Porn Generation, Pt. 1
I went to my local Barnes & Noble this weekend and read the first two chapters of Porn Generation, Ben Shapiro’s inadvertently hilarious new book about how kids today are all licentious, degenerate reprobates who smoke LSD while having sex with potted plants (but not Ben, of course- he’s courageously locked his genitals in an alarm-protected titanium-clad chastity belt that can only be opened by the tender touch of Ann Coulter).
Speaking of Ann, she has a blurb on the cover that praises Ben as “wise beyond his years.” I think “old beyond his years” would be more accurate, since most of the time he sounds like a cantankerous, doddering bitty who hasn’t been right in the head since NBC cancelled Columbo. For someone who claims to be a “peer” of the porn generation, Ben has very little ability to connect or empathize with people his own age.
Take a look at this exchange in Chapter 2, where Ben interviews “Katie,” a fellow student at Harvard:
Katie isn’t a virgin, and she isn’t ashamed of it.
But she should be, right Ben? She should cry herself to sleep on her big, slutty pillow, shouldn’t she?
She became sexually active at age nineteen and has had three sexual partners. “There’s nothing wrong with premarital sex,” she tells me. “I got over that idea. I feel I can make rational decisions armed with what I learned in nine years of the same class repeating… Sex is appropriate when the person is mentally ready to have sex, and when it’s not a result of peer pressure to fit in, and when she’s mature enough not to have any regrets.”
Sounds pretty reasonable, don’t you think? She doesn’t condone sleeping with anything that moves, nor does she advocate strict puritanical virtue. She thinks that it’s wise for people to learn about sex once they hit puberty so they can understand the changes their bodies are going through, and she’s glad that when she eventually decided to have sex that she knew how to minimize the risks.
So what’s the problem? Well, she’s still having sex before marriage, and Ben thinks that’s bad. While he acknowledges that “Katie” went through sex education at public school and came out of it “a sexually well-adjusted person” (by today’s tawdry standards, of course), he still thinks that teens shouldn’t be taught about birth control and condoms and should only learn to put off sex until marriage.
But there’s just one problem with Ben’s plan for abstinence-only education: liberals hate it because it runs counter to their agenda of giving teens accurate information. Instead of teaching kids that touching someone’s genitals can get you pregnant, liberals want to teach them about contraception. Writes Ben:
[L]iberals are constantly harping about the right-wing sex education agenda of “scaring kids.” “Scaring kids” means abstinence-only education, telling them that the only way to ensure prevention of STDs and pregnancy is abstinence.
Teaching kids that abstinence is the only sure way to prevent STD’s and pregnancy isn’t what we have a problem with. We do have a problem when abstinence-only educators try to scare the crap out of kids by telling them that AIDS can be transmitted through tears.
Ben acknowledges that many abstinence programs use scare tactics to educate teens, but says, “So what?”
Yes, using scare tactics is wrong in most situations. But when the subject cannot comprehend the harmful consequences of an action not yet taken, then fear is an appropriate motivator to inhibit such an action. It’s always comical to watch a parent engage a two-year-old in a Socratic dialogue about why the kid can’t cross the street without an adult present. A two-year-old child can’t understand the concept of death, just as a ten-year-old child can’t understand the crucial emotional loss and desensitization suffered as a result of sex without rules.
Ben, telling someone about the genuine risks related to a particular behavior isn’t a “scare tactic.” A scare tactic is when you deliberately exaggerate potential dangers so people modify their behavior out of irrational fear. Therefore, it isn’t a scare tactic to tell people about the risks of having unprotected sex with multiple partners. It is a scare tactic to tell people that condoms fail to prevent HIV 31% of the time for heterosexual intercourse, however.
This kind of crappy reasoning is rampant in Porn Generation. Here are some choice goodies:
In reality, social liberals abandon determinism whenever it conflicts with their moral outlook. They say that educating kids about cigarette use means telling them to say no under all circumstances, instead of teaching them that if they do decide to smoke, they should use filters to minimize the health risks.
No, but we do teach teens that if they choose to drink alcohol, they should drink moderately and shouldn’t get behind the wheel of a car. Apparently, Ben has no concept of “relative danger.”
Social liberals want to prevent children from knowing anything about gun use, instead of training children to use firearms responsibly. Apparently, kids won’t use guns “sooner or later” if we tell them no.
Well, speaking from personal experience, no they won’t. I haven’t shot a rifle since I was 11 years old, but in the last year I’ve had sex roughly… well, I won’t get into my personal life, but let’s just say I’ve had sex within the last year.
