by Jerome Espinosa Baladad

Created on: September 22, 2009

To recognize the value of this subject in a more honest, authentic manner, it has to be better expounded from the viewpoint of an individual perspective, rather than by someone who would view it as an outsider. Also, it may not be fair to generalize a statement that (almost) all men do watch porn. Being male myself, I have met a number of men who don't watch porn at all. Or they must have stopped watching porn for some reasons. Of course, I choose to believe them. I know some won't even do it even with their trusted friends around. In my case, I don't watch porn when I'm with friends; it makes me feel uneasy.

I admit I watch porn mainly because I like to get excited. I have learned the habit ever since I was exposed to all the dirt when I was much younger (in my teens then). I have observed that I also get to see a variety of porn materials, even on public TV. Would you believe porn can be regularly watched by anyone on regular TV channels in Japan, but they just fade out the portions exposing the genitals (as if trying to reduce the shock value of the program)?

As it were, you would expect to see them even in the most mundane materials around. Porn generally depicts violence, domination, humiliation, designed to deaden one's sense of shame, and they even come in the most subtle presentation format. Depending on how you look at it, porn is generally done in poor taste, even with all the embellishments. And there are varieties of the kind of materials that the viewer can observe in most public media around us.
However, watching porn for me has, actually, become a bad, long-overdue-for-disposal habit. Watching porn has been an on and off habit that I engage in, every time I sense something boring is happening in my life. Or I seek it out when I see the need to activate my becoming-numbed senses from the so-called weariness of my own existence. It has become more of a joint, a drink, or a general stimulator to my senses, that happen to be needed to be alerted and awakened on occasions.

I've been observing myself on the time when I get to start yearning to watch porn. I actually feel guilty watching porn, and it actually feels dirty to be engaging in the experience, even as a passive viewer (which can dull one's senses without one becoming aware of it). It actually was worst when I was younger, when there were no trusted friends nor family members to talk about my concerns when I was growing up, most of which troubles I could not really understand nor articulate very clearly. Adults around me then would tend to dismiss whatever I talk about. In frustration, I must have turned to porn (dirt materials such as porn are readily available everywhere, even in the most backward societies).

I also watch porn because it is available. Apparently, the material is mass produced, and being manufactured by a lot of businesses making up a huge, world wide, reliable and efficient industry. I am aware that a lot of people get employment because of porn. It's a vicious cycle that feeds on itself, mainly on its excesses. If someone involved in the porn industry gets to do something overboard or has done something "offensive" to someone powerful, i.e. stepping on the toes of someone in authority, he / she gets to be ostracized, and removed from participating again in the business bit by bit. As such, porn feeds other dark aspects of the human mind. We can also see it as one ugly aspect of representing humans in their most base forms, not even approximating to what we may call the "erotic."

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