Economics of pornography


It's not cheap because it is scarce
This link is not work-safe, but they have a point. Pornography isn't scarce.

So, what’s actually scarce? New porn, fresh porn, different porn. It’s scarce because it doesn’t stay new for long, it’s scarce because ninety percent of everything is crap and so lots of even fresh-made porn isn’t fresh, it’s scarce because (short of stacking fetishes until you’ve got one-legged panty-sniffing midget girls mud wrestling with shaved sheep) it’s tough to make porn that’s new and different. “New and fresh” requires art, craft, skill, all the other things that are in short supply in any industry. And, oddly, unit volumes are so low in porn that art, craft, and skill tend not to be rewarded.

I believe that some porn reduces women to objects because there is so much of it. Rather than be a celebration of art and passion, it forces detachment. Because casual sex without emotional connection has been made an end in itself, we've reduced ourselves and our bodies to a cheap commodity.

It's the difference between porn and erotica, and it starts long before sex. Go to any bar in America and watch the seduction dance.

We've blurred the lines and what we pass off as sexual freedom is sexual dysfunction. Most of what passes for sex isn't much more than mutual masturbation. That is what makes porn cheap and ultimately unsatisfying, not the pictures themselves.

When we demand that kids can't be exposed to anything remotely sexual while using idealized images of beauty to sell products, we make it worse. Nudity is not sex, and exposed skin is not going to make the average ten year old into a ravening maniac. It's the simultaneous suppression and flaunting that screws things up.

Sex with that all important emotional connection can be mind blowing. Without the attachment to your partner, you might as well stay home and look at porn.

Which makes YOU a pretty cheap commodity too.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - February 23, 2007 at 12:57 PM  Tag


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