Now, it doesn’t bother me in the least that I haven’t fired a gun for the last 14 years. On the other hand, were I to go more than a decade without sex, I’d probably look something like this:
In other words, it’s realistic to tell kids to keep away from guns because that behavior isn’t hard-wired into their brain. Sex, on the other hand, is.
For liberals, premarital sex is less morally repugnant than smoking or hunting.
Can you believe those wacky liberals? They’d rather get laid than slaughter a defenseless animal!
Here’s another goody:
Debra W. Haffner, former president of SIECUS, writes that the goals of sex education should be: “to provide young people with accurate information about sexuality, to give them an opportunity to develop their values and increase self-esteem, to help them develop interpersonal skills and to help them exercise responsibility in their relationships.” Develop their values, increase their self-esteem. This is subjectivism, and it is forcing kids without capabilities into choices with serious consequences.
Yes, it would be so much better if we just taught them Ben’s values, which are, of course, the only right values.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: so far, Ben’s whined a lot about the liberal media and public schools, but nary a word has been said about Bill Clinton’s penis. After all, no right-wing polemic would be complete without assigning Clinton’s dick blame for the decline of Western Civilization. Well fear not, ’cause Ben spends a whopping five pages discussing how the Clenis forced teens to engage in oral sex:
Hillary’s husband played a sexual education role as well. President Clinton’s impeachment scandal of 1998 had a definite impact on the porn generation, and not in a positive sense. While most liberal commentators argued at that time that Clinton didn’t need to be a role model for America’s children in his personal life, his actions effectively validated the worst kind of activity- both when it comes to lying about sex and on the issue of oral sex.
That wacky Clenis- where oh where will it pop up next? (Wait, don’t tell me, I really don’t wanna know…)
OK, let’s sum up what we’ve learned so far:
1.) Ben’s values are better than yours (and just like his milkshake, they don’t bring all the boys to the yard).
2.) Ben would rather blow away animals than be blown by somebody else (and he’d rather shoot a deer than shoot his load).
3.) It’s OK to lie to your children as long as it makes them scared to touch themselves at night.
Tune in next week, when I review Chapter 3- “CAMPUS CARNALITY!!!”
Oy. You actually read it.
Getting lectured to from Ben about sex makes about as much sense as getting lectured to by Stevie Wonder about David Lynch’s use of color.
I would ask, “Where doe Ben get off?” but the answer would be “sitting in front of Fox News in a DNA-encrusted recliner” and that would just be icky.
Oh yes I did! And I didn’t have to pay any money!
I would ask, “Where doe Ben get off?” but the answer would be “sitting in front of Fox News in a DNA-encrusted recliner” and that would just be icky.
Yes it would. So why’d you just say it? 😉
(Seriously, that’s hilarious)
I would ask, “Where doe Ben get off?” but the answer would be “sitting in front of Fox News in a DNA-encrusted recliner” and that would just be icky.
Well, there’s a day ruined. Godalmighty…
I think it’s cute how the “O” in “Porn” is pierced like a bellybutton.
I hate to break it to Ben, but we’ve tried the abstinence only route in this country. It was called the 1950s through the early 1960s (pre Kennedy assasination.) We saw movies about guys who did it with “loose” girls who got “ooie, gooey” pimples on their thingies and then passed on the pustuled goo to their “good” girlfriends who didn’t know how to recognized the sign of the beast. We laughed and the most amazing part of the strategy was… It didn’t work. People got knocked up and contracted icky diseases anyway. Maybe even his mom, or grandma.
MB
You’re only young once, but you can dress in an age inappropriate manner forever.
I think we all know what goes on in those secluded duck blinds that Ben likes to frequent.
People got knocked up and contracted icky diseases anyway. Maybe even his mom, or grandma.
MB
Whaddaya mean “maybe.” Ben Shapiro IS an icky, sexually-transmitted disease.
“Yes, using scare tactics is wrong in most situations.”
Like when it isn’t politically expedient to do so…
Oral sex is the worst kind of activity? Poor, poor Ben. Poor poor poor poor Ben.
How did you score this for free? What sort of shenanigans did that entail?
Ok, boys, we think we might have started a problem between Ben and Jonah Goldberg. “Monday Goldberg Theatre” does not appear to be an abstinence only affair. And the words “my sweet Groganzola” are uttered.
http://3bulls.blogspot.com/2005/07/monday-goldberg-theatre_18.html
Just Barnes and Noble free? I was hoping there was some Alias mission and Marshall had to hook BRad R. up with some skanky outfit. How perfect for Ben Shapiro! That his book get heisted by some cheesecake!
Social liberals want to prevent children from knowing anything about gun use
Oh, eat shit, Ben. Quit trying to act like all dangers are exactly the same, and quit telling social liberals what we all think.
