Porn

Am I the only one who struggles with forgiving porn? Am I the only one left amongst maybe a small handful of people who have not yet sought it out? Because it feels so lonely from where I stand. It feels so angering.

As a woman, I do not want a man who has sought out porn. But where will I find one? Can you honestly tell me that I will find one? Can you? Do you think that that’s how it should have ever been? Should I be understanding?

I take the issue of porn personally.

How can I not take it personally when I am a woman, and women are consumed?

How can I feel comfortable around a man who looks at women in pictures and videos in the manner that he does—objectifying women simply because they are women?

I am a woman.

How am I exempt from those men’s fantasies?

How can I make myself exempt unless I make myself anything but desirable? And is that even possible? I guess not. I am a woman, and I guess that is enough to make me sexual according to our culture and these fantasizers. Apparently who I am or am not as a person has nothing to do with it.

“Oh, she’s struggling. Oh he’s fallen into porn.” The words I hear so often from people. Those words are a slap in the face. How can anyone see this as just a “struggle”? Is it simply just “a struggle” to be fighting not to purchase human beings for the sake of pleasure? Or worse, pass them around and use them for free? Is it just a simple struggle to rape someone? Is it a simple struggle to feed money to slave drivers? Sure, let’s just talk about it as if someone just tripped, fell, and scraped their knee. All of us are “just struggling” with something right? Please, save your belittling clichés.

This is not about simply "forgiving" a “lust” issue. Or about "forgiving" someone for being attracted to or liking sex. There is nothing to forgive when it comes to liking sex. This is about forgiving someone for acting in a way that dehumanizes people, and declares, by their very actions, that humans are simply to be consumed and that that is okay.

I am a human.

A porn viewer must have the same dehumanizing view of me.

That woman that you are consuming, that could have been me. I am not excluded from those perverse fantasies.

I take it personally. How can I not?

How can I not think differently of people after knowing what little that so many people seem to think of this issue, of others, of me? All the dismissals of this as an issue--you might as well tell me that it’s okay if somebody buys me.

So what that I am not in that video. I take you watching it personally!

So what that you would never treat me that way. Do you think that little of me that I would only be angry for the exploitation of myself and not care about others? I take it personally as if it were myself. I take it personally even if they were pushed to a place in their life where they didn’t have the strength to take it personally anymore. I will stand for those who won’t or cannot stand for themselves. I take it personally.

I have every right to step in and say, “You should not be allowed to do that.” I have the responsibility to say, “Why are you doing such a cold-hearted thing? Why?” I must encourage and push others and demand that others free themselves from their share in their slaveholding position, and the addictive grip that it has on them.

Don’t tell me to stop being a prude. Don’t tell me that I don’t know what I am talking about. Don’t tell me not to be angry.

I am angry.

I am disgusted.

I am lonely while taking a stand.

I have every reason, every right, and every responsibility to feel these things. I feel trapped at my lack of freedom. I am not free to be innocent in this world. Attacks to my dignity and yours smite me at every turn. I have known, overtly or not, since age 4, what it is like to know that someone viewed me sexually. I was told by a gross human, older than myself, exposed to far too much for his age, what sex was at least in a general sense. I knew that this boy looked at porn, though I didn’t even know the word porn. I’ve learned to be on guard and pick up on cues of what a porn viewer thinks and acts like. I can tell certain characteristics of these people. I am not a mind-reader, but sometimes, my developed intuition tells me who to stay away from. There is a certain level of apathy that I can detect. I know because I've known porn viewers since age 4.

They were my age.

They were older than me.

They were everywhere when and whether I knew it overtly about them or not, and the number of viewers have drastially grown with the help of the internet.

And I still walk around fearing that I will miss cues that might tell me that a person is not safe.

Porn is not even a choice anymore. Even if I don’t choose to seek it out, it imposes itself upon me. I cannot unsee the things that I didn’t choose to see. I cannot reclaim what I never had—innocence. I was never allowed to have innocence. No amount of attempts to shield me allowed me safety from the world around me.

And yes, I am a person.

I take it personally.

You are a person too.

You should take it personally.

I may be one of those people who is “out of the loop” or unaware of many things. I may not know words or terms, and I may sometimes misuse terms, much to my great embarrassment. I may lack a large amount of chosen experience that most others don’t seem to lack. But I don’t know innocent unless innocent is carrying debilitating shame my entire life that I never chose to carry. Shame was not an occasional feeling. Shame was at the core of my being.  I have never known what it was like to live without it. Like many, I had no choice. Shame was all I knew.

But I refuse to cling any longer to the shame that should never have been mine. And I refuse to enter into unconditional mercy for those who lack the shame that they should have felt. I refuse to allow people who don't deserve it to be close to me and be “on my level”. I will not make excuses for them. I am done accepting less than what I deserve.

Regardless of how others’ porn addictions have come about, regardless of the hope that maybe they will emerge from their prison, I will not act like it isn’t a big deal.

I will not pretend like they simply just fell and scraped their knees.