Porn - Philosophy for Everyone: How to Think With Kink (11 page)

Simulating a day at the office

In the popular video series “Naughty Office,” corporate executives discover that the true desire of their demurely dressed secretaries is not to provide administrative assistance but to engage in heroic sessions of on-the-job fellatio and vaginal/anal penetration. Said bosses are themselves eager to indulge the sexual appetites of their secretaries.

Suppose in rural Nebraska somewhere a dude named Max is watching
Naughty Office 8
⁹
from his couch. Max has never had a secretary – he’s never even worked in an office before. But he can
simulate
being a boss with a secretary, and he can
simulate
the things that bosses and secretaries like to do in the “Naughty Office.” For example, Max can simulate the activity of hastily clearing his desk of official documents so that he and his secretary can more comfortably perform sexual maneuvers.

It is helpful to compare Max’s simulation of the Naughty Office to the simulation of Mr.Tees.The first step for the simulation of Mr.Tees is the generation of pretend inputs. While the script about Mr. Tees that prefaced this essay
prompts
our imagination, it does not do the actual imagining for us. Cognitive capacities such as visual imagery (e.g., seeing ourselves in a limo stuck in traffic) and memory recall (e.g., that particular anxiety we’ve experienced in past traffic jams) are used to produce the facsimile mental states that locate the simulator “in the shoes” of Mr. Tees. On the other hand, one of the tricks of pornographic video is to eliminate the cognitive work and creativity that is typically required for this initial imaginative step. While engaging porn the viewer does not have to visualize a secretary because the secretary is
right there
on the screen. Nor does the viewer strain to imagine the secretary seducing him because again, she is
right there
, ostensibly disrobing and discussing her carnal intentions.

When Max feeds the pretend secretary-seduction inputs into his reasoning system the system will run off-line and produce further mental states. For instance, Max may believe that he is receiving fellatio, that the secretary desires him, that their behavior is risky, and so on. Certainly, Max sees these things to some extent, but he also
believes
them and believes they are a consequence of his behavior. Also, Max’s beliefs are about
himself
(and the secretary), but nowhere is Max presented on-screen. These cognitive states, then, must be explained by simulation and do not reduce to mere audio-visual stimulation. On the other hand, it is the visceral power of pornographic video that most directly explains how the off-line process is enforced. If Max’s mind were left to its own resources (provided no sensory stimulation) it is unlikely that Max could maintain the off-line succession of mental states that occurs during a secretary-seduction. Fortunately for Max, the audio-visual narrative of
Naughty Office 8
functions to continuously enforce the off-line processing and suppress potentially contradictory beliefs (e.g., the belief that the secretary’s desire for him is grossly implausible).

Simulation can also produce affective states, or mental states that have an emotional component. Perhaps during a production of
Romeo and Juliet
we simulate the lovers and generate an emotional state that replicates (to some degree) the genuine emotional state that accompanies love-loss. Now, to the extent that Max is able to simulate surrogates of the cognitive states that attend a secretary-seduction, he should also experience affective states (i.e., desire, lust, affection, disregard) according to the way that his affective system responds to his beliefs. As I discuss below, this is a potentially worrisome result.

So far I have discussed the simulation of cognitive and affective states. But perhaps the most intriguing modes of simulation that underlie the consumption of pornographic video are a form of mirroring called “tactile empathy” and the production of motor imagery. Tactile empathy occurs when someone views another person being touched. Keysers et al. performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of subjects in two different conditions.
¹⁰
In the tactile condition, subjects’ lower legs were brushed back and forth with a glove. For the visual-stimulation condition, subjects viewed videos of actors having their lower legs brushed. The results of the fMRI indicated that being touched and watching someone being touched produced a similar pattern of activation in the secondary somatosensory cortex. Additional evidence indicates that tactile empathy generalizes to other body parts and other types of tactile stimulation. Quite plausibly, watching pornography produces activation patterns in this somatosensory cortex that are similar to patterns produced during actual sexual activity. (No doubt porn consumers also deploy auto-erotic behavior in order to more accurately replicate genuine tactile sensations).

I suggest that porn consumption also involves the closely related but distinct cognitive production of motor imagery. Motor imagery is the imaginative reproduction of mental states that accompany bodily action. For example, before a foul shot, basketball players often “make the shot in their head.” Several empirical studies show that the neurological regions activated during actual bodily movement are also activated during the imaginative enactment of bodily movement.
¹¹
Putting this all together, we return to Max. Not only is Max’s somatosensory cortex mirroring the somatosensory cortex of the porn actor, but Max is also actively imagining himself executing the motor movements of the porn actor.These subconscious forms of mental mirroring likely anchor the more controlled cognitive reenactments as described above.

One clear difference between the uses of simulation during mind reading versus porn watching is that only the former employs the final projective step. In no sense does Max want to exit the simulation heuristic (“come back to reality”) in order to ascribe a mental state to the naked stranger on the screen! Rather, Max wants to maintain the affective, imagistic, and cognitive states that encode
him
as that person (the boss), with that person’s attributes, and undergoing that person’s activities.

