Yeah.. did that work at all?

I think people above are debating various offshoots from the article - which is entirely permissible - but I've found that a lot of the comments, even when intelligent, are being a bit too liberal with Twain's broad brush. I actually think that there are a lot of socio-cultural drivers behind the modern pornography debate, and I think if people took a step back and stopped rushing to give a singular cause (women are controlling with sex! men don't care about intimacy! American women!) it'd be pretty apparent how multi-faceted the issue is becoming. Further, PostSecret's comment is the only thing worth reading here, because it's the only thing that's fully honest.

The article is talking about the pavlovian nature of a generation of young men learning to orgasm to pornography, and the impacts that behavior is having on a generation of young women who are willing to have sex with those same men. I'm sorry, Tom, Urza, and Dan, but if you think American girls aren't willing to be kinky - and I mean really fucking kinky - you're not meeting the right women. I don't know what you think women aren't willing to do (or how women are uncomfortable with their sexuality or bodies) but I've met the exact opposite sort of girls. Also: I hate dating, and having sex with someone for the first time.

I'd also like to comment on how quickly specific pornography marketing brands - in particular, Brazzers - are seeping into the ape-consciousness of young men. I was sort of surprised when I started hearing twenty-five year old men using the term "I brazzered her last night", and I've heard it more than once (confession: I knew what they were talking about immediately). This isn't pornography as an escape from a lack of intimacy, it's the Jackassinization of pornography - and anyone who suspects that an actual, well educated, self-respecting female wants to be treated like the objects in those videos is utterly mistaken. So we have this incongruity - which isn't a big deal if men are capable of using pornography selectively, like LSD - but with the advent of the internet and smartphones, that's disappearing. For the most part, I find it interesting, but also awkward - and very pervasive. I'd wager that I know more men in the ~20 - 30 range than many of the people here, and given my social nature, I've talked about this sort of stuff with a lot of them.

I try to avoid pornography, for the exact, honest reasons that PostSecret pointed out (I keep refraining from typing your name as I suspect it is, unconsciously). If you want to have sex with an actual girl, you can't have conditioned your brain to understand an orgasm as a response to immaterial, depersonalized videos, because sex is a purely material, personal experience. And I think there's a misunderstanding, which may perhaps be generational: many men who are in their twenties are using pornography every single day, which is cultural shift from - I would wager - even ten years ago, but particularly twenty plus years ago, and that shift needs to be recognized.

I don't think the issue has to do with women (that is to say: I don't believe that women are a cause of the issue) but I do believe that they're reacting to it. I'd like to type more, but honestly, most people are just going to throw bananas and worship the singular false idols that support their narcissistic worldviews. Here are some of the things I think are driving it:

A. The internet - an efficient, widely dispersed, secretive, cheap distribution network
B. Culture creep - pornography has creeped further into mass culture , which has blurred the lines between what was once considered "porn" and "mass culture"
C. The middle class time squeeze - this plays into everything, including pornography: people work more for less money, decreasing the time available for (I hate this term) intimacy, increasing economic stress, and driving men towards readily available pornography
D. Seals - Seals are controlling the world from far below the Atlantic ocean, hoping to distract the human race just enough to increase the supply of mackerel, which they covet like a kitten hungers for yarn
E. Women - Bad news, guys: women don't need you nearly as much as they once did, which makes them less likely to put out deeper in a relationship when you're treating them like crap (though it makes them more likely to have sex with you when they barely know you, because they feel more secure as individuals).
F. Men - Bad news, girls: guys like naked girls and videos. Oh yeah, and some fucking science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolidge_effect. Men are by nature more likely to seek out visual or physical novelty, particularly when they're young.