Friday diary 12: Porn is like air

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Writing a recent post reminded me of the 2008 film Fireproof, which I saw at the dollar theater in Birmingham and the plot of which I remember basically being a husband starts doing the chores and a whole lot more in an effort to save his failing marriage.

Reading the Wikipedia, apparently the critics absolutely hated it but the fans ate it up. It earned like $100m between box office and DVD sales on a $500k budget. It has 20k reviews on Amazon with a 5/5 star rating.

So of course I had to re-watch. The lengths I will go to for my babies!

Subtle, this movie is not. One of Kirk Cameron’s first lines is “You never leave your partner, especially in a fire.” He goes on to say it at least three more times IIRC. First of all, as an exvangelical who initiated her divorce after the pastor and his wife told me the same thing, #triggered. Also, Kirk is acting with a ferocity indicative of his genuine belief that our mortal souls depend on us buying it, which I for one appreciate.

There’s so much interesting here, sociologically. I’ve been writing about how socially isolated men are. In the movie the wife Catherine is surrounded by supportive friends while the husband has one coworker and his parents to talk to.

Overall, I honestly enjoyed the movie. Despite its many glaring flaws, it very effectively pulled at the heartstrings and had a pretty positive message.

Besides the “You’ll never meet God’s standards” part (why did God create beings and a standard for them which they’re unable to meet?) the part that put me off the most was the porn-shaming. At one point Catherine says about her husband’s porn watching: “You don’t know what I’ve been competing with. It makes me feel so humiliated. When did I stop being good enough for him?”

HONEY. You were lied to. You’re not competing with those pixels on a screen. This isn’t a competition. Your husband’s horniness isn’t a zero-sum game. It’s an extremely non-rivalrous good. It’s an infinitely renewable resource. Do you honestly walk through life thinking that if your husband sees a super hot woman at the gym he will immediately and automatically be less attracted to you? The answer is yes, women really do think that. I know this because I grew up in church and church ladies are forever telling younger, more attractive women to cover their bodies up more and more instead of telling their husbands to be less obvious in their looking. It’s all so dumb and pointless. A man will masturbate to a picture of an exposed ankle. It really is neither here nor there to whether or not he still wants to have sex with you.

I’m mad about it currently because I’m still getting porn-shamed. Imagine thinking of the mere image a woman’s body as a thing you can and should own. Imagine getting upset at the idea of a woman making money from men enjoying looking at her naked. Literally who is hurt in this scenario? Show me on the doll where my porn hurt you. You can simply decide it doesn’t matter, like I did many years ago. I’m not saying it’s easy to reject decades of programming. But it’s possible and pretty amazing once you get started. I can’t just decide to put hundreds or thousands of dollars per month (depending on the month lol) into my bank account.

But what really gets me, what I simply absolutely cannot abide, is the idea that I’m doing something morally, objectively wrong by making porn. Nah. I lived like that for too long. I honestly believed that shit for way too long. I hurt too many people, myself especially, along the way. If you want to make a case that I’m acting unethically by making porn, you better make a fucking case. I need evidence. Because I’ve got tons in the other direction. Some guy misinterpreting Paul (the apostle) is no longer anywhere near good enough.

So that’s that, my babies. You’d think me being extremely public and unapologetic about making porn would eliminate all the porn scolds from my life. And for the most part, it has. But clearly not entirely. Honestly, I feel worse for them than me. Porn is like air. It’s always going to be around, so being mad about it is pretty maladaptive. Hope you have an amazing weekend and I look forward to landing back in your inbox on Monday. ❤