How the "Porn Fantasy" Affects Women

I've notice something interesting lately.  The line between fantasy and reality seems to be blurring considerably in an number of areas of society:

The "free" dictionary has, for the definition of fantasy, two apropos definitions (out of several others): "An imagined event or sequence of mental images, such as a daydream, usually fulfilling a wish or psychological need." and "An unrealistic or improbable supposition."

As I mentioned a few posts ago in "The Power of Video: Hard Core Pornography and Climate Change" young males in our culture are strongly influenced by video.

But what's even more interesting is why they are looking at so much pornography in the first place.

In the past, say twenty years ago, young men were strongly influenced by something else: young women.

Now over the last many millenium this was the way of the world - there was nothing else for a young man to think about save for young women as he grew up.  Society supported this by requiring young people to choose spouses (for the most part) and raise families.

The reason for this, though apparently not obvious to today's youth, was to build a strong society.

Now if young women were interested in young men it would seem that the young men wouldn't need pornography - one imagines that having that having an actual relationship would trump a session with a porno queen.

Certainly there are plenty of images of women for young men to see - in advertising in particular, on video, and so on.

But one has to believe that if there were women interested in men the men would be busy with the women instead of the pornography.

But this is apparently not the case.

Women have come to believe somehow that waiting a long time to find a partner is somehow better than finding one when they are young.  (See "Women are Insane, Men are Stupid: Where have all the good men gone...")

So today women are apparently busy with other things besides men until their thirties - which means the men are left with nothing to do as I wrote in the link above.

Later in life women seem to have a rekindled interest in men but complain that the men are all useless.

The point of the post is that because women no longer expect men to act like men, i.e., supporting children, providing, they don't.

And this is fantasy as well: that men will somehow simply wait around for the women to need them and magically (fantastically) "grow up" to be the men the women feel should be available to them.

But the men, idle, simply spend time watching porn and wasting time.

So both men and women today, particularly younger men and women, seem to be lost in parallel fantasies about life: men left to porn and video games by women busy doing other things.  Later in life the women find that the porn and video games have not made the men good men.

So why are women living in this particular fantasy.

In the recent past, say only a few decades ago, women knew that having a good man was important: regardless of whether they stayed home and had children or whether they went out and worked - a good man was simply a good man.

And what was a good man (for those that don't know)?

Someone with character, a good work ethic, a reliable person, a caring father and husband, someone who is supportive, someone who is respectful, and on and on.

If a woman had a man like this, and conversely if a man had a woman with the same attributes, everything would work out.

But no longer...

So today we live in a world where largely the men no longer have these attributes - mostly because they are raised by women because their fathers have long ago left their mothers.  Of course there are remarriages and so forth but the strength of family has been violated by fantasy.

This fantasy is reenforced in a variety of common entertainment media: you see no traditional families, only unlikely and bizarre collections of individuals and perhaps children struggling for some unclear goal of happiness and wonder which they never reach.

Of course modern business is populated today largely by women, as is the US educational system (some 60% of the workers are women according to this US Dept of Labor site).

So could men be propagating the idea that women should no longer be focused on men?

I doubt it as there are simply not enough men in the workforce to do this today.  While nearly half of older women are married another quarter live alone or are heads of households.  Again, since more women than men work women dominate the financial picture.

So it seems as if women are creating these fantasy worlds where women live and where women are unhappy.  Yet they are the ones complaining.

And they should complain.

Women who head households or dominate the financial aspects of a marriage have to do more work: not only raising children and taking responsibility for much of the household work but also for working.

Effectively double duty.

You have to ask are we, as a society better off?

Certainly as men in a world where women expect far less of them I would guess the simple, unthoughout answer is yes.

All men have to do is live in the basement with video games, porn and weed and loaf all day.

Women, on the other hand, have to go to college - there are far more today in college than men - and take on the debt and pay it off while raising children and working.

One imagines that they are becoming increasingly responsible for the vast trillion dollar educational debt out society is saddled with.

And, I suppose, also are demeaned into acting like porn actresses in the bedroom when the day is done.  (At least that would be what any men they would find would expect - because that's all the men know.)

So to me it seems as if the women are forced into the same fantasy world as the men - accept that this one seems far worse than that of males.

Of course you can argue that the women are "free" today of men - free to pursue lives of their own choosing (is living under a massive debt freedom?)

But is today's situation really better?

Certainly not from my perspective as a father - my working daughters have to work far harder than those that do not work outside their homes.

As a society we are making very foolish choices and choosing to believe that the life we see on TV, internet and video - the life manufactured for us by actors and writers and filmmakers - is the one we should believe we are living.

I guess as long as we continue to "believe" this we will be okay...