Leaving the Comfort Zonen
by Derrick Jensen

Pornography is about anything but the particulars. Lost not only is any question of relationship with the particular woman in the photograph, but lost also is her skin's texture, her smell, her taste. The thing that disturbs me most about pornography - more than the fact that many photos cut women into pieces; more than the poses reinforcing the myth of dominant males and submissive females; more even than the degrading prose often attached to photographs - is that photographs are empty; they're abstractions. No matter how I pretend I'm sitting across from a beautiful, intelligent babe with whom I've had a long, delicious conversation about what it would take to knock out the infrastructure of Las Vegas, the truth is that I'm alone. Looking at the pictures, I'm more sad than aroused.

And as I look at the splayed limbs, fake smiles, and artificial passion, it becomes clear that the attraction of pornography, though superficially sexual, has more to do with fear than desire. When you don't know how to connect, when connection frightens you so much, I suppose this simulation is better than nothing. Isn't it better to watch nature programs than to never see nature at all?

Maybe not. Maybe this parody of connection feeds us just enough that we stay in stasis, too frightened to attempt to connect with another yet not quite miserable enough to attempt to relate differently, not quite miserable enough to know we're miserable and lonely. I understand now the attraction of pornography. It's safe. There's no messy contact with another. No disappointment. Nothing but silence, flatness, a photograph. We're substituting imaginary experiences with the images of things for experiences with the things themselves, having already substituted the experience of things for the possibility of relationship with other beings.