Porn creep

Porn creep is the process by which it is claimed sexually explicit content enters Western pop culture. Porn creep also refers to the normalization of porn as part of the wider culture.

The term is analogous to Paul Fussell's sociological term, prole drift, [Fussell, Paul. "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System."] which describes the process by which lower- and working-class cultural markers are gradually disseminated throughout society. Some people blame (or credit) the abundance of sexual imagery and innuendo in movies, television and advertising on the increased accessibility and 'cool factor' of pornography. The two central historical vectors for porn's entrance into mainstream culture have been:
*Pornographic videos (VHS) during the 1980s, and later,
*Mass population access to internet pornography via personal computers.

Other Meanings

The term porn creep can be used in context to the psychological concept of escalation in violent and/or sexual behavior, whereby the graphic or physical nature of certain acts becomes more extreme (or escalates) over time. It is also now a colloquialism to describe a condition in which a person is unable to engage in any form of sexual activity without the presence of pornographic stimulus.

Feminist author Naomi Wolf, argued in her 2003 article [http://nymetro.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/ The Porn Myth] in New York Magazine that, "In the end, porn doesn’t whet men’s appetites - it turns them off the real thing".

Does porn creep exist?

Some critics express skepticism over the existence and significance of porn creep. For example, Eric Schlosser, in "Reefer Madness", argues that cultural fascination with pornographic imagery could actually decrease as such material becomes more commonplace and less controversial, pointing to the example of Denmark, where despite the legality and wide availability of pornographic material, public interest in, and consumption of, pornography has dropped since the 1970s. [Schlosser, Eric (2003). Reefer madness: Sex, drugs, and the cheap labor in the American black market. NY, Houghton Mifflin.]

Examples of porn creep in mainstream culture

*Brazilian waxing among young Western women, to remove most or all pubic hair. This is a now a mainstream fashion, with a cultural precursor in porn.
*The spread of porn-influenced cosmetic surgery procedures, such as breast implants and labiaplasty.
*The spread of oral sex in the West, as opposed to its rarer use within Western sexual history.
*The practice of couples recording their sexual experiences via their mobile phones, especially among young adults.
*The appearance of pornstars in mainstream music videos, TV shows and advertising.
*Frequent reference and jokes relating to porn in TV shows, films and standup comedy routines.

Examples of porn creep in prostitution services

The spread of 'PSE' (Porn Star Experience) sexual services in the Western prostitution industry. The sex worker's advertising shorthand 'PSE' may signal enthusiastic/aggressive performance, and may include kissing, BBBJ (Bare Back Blow Job - no condom) and CIM (Cum In Mouth). Both blowjobs and ejaculations of semen on to the faces and into the mouths of female porn actresses are common in pornography.

Quotes on the normalization of porn

Author Naomi Wolf wrote in 2003 about the normalization of porn in wider culture:

'Porn is the wallpaper of our lives now. It has breached the dike that separated a marginal, adult, private pursuit from the mainstream public arena. The whole world, post-Internet, has become pornographized. Young men and women are being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training'. [ [http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/ New York Magazine: 'The Porn Myth'] ]

'For two decades, I have watched young women experience the continual "mission creep" of how pornography--and now Internet pornography--has lowered their sense of their own sexual value and their actual sexual value. When I came of age in the seventies, it was still pretty cool to be able to offer a young man the actual presence of a naked, willing young woman. There were more young men who wanted to be with naked women than there were naked women on the market. If there was nothing actively alarming about you, you could get a pretty enthusiastic response by just showing up. Your boyfriend may have seen Playboy, but hey, you could move, you were warm, you were real'. [ [http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/ New York Magazine: 'The Porn Myth'] ]

'Well, I am 40, and mine is the last female generation to experience that sense of sexual confidence and security in what we had to offer. Our younger sisters had to compete with video porn in the eighties and nineties, when intercourse was not hot enough. Now you have to offer--or flirtatiously suggest--the lesbian scene, the ejaculate-in-the-face scene. Being naked is not enough; you have to be buff, be tan with no tan lines, have the surgically hoisted breasts and the Brazilian bikini wax--just like porn stars. (In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled)'. [ [http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/ New York Magazine: 'The Porn Myth'] ]

ee also

*
*Pornified
*Sexualization
*Sexual objectification
*Sexual norm
*Pornography addiction
*Third wave feminism
*Feminist sex wars

References

External links

* [http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9349/ New York Magazine: 'Not Tonight, Honey. I'm Logging On: Internet porn is everywhere; even “nice” guys are hooked. So where does that leave their girlfriends?']
* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/25/CMGF77DFT31.DTL San Francisco Chronicle: 'Porn Plague: Has porn's proliferation desensitized us to its power?']
* [http://nymetro.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/ New York Magazine: 'The Porn Myth: In the end, porn doesn't whet men's appetites - it turns them off the real thing']
* [http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/bos/70028811.html The best of craigslist: 'Porn Has Completely Destroyed Me']