Why I Don’t Like Porn
I Don’t Like Porn.
I don’t watch or consume it. But then again I don’t like breast implants, or junk food, or athletes taking performance enhancing drugs.
I prefer bodies that are natural, food that is cooked at home with love, and athletes who don’t cheat
I’m a lover of all things authentic, and porn isn’t authentic.
I don’t like the fact that I discovered a stack of Playboy magazines when I was 10 years old and that was my first introduction to sex, and the damage it did to me.
I don’t like how much porn I watched as a teenager and in my 20s and the damage it did to my mind and spirit.
I don’t like the artifice of porn and how it rarely if ever looks like or feels like real sex.
I don’t like the carnage that porn has done to the culture-especially the sexuality of young men.
What I like the least about porn is how dominant it’s become in the public expression of sex. Often it’s the only visual expression of sex that anyone can ever see in the public sphere- which is like junk food being the only food available to buy outside of your home.
Porn has so sucked the oxygen out of the room that most people can no longer tell the difference between porn and any other depiction of nudity or sex. And I find that tragic.
Porn has left very little room to operate for artists interested in making sexual art. It gives license to sex-negative conservative forces to ban art on Facebook and other social media. It gives an excuse to credit card processors and many other service providers to refuse service, etc.
Many people have attempted to label my work as porn, which I always consider an insult- as I would if they accused the meal I took hours preparing for you of being frozen food from the grocery.
I photograph authentic people having authentic, natural sex without shame or apology. I do it as an artist with all my training and instincts and 35 years of experience. I do it as my own unique expression of my self, from my own world view. with my own critique attached. There is never any attempt to arouse or titillate. My models are volunteers, no money is ever exchanged.
I don’t blame pornographers for the prevalence of porn- I blame artists. If more artists had the courage to make sexual art, the public would have a healthier alternative to porn and the culture would have a more balanced and mature sexuality.
But In my experience, despite the weird clothing and rebellious affectations, artists are no more sexually liberated than any other segment of the population.
So I appeal to the minority of artists who are sex-positive to please step up and make more sexual art and release it into the public sphere for all of our sakes.
Because sex is way too important to leave in the hands of pornographers.