GOP Platform Names Porn a “Public Health Crisis”

So, the Republican Party’s platform for this election cycle has been hashed out this week, and it turns out that, as Esquire succinctly put it: Porn is a problem. Guns are not.

To whit, the new platform has named porn a “public health crisis.” A crisis, my friends. I just. I need to rant, people.

For fuck’s sake, Republicans. Would it actually be possible for you to underestimate the American people any more deeply? Have you considered that actually, physically sticking your heads into the sand might work just as well as pretending that issues like who people love, whether facial hair matches up with genitalia, and whether pornographers can continue to make a living are more important than climate change, race relations, or gun control? I’d love to see you try it out–the ostrich look would be good on you. Much more satisfying to see on TV than your bloated grinning beady-eyed faces, and it would put your butts on display so we could collectively kick them with ease.

The GOP in recent years has spent most of its time pointing in every direction except for the important ones. Climate change? Nah, let’s all hate on abortion instead. Economic inequality? Oh, hey, look over there! It’s transgender folks trying to lead happy, productive, normal lives! Better get angry about that instead. Racist police forces killing American citizens? Let’s all talk about how immigrants are ruining a country that was built on immigration, slavery, and genocide instead–except let’s leave out the history entirely. Oh, what’s that? Thousands of Americans being killed by gun violence in their own country, primarily by white men? Let’s talk about radical Islam instead, and pretend it’s fare more dangerous to Americans than it really is (not that that makes it a non-issue; just that it’s less of an issue for Americans that the GOP wants us to believe).

The redirection of the American psyche from issues that deeply affect us, and that direly need to be examined and reworked…toward whatever random thing gets conservative panties all up in a twist…makes me want to puke. It’s been going on for ages, but putting a line about pornography in the actual platform at a time like this? A new low. Now, rather than allowing their fans to get a good look at the state of the country and the world, being ravaged by political tensions and environmental collapse and social unrest, they want to blame porn for this country’s problems. Right, guys. Because the oil and food companies that sponsor them aren’t busy killing the planet or anything. Let’s focus on something more pressing than the fabric of society ripping itself apart. Like people doing it on camera.

UGH.

And the most annoying bit is that the language they’re using to talk about porn as this rampant public health issue? Totally inaccurate. They’re lumping pornography in with sex offenders and child pornography, because it makes it easier to vilify if a 100% legal enterprise is treated as if it’s in cahoots with abominable criminal activity.

And they’re blaming people’s problems with porn–namely addiction and children seeing it too early–on pornography itself. As if that’s what pornographers are after. As if, rather than making a profit on legal entertainment made for and consumed by adults, porn content creators are actually out to destroy the morals of America’s most vulnerable.

Barf.

The real problem is not pornography. It’s the utter refusal of–let’s face it–Republicans to talk about sex in an honest and open way that puts pornography into a context from which it can be enjoyed legally and responsibly. They’re villainizing an entire industry that operates legally and creates content for adults only, then blaming it for the fact that people illegally pirate it and put it on the internet where kids can find it. But they’re not stopping there. They’re then blaming the people who make porn for the fact that those kids don’t know what to make of what they find…because their parents and teachers didn’t explain it to them first. Somehow the failing of our parenting and educational systems–and conservative politics driving these issues forward–is now the fault of pornographers. And the GOP wants to actually target them for their involvement in “this public menace.”

I can’t even.

I’d say I want to deliver a wakeup call to the GOP, to tell them that porn has been around for as long as we’ve been human, and that calling it names and putting in in your platform won’t do a damn bit of good. But that’s not the point, is it. The point here isn’t to do anybody any good–it’s just to misdirect people’s sense of outrage from the politicians who are trying to force Americans’ heads into the sand while they keep profiting from the destruction of our planet, the brutalization of people of color all over the world, and the hatred that this kind of petty politicking fosters in the hearts of groups they continue to divide.

But here’s a real answer that could get us all somewhere: TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT SEX. I don’t mean the abstinence-only bullshit the GOP loved so much, because that got everybody exactly NOWHERE. I mean if you have children–yes, you, reader–sit them down and talk to them about it. It’s uncomfortable. But if you do it right, those kids won’t grow up thinking that porn is the same as sex, or that either one of them is bad. Maybe they’ll be comfortable with their bodies, even if those bodies are trans or queer. Maybe people with fewer hangups about the incidentals of their sexual identities will be more willing to look out at the world and see what’s causing real problems out there–things like repression, oppression, violence, ignorance, and greed. And maybe they’ll make better choices than the old farts in the Republican Party have been making for decades now.

Ugh. I’m so disgusted with humanity right now. I’m gonna go drink some wine and watch some porn and see how “publicly menaced” I feel.