Softcore pornography, once enjoyed by strange men in dark and smoky corners, is now such a prominent feature of mainstream culture that we no longer recognize it. Sex in movies isn’t real, we say — the bad stuff’s online. Still, try telling that to the brain. In particular, try telling that to the male brain — that curious organ controlling that more curious organ, off and on, like a switch.


We are reluctant to discuss the pornification of our culture, I think, for two reasons. First, as with advertising; we are all, to some greater or lesser extent, affected by it. Second, in the digital era, it is so ubiquitous as to be virtually unavoidable. Sure, we might have some concerns. But you can’t exactly complain about noise pollution when you live in Manhattan. And you can’t exactly complain about porn when it’s 2019.

Instead, many of us have decided to say as little about it as possible. And I don’t just mean publicly, either. It never ceases to amaze me how many women privately say that they suspect — or know — that their significant other habitually watches porn. That they find this deeply unpleasant. And yet, that they think it would be unreasonable of them to expect him to stop.

Don’t like it? Don’t look! some say on porn. But for most people, that advice simply isn’t practical. Even for people who rationally, or on moral grounds, reject it; the instinct runs too deep. The flesh, as they say, is weak. The trouble is that after prolonged exposure to porn from puberty onwards, like the “Peeping Tom” from the legend of Lady Godiva, many of us have been struck blind or dead. Blind or dead to romance. And cynical about love.