Money, lesbians, and woodsmen

I submit that the simulation model of pornography has a number of explanatory merits that are not available on other accounts. First, I believe that it offers a highly plausible explanation for why pornography is staggeringly popular. We
already know
that actual sex is very appealing and that the attainment of the mental and physical states that accompany sex is, to put the matter mildly, highly motivating. If pornography serves as an audio-visual prop that allows viewers to create surrogate mental states that are phenomenologically and cognitively similar to mental states experienced during actual sex, then it follows that pornography should also be very appealing and highly motivating.

The pornography-as-simulation model also explains the central importance of the “money shot” – the literal and figurative climax of nearly every porn scene.The money shot is the successful filming of the male’s ejaculation, where said ejaculation always occurs visibly and directed towards some female body part. It is curious why the money shot is so important to the structure of a porn scene. After all, the porn industry is constantly experimenting and changing existing forms. Yet the money shot persists, unwavering and unrestrained. This all makes sense if the money shot is an essential audio-visual prop for viewer simulation. If the money shot is absent, then the viewer may question whether the sexual activity is “really” happening. But in order to question the authenticity of the sexual behavior, the viewer would first have to
exit
the simulative mode (inhibit their off-line processing) so that they could make an objective analysis.The invariable inclusion of the money shot, then, functions to preserve the simulative connection between viewer and video. More generally, an account of porn consumption should be able to explain why, given a largely male and presumably heterosexual viewing audience, porn exhibits a preponderance of penises and male ejaculate.
¹²
It is easy to draw the wrong inferences from this fact.Take, for instance, the following author’s claim: “Pornography highlights the penis; men watch pornography; therefore, men must be watching the penis.”
¹³
From this the author concludes that “pornography exists as a conduit for male homoerotic interaction,”
¹⁴
and that “porn’s central taboo is homosexuality.”
¹⁵
This gets it completely wrong, completely backwards. The author’s argument assumes that people watch pornography objectively, in the third person. If this were the case, then perhaps it is reasonable to wonder why so many presumably heterosexual men are watching so many penises. But it is not the case, because viewers are simulating the actor rather than watching the actor. From the simulative perspective, the viewer is watching
their own
penis and the sexual contact it receives/provides. This is also why large endowment is common in the porn industry:
ceteris paribus
, men prefer to imagine themselves as well endowed and to simulate the effects thereof.

During lesbian scenes there is no male actor that serves as a location to which the viewer can imaginatively project himself.This may seem like a potential problem for the simulation approach to porn, but several responses are available. First, recall that I am not advancing any necessary condition for porn consumption because I don’t think there are any. Second, it is possible that men are simulating the women’s perspective. Third, and most likely I think, the viewer is simulating the perspective of a “hypothetical observer” to the women. The fact that many lesbian scenes are set up such that it is possible for there to be a secret observer (e.g., the women are in tall grass somewhere) supports this claim.

Conclusions and Assessments

I now examine some of the implications of the simulative model of porn consumption. I hope to show that there are some clear benefits for the porn viewer and perhaps society at large, but also some significant worries. I end on a theoretical note, arguing that the model advanced here opens up new directions for empirical research.

Even better than the real thing?

The world of actual sexual relationships can be a dangerous and cruel place: sexually transmitted diseases are more common and lethal than ever; sexual rejection and unfulfilled sexual desires are par for the course for just about everybody; acts of intimacy interact unpredictably and sometimes undesirably with other non-sexualized elements of people’s lives; and so on. The world of pornography offers an escape from many of these unwanted contingencies. If pornographic experience
qua
simulation approximates actual sexual experience, then why bother with any of the problems that are only endemic to the actual sexual world? Sure, there is the argument from Nozick that people want to be
actual
people with
actual
experiences.
¹⁶
But in the context of sexual experience this is often the very problem, namely, that the activities which exist in the pornographic milieu are not readily available in the actual world.

Two worries

Here are two concerns that arise if porn viewing is simulative. (I have several other concerns, but I’ve been given a word limit). First, the disconnect between pornography and actual sex is exacerbated by the remarkable proliferation of porn categories. Internet sites can have literally thousands of alphabetized categories of sexual fetishes and interests that range from
Braces
to
Anal Fruitshakes
. Many of the activity types and partner types featured in these categories are unavailable in the (relatively speaking) prosaic world of real sex. However, I do not believe that the growing population of porn categories exists in response to people’s antecedent desires. Rather, these categories
create
desires, and these new desires may conflict with standards of wellbeing and moral behavior.

What I have in mind here is similar to what Ian Hacking calls “dynamic nominalism,” in which a category is initially empty but eventually comes to exist on the basis of labeling practices.
¹⁷
My specific worry is that through simulative exposure to obscure porn categories, during which people vicariously experience the satisfaction of these desires, they will actually develop these desires in reference to non-simulative and non-pornographic contexts. Such desires then create unrealistic expectations in the non-pornographic world that are potentially harmful for real relationships.

Second, the content of mainstream (as opposed to fetish) pornographic material is increasingly defined by aggressive and degrading behavior towards women. This suggests that porn viewers are simulating aggressive and degrading behavior. Given the layers of simulative reenactment described in the previous section, the concern is not only that viewers simulate the belief that, for example, they are dominating women, but also that they experience the attendant affective states (e.g., derision) in reference to women. If the simulative character of these mental states causes them to persist or have any efficacy in the non-simulated world, then that is a deep problem.
¹⁸
Note also that this problem interacts with the problem just described. Even where there is no antecedent desire for domination and degradation, simulated experience of actions on the basis of such desires may foster their development.