I find it harder, the older I get, to expose myself to conflicting views, which is all the more reason why I should. (I know.) I found myself lately in a heightened sense of vulnerability, and the vast unpleasantness of making an effort to understand yourself is you don't really get the option to overlook things anymore. In other words, if I have the tools to unravel and figure out what's making me uneasy, I have a duty to do so. I can no longer blame it on the wind, act erratic or guilt-trip others into feeling bad for me.
I had a rather vulnerable and delicate conversation with a friend, broadly about personal lives, monogamy, relationships, and the like. Much as I consider myself a sexually open person, I can get uneasy around such topics. I know why. Doesn't stop me from getting uneasy, though.
So I delved into this conversation, and allowed myself to persist with some notions I was uncomfortable with, just as an exploration, just as a form of treading the waters.
Later, perhaps emboldened by this conversation, I got to listening to a podcast episode I'd noticed but been ignoring for about a week. Modern Wisdom's Chris Williamson did a debate-style podcast with Louise Perry, one of the best (imo) feminist conservative writers today, and Bonnie Blue, known across the web as the woman who fucked a thousand men in one day.
It wasn't a subject I was particularly comfortable with. As I've written here before, my opinions on the porn industry are quite well-defined, and I am no fan of the moral-looseness with which we now treat sex and relationships, pretending (largely) it's a social improvement.
It's typically not.
It seems tragic to me that so much of the porn industry, OnlyFans, and even the "sexually liberated" vibe of our generation is predicated on an iceberg of insecurity and humiliation, and I don't really see it being useful for men or for women in the long term.
So I was wary of listening. What's there to learn? How free and wonderful it is to sleep with a thousand men in a day? Still, I know the danger of hiding behind your own wariness, so off I went to listen, with all my copious skepticism in tow.
It turned out to be a pretty fascinating two hours. To my surprise, I found myself liking Bonnie (though still not the "sexual liberation" she allegedly represents). Even Perry, the author of a brilliant book called "How the Sexual Revolution Failed", seemed to be taking a liking to this girl.
You had to appreciate her honesty, if not her metier, and as opposed to a vast range of the so-called stars of the OnlyFans industry, Bonnie actually strikes you as someone well-suited to and who enjoys her work. During the two hours, they talked about a wide range of things, such as Bonnie's background, what led her to this kind of a life, what she gets out of it, how she views herself, her future, and how her family deals with her profession.
She made a lot of points I agreed with (to my surprise), including one that's always seemed particularly baffling to me - namely that, by the time some woman's husband arrives at her door, that relationship is long sick (if not dead), and that blaming the so-called "homewreckers" is nothing but a patriarchal, toxic and backwards view (a view, of course, with its own historical value, but one that no longer functions in our modern world).
It was interesting to observe as the conversation progressed, not only how Perry grew more tame and friendly towards Bonnie, but also for myself, how my own opinion of her softened. While I still think most of our sexually-liberated practices and entertainment are doing more harm than good, it was certainly interesting to listen to the occasional outlier, and explore the common grounds you might have with people who seem quite far-removed from your own way of living.
Personally, I don't believe radical tolerance and acceptance is the way forward. I do think society steers itself and that implicitly, we as individuals, with our views and our values, determine whether it is going upward or aiming towards Hell. But I do see the value on a personal and artistic level of listening to and engaging with different opinions with an open mind. Most of all, I see its value from a political perspective. We need to understand how the "other" thinks and feels, not to defeat them, but to have a better chance of creating a world in which both of us can live.
