Our Fault

For every loved one that finds themselves behind bars for illegal activity involving pornography, it's our fault. For every person that finds themselves kidnapped, exploited or raped as a means to supply demand in the pornographic world, it's our fault. For every person that loses the love of their life due to an unhealthy attachment to porn, it is our fault. It is our fault as a society. For every day that we as a society allow pornography to thrive, and every day that we normalize its existence in many of the forms it takes, I believe it's another day we allow the chaos of an unhealthy amount of lust to run freely and become acted upon. Another day that we give it a reason to be acted upon.

For example, without the existence of pornography, I believe the amount of sex trafficking would begin to die down. Those who absurdly attempt to profit off of the exploitation of another human being would meet much less demand and therefore less profit without the pornographic world. Not only that, but it's not every day that somebody is personally connected with a ring of sex traffickers. It is, however, every day that somebody is perusing the internet for a sexually appealing video on the pornographic side of the internet. That said, without the pornographic world, sex traffickers would find it much harder to even find those to supply to, and it would become much more of a dangerous game for them to find someone to supply to. As it is, all they have to do is click record and they'll have an entire web of people to supply to, and those they supply to won't always realize the truth of what's happening. In fact, many of the pornographic videos across the web aren't as consensual as they may seem. Without the internet openly being an easy way for sex traffickers to supply to the people safely, sex trafficking would die down as the easy access to demand would die down.

Also, without the pornographic world, our children and other loved ones will lose easy access to the individuals or communities on the internet that encourage the actions that will land them in trouble. Impressionable groups of people browse the internet every day. Lust seeps into the mind, planting temptation. This very temptation can lead all sorts of groups of people to follow the breadcrumbs of sexual content, eventually leading them to find these individuals/communities. Without pornography, there is no breadcrumb trail. With the abolishment of all pornography, these individuals/communities lose their safe space to spread unhealthy and troubling encouragement or normalization of certain actions.

Our own children scour the internet every day and it is impossible for us to supervise every action they take upon it. What would you do if your own child got involved with the wrong groups of people with the wrong ideology, and you wake up one day to your child being locked in prison for the actions they then took? What would you do if your daughter was raped or exploited because somebody else's child was reassured by the pornographic world that its perfectly fine and/or normal to commit such acts? What would you do if your wife was filmed unknowingly and an “upskirt” video of her resided somewhere on the internet because pornography normalized this behavior?

I believe that the dangers and risks to ourselves as well as our loved ones are on the rise every single day that porn is allowed to exist. If we'd come together as a society and normalize simple masturbation without the need for perverse imagery, I believe mental health would improve worldwide. The anxiety, guilt, depression and consequences of the pornographic world would erase itself from our societies. Not only would we benefit from the erasure of these cons of pornography, but we'd introduce more and more of our society to the pros of masturbating without the use of pornography.

Without the use of pornography, there's the decrease in addictive dependency. The release of dopamine is no longer tied to the imagery of pornography and erases the desire to return. Not only to return, but the desire to return more and more until you find yourself desensitized. The slippery slope of desensitization is a vast and dangerous one. To add to the benefit of using your own imagination, you truly find out about your own desires. Chances are, those desires will be much healthier and much safer than that which can be assigned to you by a pornographic video. It also decreases the likelihood to have unrealistic expectations when it comes to sex.

Furthermore, porn use has commonly been linked to an increase in one's own anxiety levels as well as depression. Forgoing porn, you free yourself from these troubles. The list of benefits of masturbation without pornography goes on. I encourage anybody who reads this to give it a go and encourage us as a society to let go of pornography entirely.

With the dangers of sex trafficking, exploitation, influence, spike in anxiety and depression, erectile dysfunction and more, I could go on and on about the many ways we are letting ourselves down as a society every day that we allow the pornographic world to have a place in our web browsers and social media. If we truly wish to keep our loved ones safe, whether they're the consumers or the ones found within the videos/pictures, I believe we must abolish the idea of pornography altogether. Otherwise, it will all continue to be our fault.