Ask A Genius 938: Porn, Masculinity, and Virginity
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/05/12
[Recording Start]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Masculinity—you get a pair of these giant testicles made out of plastic and hang them from the rear of your truck. So, your truck has testicles. What is another American cultural item, an Americanism that is also like this?
Rick Rosner: It used to be barbed wire tattoos that run all the way around your arm or, if you’re cheap, just around the outside of your arm. Those are pretty manly.
Jacobsen: Porn behavior. Choking your girlfriend while you’re having sex, coming on her face. Stuff you see in porn like putting it under her butt. All that stuff is kind of demeaning. It’s just letting her know who’s boss. I had a co-worker who lasted about a week.
Rosner: Building concrete forms for house foundations is hard work. It’s terrible work. You’re walking around with four-by-eight sheets of plywood that weigh even more than regular plywood because they’ve been used before, so they’ve got a certain amount of cement in them. This guy could walk around with a stack of five of them held over his head. I think I could do maybe three. I was strong back then. Maybe I did four but suffered, and it was very dangerous because I might tip over. That was the first guy. Mike Shirley, I think, told me that you’ve got to put it in her butt to let her know who’s in charge.
Jacobsen: Do you think the culture is changing on these issues?
Rosner: Yes, because now we’re aware of it. There have been a bunch of books like “Men, Women, and Children” by Chad Kultgen, which was turned into a Sandler movie. It’s a great book and a pretty good movie about how porn is making everybody crazy. In the book, you see how porn affects high school and junior high kids, both girls and boys, as well as the parents. The dad and the mom internalize a lot of messages from the porn they’re consuming, with not great results. That book is probably 14 years old now.
Jacobsen: And now that we’re aware that porn is making people have unsavory and unrealistic sexual expectations and behaviors, it’s something parents may want to talk to kids about. We can do something about it. We’re organizing a symposium or conference in Britain to talk about these issues among humanists and activists. We’ll discuss it not in moralistic terms, but in terms of evidence. Is this a net good or not? There is a net good, I would argue, though it’s questionable.
Rosner: In the 70s, when I was trying to lose my virginity, only the cool, hot people got to have sex. The nerdy, awkward, not-so-cute people didn’t get as much. But now, the bar for who gets to get laid is lower because of the prevalence of porn. You don’t need to be sexually aroused by the person you’re with; you just need your spank bank. So, schlubby people can get laid and have sex. You see couples now that you wouldn’t have seen in the 70s and 80s. I get frustrated because I think, “Hey, I could have been half of that couple.”
Jacobsen: So, that’s a net good. But the incels are probably a net bad. In the 70s, I was trying to figure out how to get a girlfriend, which involved lifting weights and trying to look more presentable, eventually getting contact lenses because it was death to have glasses in the 70s. Now, it’s not that big a deal.
Rosner: You’re right. But I was compelled to become a better person to get a girlfriend. Now, thanks to the flood of porn, some guys think, “Fuck it, I can just jerk off. I don’t have to be a better person.” That creates incels—guys who want to get laid but can’t. I disagree with the “involuntary” part because they don’t try.
Jacobsen: That was Kirkpatrick’s point. Remember when we had that call?
Rosner: Yes. So, that’s a net bad because those are the trolls of the world. They live an angry, girl-free existence, pissed at the world. That’s adjacent to the world of mass shooters, Proud Boys, and modern Nazis. They just curdle in their own bullshit.
Jacobsen: The Proud Boys were not an American phenomenon but an American derivative. Canada sourced it. Congratulations, Canada.
Rosner: Elsewhere in the room, and we’ll conclude, is a bunch of micro-mosaic stuff I haven’t rehabilitated or fixed yet. It’s messy, it has a bit of a smell, and Carole’s given up on it.
Jacobsen: What’s the smell?
Rosner: Just a busy room smell. And she thinks I’ve got an old man smell now, especially me. I smell like bread and vitamins.
Jacobsen: Do you like bread?
Rosner: It’s because I’m yeasty in places. This room is a mess, but it’s also full of gifts I haven’t given Carole yet. I’ll fix a micro mosaic and give it to her. She’ll be like, “Oh, pretty,” and then say, “Please stop giving me micro mosaics.”
Jacobsen: I guess that’s the end. I’ve had such bad sleep, it’s not you.
Rosner: Do you want to take a nap?
Jacobsen: I like taking a nap.
[Recording End]
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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