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There are many lessons to be learnt from the Oscar Pistorius case, and the latest they'll have you believe is: remember to delete your browser history before shooting someone dead. Okay, perhaps it’s not the most useful advice for most people. Playing a lethal version of What’s Behind the Bathroom Door? isn’t exactly a national sport. Not yet, anyway.
Internet porn, on the other hand, is wildly popular. At any given second, millions of… well, wankers, I suppose, are getting their proverbial rocks off, perfectly legally and usually in the privacy of their own homes.
Is there anything wrong with that scenario, played out on countless sticky screens around the world, 24/7? No, of course not. Yes, there are wails of protests from those who STILL think – in 2014 – that being offended gives them the right to tell you what you can’t do with your genitals, but most people really don’t care anymore.
Not since the internet made porn mundane through ubiquity, and our own cellphones have turned us all into potential amateur porn stars.
But porn has never lost its ability to suddenly become a significant issue when somebody gets hurt.
This is because we’re a pretty dumb species, and would rather hide from facts than let them change what we already believe. You’ve heard the myth about ostriches hiding their heads in the sand?
Ostriches don’t really do that. But intellectually, we do.
Which is why serial killer Ted Bundy blamed porn for his crimes, rather than face the fact that he was a batshit evil psychopath. Or why metal band Judas Priest found themselves on trial after parents accused them of including “subliminal messages” (another myth) into their music that caused their sons to kill themselves.
So much easier than admitting they might have screwed up as parents. And one more word: Hansie.
So don’t be too shocked that the media are reporting the allegation that Pistorius was surfing porn just hours before killing Reeva Steenkamp as if it were A Significant Thing. It’s not, in all practicality. But we think it is, so it is.
Why do we construct this spurious connection between onscreen shagging and real life violence? Sex is pretty much the nicest thing you can do with (and to) another person, but murdering them? Not so much. Actually, quite the opposite.
It would seem far more reasonable to find significance in the fact that (for example) Pistorius had cornflakes for breakfast, and people who eat cornflakes do bad things all the time.
In South Africa, porn is a perfectly legal industry worth about R300 million (in the US it’s about $14 billion), but it can’t seem to shake its increasingly fictional taboo status. Clearly, it’s not just for drooling perverts in raincoats anymore. Hey, I don’t even own a raincoat. There’s your proof.
And the more people use it, the more we realise how meaningless it is. Sure, it has some side effects. For example, I’m sure there’s a very real connection between porn and the fact that young people suck at sex. But the suggestion that porn can turn a well-adjusted innocent into a violent deviant is becoming increasingly ludicrous.
Imagine the world if it were actually true. It would be like a zombie apocalypse, only with dildo guns and boners.
Internet porn, on the other hand, is wildly popular. At any given second, millions of… well, wankers, I suppose, are getting their proverbial rocks off, perfectly legally and usually in the privacy of their own homes.
Is there anything wrong with that scenario, played out on countless sticky screens around the world, 24/7? No, of course not. Yes, there are wails of protests from those who STILL think – in 2014 – that being offended gives them the right to tell you what you can’t do with your genitals, but most people really don’t care anymore.
Not since the internet made porn mundane through ubiquity, and our own cellphones have turned us all into potential amateur porn stars.
But porn has never lost its ability to suddenly become a significant issue when somebody gets hurt.
This is because we’re a pretty dumb species, and would rather hide from facts than let them change what we already believe. You’ve heard the myth about ostriches hiding their heads in the sand?
Ostriches don’t really do that. But intellectually, we do.
Which is why serial killer Ted Bundy blamed porn for his crimes, rather than face the fact that he was a batshit evil psychopath. Or why metal band Judas Priest found themselves on trial after parents accused them of including “subliminal messages” (another myth) into their music that caused their sons to kill themselves.
So much easier than admitting they might have screwed up as parents. And one more word: Hansie.
So don’t be too shocked that the media are reporting the allegation that Pistorius was surfing porn just hours before killing Reeva Steenkamp as if it were A Significant Thing. It’s not, in all practicality. But we think it is, so it is.
Why do we construct this spurious connection between onscreen shagging and real life violence? Sex is pretty much the nicest thing you can do with (and to) another person, but murdering them? Not so much. Actually, quite the opposite.
It would seem far more reasonable to find significance in the fact that (for example) Pistorius had cornflakes for breakfast, and people who eat cornflakes do bad things all the time.
In South Africa, porn is a perfectly legal industry worth about R300 million (in the US it’s about $14 billion), but it can’t seem to shake its increasingly fictional taboo status. Clearly, it’s not just for drooling perverts in raincoats anymore. Hey, I don’t even own a raincoat. There’s your proof.
And the more people use it, the more we realise how meaningless it is. Sure, it has some side effects. For example, I’m sure there’s a very real connection between porn and the fact that young people suck at sex. But the suggestion that porn can turn a well-adjusted innocent into a violent deviant is becoming increasingly ludicrous.
Imagine the world if it were actually true. It would be like a zombie apocalypse, only with dildo guns and boners.
