Some Negative Porn Analogies Work Better Than Others

by Calico Rudasill, Sssh.com Porn For Women

Over the years, I’ve seen porn compared to a wide variety of substances, creatures, professions and activities, none of which really seemed to fit – although some of these analogies clearly work better than others.

For example, I’ve seen porn compared to crack cocaine and tobacco (sometimes in the same interview), analogized with alcohol and even equated with snipers.

Unsurprisingly, most of these comparisons have been drawn by people who are staunchly anti-porn, and were designed to make porn sound terribly menacing and sinister.

The latest porn-analogy I’ve stumbled across doesn’t make me fear and want to run from porn, however; it just makes me want to try eating it.

Are You Sure You’re Not Thinking Of Hot Dogs?

In a recent article for Tes, a guy named Christian Pountain apparently wrote that “porn is like a doner kebab,” which is a new one on me. (Btw, I say Pountain “apparently” did this because the original article is behind a subscription wall, so I’m taking the word of Richard Vaughn, writing for iNews.co.uk, on this whole thing.)

“In the shop window, the kebab looks good; it might even taste nice while you consume it,” Pountain writes. “But it’s not good for us, and more than that, if we knew what often went into making it, we might have a very different outlook on eating it.”

Hmm. Given the popularity of doner kebab in Pountain’s stomping grounds (the UK) and the relative lack of mystery surrounding what goes into it, I’m not sure how many people are really going to rethink eating it, just because the headmaster of a religious school thinks they should.

I can’t help but wonder if Pountain was thinking of some other mystery-ingredient-based food, like hot dogs (or maybe Chick-O-Sticks), rather than doner kebab. Regardless, if you’re trying to make people think twice about eating something, I think you must be more explicit than just vaguely hinting there might be something untoward in there. I think you need to show them the silverfish – or at least pretend you found a finger in there.

Since When Has Knowing It’s Bad For Them Kept People From Eating Things?

Flawed porn analogies aside, I also question Pountain’s premise that knowing something is bad for them keeps people from eating them. If it did, does he really think the sign outside his local McDonald’s would read “Billions & Billions Served”?

Honestly, as fundamentally flawed as a lot of other porn analogies are, if I’m trying to come up with a comparison which discourages people from doing something, saying it’s like a sniper, a love-killer or addictive substance seems more effective than telling me it’s like a tasty Turkish dish.

For that matter, beyond eating big fried lumps of fat (and/or deep-fried lumps of curdled milk), we humans are apt to do all sorts of things which are terrible for us, or even potentially fatal to us.

If staying alive as long as humanly possible was the end-all, be-all of our existence, rock climbing would be against the law in every state of the union, not just with respect to the ‘cliffs’ which are, technically speaking, the stone wall around my neighbor’s back yard. (Again; sorry about that, Keith.)

We humans do all sorts of shit which is inarguably bad for us – including eating things with names which are very close to “Pountain,” come to think of it. Clearly, a lot of people argue watching porn is one of those things, but I’m not sure comparing it to a tasty, thinly-sliced meat is the way to go in persuading the public to give up erotica.

Dammit… Now I desperately want Middle Eastern for lunch, and there’s not a single decent kebab to be had within miles of my house. Oh well; I think I still have some feta-stuffed hot dogs around here, somewhere.