks, down for whatever, no boundaries, man, while those on the other end of the dick or camera or locker room or jail cell suffer the worst consequences.

Indeed, over a decade after the film came out, Linda Lovelace (born Linda Boreman), the “star” of Deep Throat, said she only did the film because her then-husband, Chuck Traynor, threatened her with violence. Lovelace testified at the 1986 Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography about the dangers of pornography, saying, “virtually every time someone watches that movie, they’re watching me being raped.”

This statement has been brushed aside by the same women thrilled at their power to me-too a local DJ on Facebook, but who engage their cognitive dissonance when it is politically, socially, or financially convenient. In their case, a sexual experience they regret or look back on as traumatic is cause for cancellation; but because Lovelace’s “regret” or retrospective trauma happened within the porn industry, it can be viewed guilt-free, reframed as sexual liberation.

The modern left has made commercialization and industry a get-out-of-jail-free card — yet another reversal in an endless series of mindfucks I hope we are beginning to see the consequences of.

I don’t know what will convince the wide-open-minded that we have not evolved past sex, boundaries, the trauma of sexual abuse, or self-respect, but I do hope I can convince a few women that their gut gives them good information: Yes, that is a man. No, you are not bigoted to want privacy. Yes, prostitution is an inherently harmful, inhumane practice. No, you are not uptight because you don’t enjoy watching a woman deep throat a series of dicks on screen. No, these people are not progressive — they are empty-headed narcissists and sociopaths trying to convince the world to give up the truth in favour of hedonism.

Don’t let these people dictate the new normal. Their “normal” is a charade — a shameful chapter for next century’s history books.