Salacious photography hit Rob like an emotional sledgehammer to the head as a middle schooler. The drugstore periodicals is where I encountered these firstly, and these images weren't on the top shelf or packaged in opaque plastic. These were "run of the mill" exercise magazines, positioned as "How To" guides on how to look super strong, healthy, and ultimately, physically perfect. Prior to that encounter, I'd honed my imagination on comic books, TV, and film from the era of the '80s. Our family was no different than other middle class white nuclears. We gorged ourselves on the newly introduced cable television each day and ran to the moviehouse to see the latest film on the weekends, never having any truthful idea what we were introducing ourselves to 'till the credits rolled.
Like a young screenwriter, I took those salacious exercise magazine photographs and added a sexualized narrative to them, and typically that narrative involved me being pursued. This brought on feelings of worthiness and value. It was overwhelmingly effective at counteracting my low adolescent self-esteem. Plus, I was in complete control of the fantasy, therefore no one could come in and complicate these relationships or cut them short.
As a college student, I continued in this vein, but at this point, I relied solely on my imagination to fuel these sexual fantasies, though the themes remained the same.
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This past fall, I attended the Samson Society retreat in Eva, Tennessee. On Saturday, Mr. Nate Larkin challenged us to illustrate some specific scenarios (past or present) that represented thematically a certain portion of our story. Afterwards, we paired up with 3 or 4 men who were close at hand to discuss our individual work. One Samson man in our group was in his mid 50s, and upon sharing one of his illustrations, mentioned how difficult it was for him to believe he was at all physically / sexually attractive. Therefore, he rescinded to Internet porn as an escape which fueled this notion that fantasy lust was justifiable due to his need for self-love.
Now, this man was by no means unattractive physically. Nor was he physically disabled or of low intelligence. That's what made this confession so shocking to me.
The industry that sells salacious imagery to us, no matter the format, are slight of hand illusionist who indirectly evangelize self-hatred. Overall, their product fuels this negativity whilst consumed, but particularly within individuals who are highly visual (like me).
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Years ago, I was watching a daytime television talk show that featured a handful of young beautiful women alongside their mothers. The premise of this particular show was mother / daughter support relative to the daughters being recently photographed naked in Playboy magazine. At a certain point during the interviews, the host stopped to take questions from the studio audience. One very brave man caught the attention of the show host prior to asking the following question of the Playboy Playmates, "Do you understand why it is that mostly men purchase Playboy magazine?"
The camera filming the ladies on the stage abruptly captured their awkward silence before this man answered his own query bluntly.
"They do so in order to masturbate to the photos."
Now that same camera zoomed into these beautiful women's faces squirming in disgust, all the while looking at each other as if they'd now been exposed to the reality of their monumental regret.
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I am convinced that the majority of our consumable entertainment culture is fueled by nothing more than propaganda, subtly telling consumers, "You're a worthless piece of shit because you don't measure up to what you're seeing here onscreen, therefore choose to emotionally invest yourself within these images / story just as everyone else does. To do so will make you feel better about your pathetic self."
For so many of us here in the western world, having been sold this bill of goods since childhood, it certainly has made a lasting impression.
What can be done to break free from these lies? Choose now to STOP consuming them.
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