We could actually use a little more shame around sex

We don't live in a 'sexually repressive culture,' we live in a culture where anything goes, and it's gone too far

Last week, I asked “Why keep porn?” — a question that provoked many responses, mostly angry. I’ve been in this game a long time, so this was no surprise. Challenges to the sex trade have always inspired vicious responses, now so predicatable to have become tedious.

People often respond citing fear of censorship — should we also ban nude paintings? Erotic novels? Sex scenes in movies? I am told we cannot simply “ban” what “offends” me. Where will it end, they say?

I think anyone who has followed me over the past few years knows I am a free speech advocate. I have challenged feminists, the left, Big Tech, mainstream media, and the Canadian government on their authoritarian, hypocritical, and illiberal approach to free speech and civil liberties, more broadly. I have argued against hate speech laws, and in favour of open debate. As a result, some are surprised to discover I am a critic of the sex trade. In fact, while it may not a realistic aim, my preference would be that it didn’t exist at all.

But the sex trade isn’t the only problem. A hedonistic, immature, reactive embrace of a sexually libertarian ethos has overtaken our culture in recent decades.

I am no fundamentalist. I have no religious or right wing background. I was raised in a Marxist household that deemed organized religion bad. I identified as a feminist from the time I knew what the word meant. What I see is an amoral approach to sex and sexuality wherein anything deemed “sex” cannot be touched. I am told we live in a “sexually repressive culture” (we don’t, we live in a porn culture), allowing criticisms of everything from “queer culture,” to trans activism, to drag, to strip clubs, to BDSM, to prostitution, to porn to be framed as “anti-sex.”

I am not “anti-sex” (this is a nonsense term, really — what person is “against” sex?) I am anti-bad sex. I am anti-endangering women and children. I am anti-turning violent, abusive, or degrading practices into “free expression.” I am anti-pressuring girls into believing they must send nudes, have anal sex, and tell boys they think being choked is hot. I am anti-faking it. I am anti-men being gross in public. And I am, yes, anti-porn.

While I am not suggesting we literally police the bedrooms of others, I am suggesting that being completely open-minded and non-judgemental of anything labelled “sex” is not a good thing. I don’t think it is a good thing that single women are expected to sell themselves to strangers on dating apps and social media. I don’t think it’s a good thing that Instagram is so full of pornography it is unavoidable, even to people like me who would prefer to avoid it. I don’t think it is a good thing that parents are bringing their children to drag shows where men in stilettos parade down runways, pausing to accept dollar bills in their g-strings. I don’t think it’s a good thing that the Pride parade has turned into a parade of fetishes, wherein furries, BDSM fanatics, and autogynephilic men have received the blessing of progressive politicians and the public alike to take their private sexual habits out onto the street, as if anyone needs to know what gets you off. And I definitely don’t think it’s good that a multi-billion dollar sex industry that sees hundreds of thousands of women and girls exploited and abused around the world is treated as a necessary form of free expression.

There should, in fact, be limits on sex and sexuality, because this is an arena wherein people — women and children in particular — can too easily be hurt, left traumatized or damaged for life.

Sex advice columnist Dan Savage coined the phrase, “Good, Giving, and Game,” to encourage partners to be up for anything (within reason), a practice I always thought made little sense for women in particular. Being “game” for whatever a man suggested in the bedroom would surely lead to women having to endure uncomfortable, degrading, or painful sexual fantasies, brought to life. As much as we like to pretend women and men are no different, they really are. Men are the primary consumers of pornography, as well as the main perpetrators of sexual crimes. Men are the dangerous sex, I’m afraid, and the most likely to have perversions and fetishes that go too far.

I’m reminded of the women I’ve heard describe partners who became interested in “tranny porn,” leading them to start cross-dressing in the bedroom, which led to wearing women’s clothes in public, and eventually culminated in a desire to “transition” to become a “woman.” These are women who wanted to be supportive of their husbands — accepting, non-judgemental, game for anything. These women are left heartbroken as their partner descends so deeply into his fetish that it becomes his life.

I think of the women who believe that if they watch porn with their boyfriends it can be a together pastime instead of a secret happening behind closed doors — that they can avoid feeling betrayed, offended, or disgusted by the fact their partner is masturbating to “barely legal” porn wherein a “dad” fucks a “naughty babysitter” (you know how girls are). If they participate, these women can convince themselves it is not deeply disrespectful when a partner engages in sex acts with strange young women — women who are being used up by a predatory industry that will take whatever they can get, and push these girls as far as they possibly can — well past their limits — regardless of physical or psychological impact. They can convince themselves this isn’t a betrayal or a red flag, indicating that her partner doesn’t have healthy sexual boundaries. It’s perfectly normal — just a fantasy. And sexual fantasies are healthy and must not be shamed, we are told.

I’ll be honest: men feeling a little more shame about their sexual behaviour wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

The idea that one should indulge every sexual fantasy they have is insane, nevermind dangerous. A man who is masturbating to “barely legal” porn is a man who is sexualizing girls. A man who is getting his orgasms by watching a woman be choked and called a “whore” is a man who is turned on by abusing women. And while people may think all kinds of things, turning those things into real life practices and routines is a whole different story.

Men who consume pornography have no idea what is really happening on the other side of the screen, and no matter how many times you repeat “consenting adults,” the truth is that abuse and exploitation is rampant in the sex trade. At very least the woman you are watching is faking pleasure and at most she is being physically hurt and psychologically damaged.

Pornography is not a fantasy, nor is it “speech.” It is real sex acts happening to real human bodies.

Men need sexual boundaries and so do women. For their own mental health and wellbeing, as well as for those around them. While it would be nice if we didn’t need to worry about sexual abuse, rape, pedophiles, and other forms of sexual exploitation, that’s not the world we live in, nor will it ever be (sadly). This is why we place limits on what children may “consent” to, relationships between minors and adults, what even adults are allowed to do to one another (primarily, what constitutes “consent”), who is allowed to access women’s change rooms and washrooms (we did place limits on this, in any case, before trans activism rendered those protections meaningless), and what adults are allowed to do in public, in terms of nudity or sexual behaviour.

Things like pornography, for example, are not private pastimes. We are talking about a huge industry and we are talking about videos and imagery that are sold to the public. We are not talking about fantasies that exist within your head, we are talking about real, live humans performing real sex acts, on film, for money. The idea that an industry that creates media that is readily available across the internet to anyone with access to the internet, including children, is simply “a fantasy” or a matter of “free speech” is nonsense. A fantasy is a thing that remains in your mind and speech consists of words. Anal sex is not speech, and it does not magically become speech when you film it and sell it for profit.

“Anything goes” has created a culture lacking in empathy — wherein whatever any individual desires must be indulged, lest they experience “repression.” Mature adults have boundaries, and a responsible society doesn’t turn the other cheek while adult men take their dicks out in women’s change rooms or while girls are “broken” on screen so a man (or a thousand men) can have an orgasm.