Ben… hunts?
Hehe. Sorry. As an upstate New Yorker (Slogan: We’re not quite Canadian) and someone that has spent a fair amount of time in the woods, deer camp revolves around drinking way too much canned beer and swapping stories about getting laid, er, I mean discussions on how morally repugnant pre-marital sex is.
And if he thinks college is bad, he should hang out with the troops he supports so much.
Kids didn’t know about blowjobs till Clinton did it?
“L]iberals are constantly harping about the right-wing sex education agenda ” – Yup. That’s right. Non-stop. Constant. Harping.
You know, I’m so tired of these asswipes saying “Liberals say this.” and “Liberals think that,” without citing a single goddamn example of even ONE liberal that says or thinks whatever the fuck strawman point he puts in their mouth, let alone liberals in the plural.
Poor Matthew Lesko. First he is only 99 on the list of 100 People Screwing Up America and now we learn he hasn’t had sex in a decade.
So sad.
In a veritable pocket full of verbal gems, this stands out:
“It’s OK to lie to your children as long as it makes them scared to touch themselves at night.”
Ok, that and the “DNA encrusted armchair”…
kudos, fellas!
you’ve been peeked
“Yes, using scare tactics is wrong in most situations.”
But it’s just fine when speaking of WMD, or brain-dead women.
“Social liberals want to prevent children from knowing anything about gun use, instead of training children to use firearms responsibly. Apparently, kids won’t use guns “sooner or later” if we tell them no.”
This is even more idiotic then what Mr. Shapiro normally says. Come on, how does such a poor argument get into the final draft?
I mean discussions on how morally repugnant pre-marital sex is.
Is sex dirty? Only if…
On the other hand, were I to go more than a decade without sex, I’d probably look something like this:
And then you’d have at least one more decade of not-getting-any in your immediate future . . .
I would pay a million dollars to see Ben go to Iraq and tell Marines that premarital sex is wrong, and that doing it makes them liberals.
Here’s my theory about Ben: he talks about “morality” all the goddamn time, but it doesn’t mean anything to him anymore: it’s like when you say a word over and over again, to the point where you start to just hear the sound of the word, abstracted from the meaning. “Morality” has just become a totem that he worships ’cause he’s ALWAYS worshipped it. Can’t change horsemen mid-apocalypse, and all that. But it’s a completely empty gesture.
Actually, this analysis could be applied to most conservatives, I suppose. But Ben made me think of it by being so consistently, humourlessly dogmatic about it all the time.
…just as a ten-year-old child can’t understand the crucial emotional loss and desensitization suffered as a result of sex without rules
All I could think of when I was reading this was what??? Is that what you think happens, Ben? “emotional loss and desensitization”?
Then I stopped worrying. After that, all I could think of was “damn, Ben. You are going to be sooooo pissed when (if) you eventually find out…”
Oral sex is the worst kind of activity? Poor, poor Ben. Poor poor poor poor Ben.
Yosef, perhaps he’s thinking of ATM — in fact, I doubt he can stop thinking about it!
Does he even realize that what he’s advocating for cigarettes and guns — education — is exactly what them evil librulz are advocating for sex?
Why do blowjobs hate Amerikkka?
Sex without rules? Would that be like Playing Calvinball, only nekkid??
Wow. How brave of you to read this, Brad. You don’t even worry that when people see you hunched over Ben’s prose, snickering, they’ll think you’re looking at something else.
I know Ben’s never been the sharpest shovel in the sand, but I really find it hard to believe that until he heard about Clinton-Lewinski(he’d have been 14 in 1998), he didn’t know about oral sex.
Wow. How brave of you to read this, Brad. You don’t even worry that when people see you hunched over Ben’s prose, snickering, they’ll think you’re looking at something else.
Actually, I put another book over PORN GENERATION so it looks like I’m reading something else. But on the other hand, people look at me funny when they think I’m laughing hysterically at BALKAN GHOSTS…
Omigawd. Ben may just have written this generation’s version of “Reefer Madness.”
Wait, I’m confused. Did he actually say that it’s ok to lie to kids about sex, but not about cigarettes and guns?
Did he actually say that it’s ok to lie to kids about sex, but not about cigarettes and guns?
Yes, but to Ben, telling kids that condoms fail 31% of the time is only lying in the worldly sense- Biblically, it’s totally true.
-“Omigawd. Ben may have just written this generation’s version of “Reefer Madness”-parsec
Nail on head. Wish I’d said it!
So, the Clenis popularized oral sex. Huh. This would be, what, 1995, 1996? Y’know, I could *swear* I’ve seen oral sex in ’70s and ’80s porn flix. I must be misremembering. Then there’s my personal experiences from back in the day before the Starr Report, and nobody can prove the Big Dawg had anything to do with those (I hope…).
