Ah, porn.Everyone’s got an opinion about it.

If you recall, I ran a letter from a woman who didn’t know whether she should tell her former semi-friend about the former semi-friend’s fiancé’s incest-porn habit, and I asked the readership to weigh in — would you tell Debbi, in that situation?What if you considered Debbi a closer friend?And what does using porn mean, if anything, in a larger sense?

Well, almost none of you thought Amethyst Jones should tell Debbi how Larry gets his jollies.Why not?Let’s go to the videotape:

“Debbie will think she is lying and trying to break them up (never mess with a chick in a long-distance relationship).”

“Debbi seems like a nightmare — it seems as if she might have some serious hang-ups about sexuality given her reaction to A’s orientation.”

“I just find these two people really distasteful and would not want to get involved in their problems.”

“It’s not Amethyst’s job to decide this for the two of them.”

“Telling Debbi will cause a lot of uncomfortable all around and while you might be willing to suffer that in the name of clueing in a friend who is about to make a big mistake, you might not be willing to spend weeks or months of housemate and workmate hell because it felt nice to get back at the girl who pissed you off.”

“Debbi would not appreciate hearing it from anyone else and would probably believe Larry if he denied it.”

“Let them work it out, they deserve each other.”

“I’d probably confront Larry directly and leave it up to him to confront her.”

A couple of people thought that Amethyst should tell Debbi, because what if she and Larry get married and have kids and Larry molests the kids, but the vast majority of you said not to — it’s Debbi’s problem, she probably knows already (or senses) that Larry likes this kind of thing, and it’s not Amethyst’s place to get involved.

Almost all of you also agreed that Larry needed to confine his predilections to his own computer, to wit: “Larry, by the way, would be getting a colour print-out of that site with his login on it pasted to his door with the word ‘DORK’ printed on it in black marker.”Heh.Word.

I got about what I expected in terms of the question about porn itself — does it say something about you if you use it?And if so, what?Some of you think that it’s no big deal as long as nobody gets hurt and it’s not used every day; some of you think that it’s fine, as long as both partners know what’s up and it’s not a hidden skeevy kind of a thing.Some of you think it can enhance a sexual relationship; some of you think consuming porn without telling your partner is on par with cheating, others of you don’t care as long as it’s not, you know, sheep.Some of you think that regular old porn is okay, but porn involving kids and/or family members is gross and wrong.Some of you think that fantasizing about something gross and wrong is okay, as long as it stays in the realm of fantasy, but others of you pointed out that, often, consumers of particularly stringent porn have trouble separating the fantasy from the reality.A few of you think it’s pathological, period.In other words, nothing new under the sun — everyone looks at it differently.

I’ve already weighed in on the question of whether Amethyst should confront Debbi with what she knows, and here’s how I feel about the porn itself.Porn doesn’t bother me.I used to proofread for Penthouse, so obviously it’s not something that I find offensive.But the industry itself is often abusive and ugly — many of the actors in porn films, especially women in het porn, have sexual abuse in their pasts; the Linda Lovelace case, in which the star of Deep Throat alleged that her manager and co-stars had drugged and raped her repeatedly in order to get her to perform; the sheer amount of pharmaceuticals that it takes some of these actors to get through a day on the set, and I don’t mean Astroglide, either.Not to get all MacKinnon about it, because I don’t think porn on its own is bad, and I suspect that we can blame a lot of the industry’s seediness on repressed attitudes about sex in our culture…but it doesn’t operate in a vacuum, and I personally have a hard time putting the behind-the-scenes stuff out of my head.Anyway, bottom line: I don’t find it offensive, and I don’t think less of anyone who uses it in moderation.Like so many other things about sex, it’s only as big a deal as you let it be.

But any porn involving children?Fucked up.Period.It’s one thing to ask your girlfriend to dress up in a wool kilt and kneesocks and no undies and do the “teacher, I’ve been a baaaad bad girl” thing while sucking on a lollipop, but if you’re looking at naked pictures of seven-year-olds and getting aroused, you need help.That is sick and wrong.And if you enjoy snuff films, you need to stop and think about that, because that’s…really far out there.REALLY far.Too far.

And now, transmitting live from the minds of the TN readership…

“I don’t want to know, at all, what kind of porn my friends look at — goat porn, brickmason porn, underwater bowling porn, who cares.”(Hee.”[Bamp chicka bamp bamp.Splash.]Hey, Crystal — wanna polish my ball?”)

