I received a distressed phone call from a good friend of mine this week. "I found porn on my computer," she told me, and paused for dramatic effect.
Her adoring boyfriend had finally reached the point in his relationship with my friend's apartment where he felt at liberty to indulge in his own private peep show in her bedroom in addition to his own.
"Congratulations!" I said.
I told her that her boyfriend had simply reached a new comfort level with her, which was a healthy thing. She explained in turn that she discovered it while rummaging through some mysterious folders on her desktop. A confrontation had taken place, which left her feeling a little inadequate.
"Is there something wrong with me?" she asked.
The answer is yes. But only that it took 20-odd years for her to realize that every man on the planet with access to porn watches it, particularly the Internet variety. Give me a nickel for every Internet porn site that comes up on the history of the average college boy's computer and you might as well become my indentured servant.
This isn't even a single man's condition -- everyone's boyfriend watches porn. It doesn't matter how satisfied he is in the relationship. Chances are he's still got a folder somewhere in his hard drive labeled "Absolutely Nothing," and finding it is the technological equivalent of looking under a 15-year-old boy's mattress. Yes, your man too.
On the Web site www.getgirls.com, Don Diebel (the self-proclaimed "No. 1 Singles Expert") suggests "hiding [porn] in a good place like the attic or locked up in a trunk, file cabinet, etc. ... You'd be surprised how women will snoop around while you're not looking. ... If she is dead set against porno even after you have established a serious relationship, just keep your stuff hidden (you can always break it out when she's not around). ..."
While a semi-insulting generalization, it's still pretty standard to find that men are embarrassed by their little indulgences. And they have reason to be. Women can feel everything from insulted to threatened to victimized by pornography -- the jury is still out on its possible negative effects on society.
However, this election season, pornography decided to try to have a different kind of societal influence. Porn got political when the adult entertainment industry and pornographers endorsed John Kerry as their chosen candidate for the presidency. With a $10 billion business in the United States today, the bunny has become a powerful new political animal.
One New York strip club substituted a voter registration card for entry fee. About 800 of the 4,000 adult clubs in the United States have joined the effort, registering an average of 200 voters per club, according to www.alternet.org. The Web site www.pornforprogress.com produced a film entitled Fahrenheit 69: The Porn for Kerry DVD, promising to donate the profits to help the Kerry campaign prevail in swing states. Meanwhile, www.homegrownvideo.com has a link directly to Rock the Vote, underneath ads for Natural Bush 20 and Handjobs Across America 3.
Though all this hot and heavy support from a group as socially questionable as pornographers may reflect badly on Democrats' moral image, particularly post-Clinton, the repeat appearances by Republicans and their fans in strip clubs across the country have been exposed several times in the media. The Village Voice chronicled the presence of Republican National Convention-goers in a high-class New York strip club, from their lap dance tabs to their indecent proposals. It seems none are escaping this arena without a little dirt on their hands. And it's not all that surprising -- our political leaders are merely men, after all (and sometimes merely women).
As the election approaches its eleventh hour, there are a few things we can learn from the Jenna Jamesons of the world -- besides the obvious. First, pornography is based on a fascination with trying new things. Though taking the first step may be scary, with the right leadership and the most honest intentions, both sex and politics can make more people happy. While I desperately hope that this spirit of political adventure leads to a change in administration, one more progressive and freer of the baggage the United States has accumulated over the past four years, I'll settle for a huge voter turnout on Nov. 2.
Secondly, sex is the great equalizer. From the most radically conservative Texan to the most fiercely liberal New Yorker, everyone at one time or another is just looking for a little action. The election controversies have divided our country, and our campus, in two. Politics makes people angry, and the results have sometimes turned ugly -- even violent. In between all the name-calling and rabble-rousing, it behooves us to remember that the dust will settle again. We'll have to work with whatever administration emerges victorious to move toward our goals as a country. Philadelphia is one of the cities that experienced record-breaking voter registration -- it would be a shame to see all that activism go flaccid when we need it the most.
Jessica Lussenhop is a senior English major from St. Paul, Minn. Textual Revolution appears on Fridays.
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