BTW, would someone who can shut off the damned italics tag?
This guy is so repressed he’s channeled his energy into making other people as miserable as he is?
If that’s his goal, Honey, it isn’t working, because instead of making people miserable, he makes them laugh…AT HIM, but, still…
Sex is bad, and torture is good. A little conundrum: should one enjoy a good (if painful) time with a dominatrix?
Shouldn’t the authoress of the friendly blurb on the cover of Shapiro’s book expand on that topic?
By the way, the book is scary: nowadays, girls loose virginity at sooo immature age of 19. This datum alone is shocking. Shocking.
I think we need to apply Ben’s type of “education” to other subjects:
If you teach kids about algebra, you’re just encouraging them to graph the first coordinate pair that comes their way. Kids should wait until they are mathematicians before they get involved with quadratic equations. Because, 31% of the time, a-squared plus b-squared only equals heartbreak.
Are you going to wait until you find your teenaged daughter in a three-way matrix, simplifying some spikey-haired, pierced-eyebrow polynomial before you realize that she’s too immature to handle higher math?
As if Kay Grogan, Pastor Swank, & evil mutant cats weren’t bad enough — now we get the Virgin Ben. This site is becoming stranger than the Fafblog…
teh- ATM, eh? Makes sense.
I really find it hard to believe that until he heard about Clinton-Lewinski(he’d have been 14 in 1998), he didn’t know about oral sex.
Hey, I didn’t know about it until the Starr report came out, and I was, uh, older than 14. I blame Ken Starr for ruining my innocence.
BTW, maybe tomorrow I will tell you the story about how Ben’s crusade against porn is all to protect his little sisters, who can’t even watch TV in case they hear a reference to oral sex or something. One of Ben’s sisters is 18.
BTW, maybe tomorrow I will tell you the story about how Ben’s crusade against porn is all to protect his little sisters, who can’t even watch TV in case they hear a reference to oral sex or something. One of Ben’s sisters is 18.
Is she cute?
Is she cute?
Posted by Gavin M. at July 19, 2005 04:35 PM
Doubtful . . .
Beauty
Brain
Personality
Availability
Pick any 2.
I’m thinking the Virgin Bensis will be available, but don’t hold your breath for any of the others.
Pick any 2.
Oh, that’s for guys who can’t cook. You can theoretically get three with a decent mushroom bisque or recettes d’artchauts, or whatever.
What’s that hanging off the “O” in Porn Generation?
At first I thought it was a little ogling eyeball, but on closer examination it looks like a nipple ring.
What is Ben’s opinion on anatomical piercings? Does he have any?
Okay, let me summarize: It’s another book about how awful liberals are.
That ought to save a lot of people a lot of time and money.
Yay! A young man has discovered the sexual revolution! Maybe his next book will be about how we were in a war in Vietnam, or how black people used to be not allowed to vote.
i think i said this before, but i read a good bit of this in barnes and noble and my brain hurt for a week afterwards.
and what’s with the ann coulter quote, is ben really dumb enough to think she’s a virgin?
and what’s with the ann coulter quote, is ben really dumb enough to think she’s a virgin?
Well, he thinks she’s a virgin now, since she had that sex-change operation. But I am certain that he realizes that when Ann was a man, he had sex all the time.
“I blame Ken Starr for ruining my innocence.” Did he at least call you afterwords?
I just remembered: in the movie “Some Like It Hot”(made in 1959), there’s actually a blow-job joke (and another one about sex-reassignment surgery)-so I guess we should blame Billy Wilder for corrupting ’50’s youth. Although I can’t help but think the jokes wouldn’t be in the movie if he didn’t expect anyone to GET them.
Ben needs a good rub ‘n’ tug
This makes me want to clean my gun, whilst getting oral sex, then enjoy a tasty menthol smoke…
I am suprised you actually made it all the way through the book. I picked it up and glanced through it at work. After glancing at his poor use of language and attempt to categorize and define social groups (“wiggers”, “sluts”, etc….) I couldn’t bare any more. The ideas conveyed in this book were so ridiculous that any person under the age of 55 would not be able to take them seriously.
He also blames the music industry (Brittney spears) for corrupting the youth, but what he does not understand is that music has always been a way to reform and protest injustice. If he knew anything about music, he would understand that controversial music genres of different eras became widely accepted, and better shaped society. (Blues… uniting blacks to fight predjiduce, punk rock… reforming traditional attitudes, and world issues.
If anyone took the time to read this thank you; and I would like to know how to get in contact with this author if you could help me out.