“Maybe Larry is confused.Maybe he thinks that because the writer works with Larry as well as living in the same house, being at home and being at work are exactly the same.So the problem may be just a case of blatant stupidity.”

“I mean, we can all LOOK at stuff once in a while, but it’s hard to see how that matters unless it means you start accosting goats in real life.Then it’s pretty much grody.” (Now I’ve got a mental picture of a herd of goats, bleating in mortal terror and galloping away from a leering man with his hand down his pants.Snorf.No offense to the goats in the crowd, of course.)

“I find the issue of him using her stuff more disturbing than what he was looking at. Who knows what he’s done with her toothbrush!”(Ew.Really.)

“Animals and kids (both as the viewer and the subject) — EW!” (Totally!Wait…huh?Animals as viewers of porn?Okay, Hobey.Hand over the Sex Kittens 5 tape.You have a problem.)

“The only thing that porn says about a person is, ‘I like porn.’So.I like chocolate.And Jude Law.Mmmm…Jude Law covered in chocolate….Wuh?Oh, right.Porn.”

Dear Sars,

Your site fairly rocks, and so on.

I’ve got a tiny problem; my roommate is a jackass. She moved in at the command of Residence Life, so I’m stuck with her until the end of the year.

She’s completely histrionic, and never shuts up about her perceived problems.I sort of feel sorry for her, because she is a freshman and college can be a big adjustment.However, I can’t take her constant bitching about how much she hates her sorority, or whether or not this one guy likes her.I feel like I woke up in the middle of a particularly bad episode of Dawson’s Creek, and I’ve never liked teen dramas anyway.The other night she was on the phone at 4
a.m. for at least an hour, despite the fact I had told her I had to be up at 7:30 for class.Today she has been constantly going around complaining about everything, and talking about dropping out.She didn’t even shut up, or at least curse more quietly, when I was on the phone with my grandmother.I just think it’s a tad bit impolite to be yelling fuck when somebody’s talking to their 90-year-old grandmother, or having a hissyfit on the phone at four in the morning.

How can I get her to act like a semi-normal person, or failing that, restrain myself from killing her?Sorry for rambling, but thanks to Drama Girl I got no sleep last night.

Sincerely,
Considering slipping Valium into my roommate’s food

Dear Considering,

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times.In order for relative strangers to live peacefully together, said strangers have to sit down and have a blunt conversation about their differing schedules, social styles, and habits.

It’s one thing if she’s just annoying, but if she can’t keep her trap shut while you talk on the phone, or at any other time, well, it’s time to talk to her.Come up with a schedule you both can live with — what you consider “quiet hours” in the room; rules of phone etiquette, like taking messages and keeping quiet when the other person is on a call; whose stuff goes where, and whether you care if she touches your stuff.You’ll have to compromise a little bit; so will she.It’s part of living with other people.But you have to lay it out for her, because she’s clearly hint-proof.

I survived nine months in a twelve-by-twelve box with another bossy-ass Aries my freshman year because she and I got to the room on the first day of school, dumped our stuff, ditched our ‘rents, went to lunch, and spent two hours talking about exactly that kind of shit.”I’m probably going hog the phone ’cause I’ve got a boyfriend in Ohio.””Okay, no big.I have to stay up late a lot ’cause I’m in the engineering program and we have a ton of homework.””Okay, cool, because I stay up pretty late myself.And you can have people over, I don’t really care — just don’t let them touch my crap.You can touch my crap, though, if you want.””Yeah, you can touch my crap too if you need to.Except don’t use my hairbrush, because that creeps me.””No hairbrush, got it.Also, I need to have a window open when I’m sleeping.”We found that bluntness helped, too.”Sar.Bring another boy over here when I have a problem set due the next day and we’re fighting with knives in the courtyard.””Okay, sorry.Hey, that reminds me — get my sweater that you borrowed dry-cleaned or I’ll beat you with my shoe.””Okay, sorry.”

Roommates of the world, listen up.You have to TELL PEOPLE when they bug.You don’t have to scream or get nasty, but you have to tell them, because if they knew they bugged, they would have stopped bugging already.”Hey, dude?Can you…not?Do that?Because it kind of bugs.”And if someone tells you that you bug, or have bugged on certain occasions, or need to work on managing your bugging in some area, don’t take it personally.It’s about the living situation, not about you, and there’s no need to get snitty and take it personally.”Sorry, dude, I didn’t know that bugged.”Just use common sense and common courtesy.Speak nicely.Don’t assume, sulk, seethe, or glare.Ask.Talk.It’s not that hard.

[10/31/01]

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