Pornified? It’s Elementary
Many times at Intentional Warriors we talk about how hypersexuality is in the air we breathe as a culture.
We notice it in every corner of pop culture and in endless layers of our entertainment and advertising. Admittedly, it is often very subtle, but the pornification of our society is not in doubt.
The connection between entertainment and pornification can be seen in two recent developments in television and film.
Last week, on the show Elementary, the Sherlock Holmes character gave his endorsement of the sexual ethos of our time: Sex is a commodity. It’s something to purchase or sell in the same sort of business relationship that would apply to any other realm of commerce.
Elementary is a very good show, so my comments should not be seen as an attack on it. Johnny Lee Miller’s acting as Sherlock is outstanding, among other good acting performances on the show.
Nevertheless, when he says that sex is a commodity and the buying and selling of it should be treated as a legitimate business enterprise, it serves to reinforce the philosophy that shapes our culture and bends it toward increasing pornification.
In Skyfall, the latest Bond film, there is — no surprise — the promotion of sex with multiple women as a benchmark of masculinity. That’s nothing new where Bond is concerned.
That aside, there is still a troubling development in the plot regarding sexuality. Bond meets one of the female characters and discovers that she has been sexually trafficked.
Bond makes a point of noticing that she bears a mark on her wrist that identifies her as having been sold into sexual slavery. And he comments on the fact that even as an adult woman she still lives under the control of her traffickers.
And yet, two scenes later, Bond pursues her sexually. He finds her and makes an advance.
What’s troubling about that should be obvious. The demand for sex trafficked girls and women is created by men who think nothing of consuming women for their own pleasure at the woman’s expense.
The thought is that sex can be bought and sold and that a woman’s body is simply a product.
When a man, an authentic man comes in contact with any woman — especially one who has been traficked — his thought should be for her well being, not sexual.
The fact that Bond takes advantage of a trafficked woman makes that “love” scene very distasteful.
The common theme is that not only is sex a commodity, but that in our entertainment we are being shaped to think of sex this way.
The demand for porn and sex-trafficked women is fed every time we reinforce — whatever the medium — the message that sex can be bought and sold.
Intentional Warriors 
One Response to “Pornified? It’s Elementary”
I actually liked the Sherlock Holmes bit. He was saying this to a former prostitute, to say, that he did not think her past was a blemish on her character, she was merely selling something like any merchant, but sadly, society at large does not see it that way. It does see it that way for men though, for example, if a man was a stripper before, it does not detract from his character, because it is assumed that his body was his to give to the audiences. I am not sure what is right here, and definitely trafficking and exploitation exists and is a f***ing disease of the world, and nobody should close their eyes to that, but anyone that does not shame people or automatically assume they were victims for doing sex work is doing something right, I reckon.