It's just porn, stupid!

"I know it when I see it."

In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court tried to define obscenity with that line, and while the country's highest court has put a bit more thought into the issue since, "I know it when I see it" continues to be the most commonly cited difference between porn and erotica.

Porn is an exaggerated representation of sexual fantasies through any medium, aimed at encouraging an instant gratification that is without immediate social value. If you take out the word "sexual", the defintion could be extended to any number of human pastimes: reading, watching movies or even playing sports.


In fact, replace the word "sexual" with the word "romantic" and you may even be seen to describe a $3 billion industry here in the US, known as the Romance Novel market. Yup, the world of ripped bodices, French aristocrats and clandestine trysts is also a kind of porn, except that the core consumers here, are women. Their high Priestess, incidentally, is Nora Roberts.

Take the movie "Love Actually". It presents a completely unrealistic view of romance and love. Total caricature of the real thing with ridiculous twists of fate that rival well-hung pizza delivery men stumbling on horny housewives in nightgowns. Is the difference between the two the graphic depiction of sex? Or is it that the whole point of one (porn) is sex while the point of the other (romance) is something that is perceived to be loftier and more idealistic than the crude act of coitus?


If this is true, then both men and women appear to be addicted to the same thing, albeit with a different source of gratification. The difference is that one is stigmatized and has a name-porn-while the other is seen as a harmless pastime and given no such label. Maybe what we need is a wider definition that encompasses the two addictions.

I used to tell my friend, Sherien, that movies like "Love Actually" represented Emotional Porn and were no less gratuitous and unlikely than skin flicks like Debbie Does Dallas or Devil in Miss Jones. But this label kind of implies that it's an equivalent to male porn addiction when really, they both stem from the same place, albeit expressed in different ways.


Not to say that what drives them is gender difference; lots of women love porn and exhibit much of the visual sense that drives men; while some men eschew that whole thing and, possibly, appreciate more of an emotional fix to kill the ennui that pervades modern life. The point is that they're both fixes and the sooner we stop being prudes about them, the more honest we'll be with ourselves.