Porn is not bad, unless it is bad porn

Make no mistake about it, I am a feminist. I believe that my gender should have nothing to do with the opportunities available to me, nor should it impact my pay. In my mind freedom to choose does NOT mean every woman will become a CEO or a high paid corporate lawyer. I personally turned down a fast track career because of the impact it would have on my family and personal life. Does this make me less of a feminist? Some would say yes.. I betrayed the struggle of my sisters because I did not fulfill my corporate potential. Personally, I believe it makes me MORE of a feminist, because I had the freedom to choose my own path and chose a way that was important to me.
Even more controversial to many of my sister feminists? I love porn. I should clarify, I love great porn. Steamy, hot well filmed, well written porn that gets your panties into a twist from the first panting breath.

I know all the arguments that porn objectifies women and turns men into some sort of sexual addicts. Balderdash! I will agree that bad porn ( not bad because of the content, but bad because of the quality of the writing and production)- formulaic, trite and well, boring- demeans everyone who participates. Not because it transforms humans into living statues.. but because it turns off their brains.

Porn takes many forms, but the best of it engages the mind as well as the hormones.. each feeding the other into an ever rising spiral of orgasmic ecstasy. Bad porn can send even the strongest hormones crashing into the cellar as you sit and cringe at the painfulness of it.

I have better opinions of men than to think that some steamy pictures, a great movie that leaves you a bit drippy or a well written bit of erotica will turn them into some sort of de-evolved being unable to control their actions. Women manage to look at very hot men all the time without turning into rampaging herds of hormonal ninnies ( have you SEEN the latest clips for the new Bond movie??)-- why do we not credit men with the same capabilities?

Porn fills many roles. Some porn makes great background noise and sets a mood, some of it is just sheer amusement and makes me laugh. Some inspires, challenges or informs. Sometimes is is just the main event and makes you sit, mouth gaping and mind boggling. I have watched/listened to porn many ways; alone in the dark, with the man I love, with a group of friends,in hotel rooms and in the back of a van at a XXX drive in. I have listened to porn on tape driving long distances, while grocery shopping, or at the farmer's market(it is true.. you never know what is on the other person's iPod). I have never seen anyone have irristible urges to jump unwilling strangers after partaking of porn.

What annoys me most about porn? All the slimy low life marketers who try to latch onto it and layer ad after ad after mazed linked on top of it. I recently decided that having porn on the PSP while we had an adult only weekend and had lots of driving to do this weekend coming would be fun. I am Still trying to sort out the twisted history of links my browser wanted to hop through, and I still have nothing good to distract us across the miles. The fact that porn is viewed as just slightly above drug dealing in society means that every low life creeping element is attached to it and it is way more difficult to find decent porn than it should be.

What we really need is not less porn-- just less bad porn and easier to locate great porn.