4 Reasons Why the Merging of Pop Culture and Porn Culture May be Affecting You
While I’ve
addressed this argument before, Speculative Faith asked me to write a more thorough rebuttal:
In
just the last few years, some of our most popular fantasy stories include
material that at one time would have been considered porn.
These
include films such as Passengers, Blade Runner 2049, and The Shape of Water, as well as TV shows
such as Game of Thrones, Westworld, and Altered Carbon.
Concerns
about content like this are often raised in relation to children and teens,
whose emotional and physical development make them more impressionable. When it
comes to adults, however, we find little concern expressed.
In
fact, a lot of people claim to have no issues watching films with explicit
sexual content. The material doesn’t affect them—or so they say.
But
is this true? And if so, should it be
true?
Let’s
give a little pushback and look at four considerations.
The issue,
of course, isn’t limited to sci-fi and fantasy. Many genres have been influenced by pornographic filming techniques. The question becomes
this: how much of a negative effect is second-hand porn having on us? Are we
completely unscathed (since mainstream entertainment doesn’t technically
classify as pornography), or are we being influenced in ways we aren’t even
aware of?
What was
originally supposed to be one article developed into a two-part series. Part 1
explains the first two considerations, and Part 2 develops the third and fourth
considerations. You can read Part 1 here
and Part 2 here.