A journalist emailed me several months ago and we ended up meeting at a coffee shop down the street from my apartment. She wanted to interview me about something. I wasn’t exactly sure what. There was a piece she was working on about porn, though my participation was irrelevant to the way it would turn out.

Still, she wanted to talk. And I was interested in some of the things she had to say. I don’t remember any of them exactly, but I do recall an idea she proposed in regards to a common claim. The journalist told me that she’d often heard about the disconcerting influence of pornography on young people, mostly due to its rampant accessibility and lack of accompanied context. Then she said that I was an example of evidence to the contrary. That now, more than ever, there is an overwhelming degree of context. If only people are willing to look.

My role as an “example” has to do with the fact that I am a porn performer and I write about porn. Sometimes for websites or print publications, but often on an unofficial blog format (Trve West Coast Fiction). More common still, I spew thoughts, jokes, interests and pornographic pairings on my various social network feeds.

I’m not the only one. Most every porn “star” I know has a Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, blog, etc… on which thoughts, feelings, images, interests, fantasies, and truths about pornography are shared on a daily basis. If nothing else, this array of information provides some context for what transpires on (insert-pirated-tube-feed-url).

Of course, there is an age at which any human being has little ability to gather much context. Certainly, the younger a child is exposed to hardcore internet porn, the less likely he/she is to know what the fuck is going on. Though as one ages, some responsibility must be laid on either a severe lack of economic privilege or the state of being a boring, lazy consumer. For those who can afford both a computer and high-speed internet access, I’m going to assume the latter.

Think about it like this:

The first exposure a child has to music might be something like Hannah Montana or Justin Bieber. This child may believe, for a time, that watered-down pop music is the only music that exists. He/she might even grow up and continue to listen to such music. But if by age sixteen, the child is unaware that “music” is as broad a category as “mammal,” Hannah Montana is a fictional character played by (Miley) Destiny Hope Cyrus, and Justin Bieber did not ascend to stardom by virtue of his talent alone, something is wrong. Social ineptitude, lack of exploration, an oblivious nature in regards to one’s environment, or….

Okay, this is not an entirely fair analogy in regards to porn. A kid watches — for the first time — a video of two naked people fucking. The parents don’t want to talk about it. The school doesn’t want to talk about it. His/her peers have little knowledge on the subject. The process of exploration is immediately hostile and restrictive.

Until one addresses the internet.