"MAYER: Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generation’s expectations. How could you be constantly synthesizing an orgasm based on dozens of shots? You’re looking for the one photo out of 100 you swear is going to be the one you finish to, and you still don’t finish. Twenty seconds ago you thought that photo was the hottest thing you ever saw, but you throw it back and continue your shot hunt and continue to make yourself late for work. How does that not affect the psychology of having a relationship with somebody? It’s got to."
Well I'm just gonna get straight down to it. Out of all the craziness in John Mayer's Playboy interview, there's at least one thing he and I can agree on. The fact that porn inevitably affects the psyche specifically in regard to having a relationship with someone. He 100% supports porn and the use of it, and actually says it would be his dream to 'write pornography', but yet he completely understands that it's part of his relationship problems.
He calls porn the "new synaptic pathway" and says, "Rather than meet somebody new, I would rather go home and replay the amazing experiences I've already had.....I'm more confident in my imagination than I am in actual human discovery."
After reading his interview, I kept having this terrifying thought that....if you take away his fame and his money - that he would represent the average 32 year old. So much confusion. So many misconceptions. So much searching for significance. All in part because of porn.
John Mayer spoke of his love for pornography and frequent use of it as if it were an award he could hang on his wall - all before the interviewer even said the word "porn".
So now the interview is out and people became enraged and disgusted. Some at his sexual comments, but most at his racial comments and therefore, a video produced of him at a concert explaining himself:
"....so I decided that I would try to be as clever as possible all the time. And I did that at the expense of people that I love. And that feels absolutely terrible. Feels worse than any headline that I thought I could get my way out of."
He said he was "done" with the media and trying to be clever. He wasn't clear as to who the people he was hurting actually were, but many of the comments online were people saying it was to rectify any racial backlash....not because of any other comments that he made.
Now, I'm not saying his racial comments were acceptable, but what I am saying is young boys who want to be guitar rock stars and young women in his audience received no enlightenment on the comment he said about pornography or flippant approach to sleeping with women.
During the interview, he talked so much about how he just wanted to be liked...that having a woman like him was equal to having sex. He also had a, I guess he would say "clever" way of deal with those who didn't like him. He wanted to encompass the "F- You!" attitude and not care what anyone thinks. But he also realized this also may be destructive:
"Maybe I'm so meta-aware that it's off-putting to people. But I'm old enough to know I need to change."
And he reiterated that once again at his concert reflecting on the Playboy interview, saying that the band members on stage were there because "they support myself as a possible future grown up."
At the end of this video, he said "My name is John Mayer and I'm going to figure that out".
He made it seem like he was going to figure that out by being "done" with the media and accepting what others think without getting bent out of shape. By focusing on music and apparently, "growing up". But I fear the fulfillment he's searching for within his confidence and relationships will still feel astray as long as he's seeing '300 vaginas before he gets out of bed'.
Again...another story to reflect that people may grow up or eventually feel a void in their relationships or in life. So they release with porn which apparently is supposed to fill that void. It keeps filling and filling and filling but somehow, it never overflows. Then they're left with an even greater void, but now it's confusion, overwhelming, and difficult to recognize the source. And they continue to fill it...with the only immediate release they've grown to know.
3 comments:
Wonderfully spoken Justine. I concur with your opinion that sadly Mr. Mayer's views on sex, porn and relationships encompass the average thoughts of any young male out there trying to "find himself".
I just recently completed my viewing of a mini-series about the life of John Adams, our second president. Jamie (my wife) and I were discussing how back in those days, people spoke of ideas and ideals. They did not fill the air with talks of smut nor their minds with such filth.
People pondered freedom and longed for justice. We certainly had issues of immorality, as we always will, but it was not an accepted social norm but rather a serious social faux pas to even broach such a topic.
Your blog has thus far handled the topic with sensitivity and due diligence for the sensitive nature of those who peruse its pages. Since the public wishes to discourse on the subject, we must converse on the subject from an elevated standpoint in order to give the magic and mystery of sex a proper weight.
I wish this blog and your ministry blessings and continued success of good lady.
Justine:
I disagree with most of your views on pornography.
Men masturbate, with or without pornography. This is a simple fact of life which has been constant for much longer than there have been nude photos (or videos) of beautiful women. It is the way God made us. There is nothing wrong with it, despite societal conventions which make men embarrassed or even ashamed to admit that they do it. But we all do.
Given that all men are going to masturbate anyway, what is the harm in providing them with the means of obtaining a quick erection? Does it really make a differnce whether the man is fantasizing about a girl on his computer screen, as opposed to his secretary, his wife's sister or his friend's wife at the time he climaxes? In many respects, the former is preferable.
Additionally, there are millions of men who might be prone to have affairs and risk the destruction of their marriages if they could not obtain sexual release through masturbation. You know firsthand the kind of damage extra-marital affairs can do to families. If pornography can spare even a few families that sort of pain, isn't it worth it?
For many years the primary objection I heard against pornography was that it demeaned women and led to violence against them. I've always considered that to be pure hogwash. Men worship the women in the photos and videos whose very images can make blood flow to a particular part of their body.
The only cogent argument against pornography which I have ever heard is akin to the one which you often make, namely that it reduces a man's interest in and attention to his wife or girlfriend. But the argument is really about masturbation, not pornography. If a man's masturbatory habits interfere with his relationship with his wife or girlfriend (whether he's using pornography or not) the couple have deeper problems than can be pinned upon nude photos of Dawson Miller.
And after all, it was pornography which led me to your blog, so it couldn't be all bad! So I respectfully disagree (hopefully without being disagreeable).
Derek:
How ironic, seeing as how our third president sired illegitimate children with a slave woman who wasn't his wife.
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