Porn Normal?

That's the title of today's trend report released by scenarioDNA, which basically covers the mainstreaming of porn trend that's been simmering since VH1 began uncovering the rock and rap connection to porn. It's weird to see this issue, which I see as a huge cultural issue and indicator of how completely screwed up this country is around sexuality, represented as a pure marketing trend. You see it in everything now from the poses girls strike in their sexy MySpace pics, to the artsy campus porn mags, to the Paris Hilton Carl's Jr. commercial. Today I spotted this item from Reality Blurred about the nationwide casting call happening for the Pussycat Dolls reality show set to premiere on the CW.

I think there is massive confusion between young women feeling empowered or good about their bodies vs. showing them off in way that mirrors a pretty male-defined porn standard in order to feel powerful or power over the teen guys they hope to attract. The flipside is girls doing it just to impress guys and not feeling any sense of empowerment at all (false or not), which feels sad to me.

The "porn normal" climate in pop culture right now begs for cultural critics and media literacy advocates to continue to dissect why this is happening as well as activists to put forth a new vision of what it means to look and feel sexy as well as a new dialogue around healthy sexuality for teens. This leads me to a Slate article that's been making the rounds in the blogosphere, which attempts to argue the reasons for the increase in teens having oral sex from an economist's perspective. The article argues that teens have been so inundated with sex ed that emphasizes the risks of unprotected sex, that they have resorted to oral sex as a safer alternative. The article also states:

"Wherever and whenever abortion-notification laws have been passed, gonorrhoea rates in the teenage and adult populations start to diverge. When it becomes more troublesome to get an abortion, teenagers seem to cut back on unprotected sex….[suggesting] that teenagers believe one of the most serious consequences of an unwanted pregnancy is that their parents will find out. If teenagers are avoiding unsafe sex, it may not be for the best reasons."

I would add some cultural factors to this very rational explanation of why this may be happening - 1) the "porn normal" culture that encourages having sex for the sake of having sex (i.e. less as part of a relationship and more to fulfill one's own desires and fantasies) and is influencing younger and younger teens/tweens 2) the rise of evangelical Christianity, which tends to be on the repressive side when it comes to discussing sexuality, promotes chastity, and leads to lots of these teens doing everything but. Finally, the lack of honest, realistic discussion of teen sexuality at home, school or in the culture paired with teens' raging hormones, leads to doing it for all the wrong reasons.

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