Why Porn is Exploding in the Middle East

Here in America, Internet porn usage is highest in the Bible Belt where all the sexually repressed "godly Christians" apparently cannot get enough porn to satiate their otherwise sexually frustrated lives.  Thus, it should not be surprising that porn is exploding in another repressed part of the world - Muslim countries in the Middle East.  Whenever myth based religion deprives individuals of sexual outlets, nowadays, the Internet provides an escape valve although admittedly porn tastes in Pakistan are beyond a bit bizarre and would certainly get Rick Santorum foaming at the mouth.   The more religiously oppressed - think Catholic priests - the more strange the "turn on" it would seem.  A piece in Salon looks at the Middle East's porn explosion.  Here are excerpts:

Porn is being made and watched in the Middle East, and millions more are watching it around the planet. In fact, some of the world’s top porn consumers come out of the Middle East. According to data released by Google, six of the top eight porn-searching countries are Muslim states. Pakistan tops the list at number one, followed by Egypt at number two. Iran, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Turkey come in at numbers four, five, seven and eight, respectively. Pakistan leads the way in porn searches for animals like pigs, donkeys, dogs, cats and snakes.

According to research put out by PornMD, the terms “creamy squirt,” “blowjob” and even “Kendra Wilkinson” (Hugh Hefner’s former girlfriend) appear on the top 10 most-searched terms coming out of countries like Iraq, Syria and Iran. The word “Arab” is the number-one searched porn term in Egypt, Iran and Syria. Some get a little creepier. “Pain” lands at Iraq’s fourth most-searched term, while “father daughter” and “brother sister” come in at numbers four and five for Syria. Both the words “mother” and “mom” appear on Egypt’s top 10 list.

The specifics are representative of a broader change taking place in a society all but defined by extreme “moral” standards. The fact that porn trends within the region can even be tracked is impressive, given that the sale of erotic material is banned in nearly every Arab country except Lebanon and Turkey.

[R]ecently, the Saudi Arabian government announced that it had hacked and disabled about 9,000 Twitter accounts associated with the publication of pornography and arrested many of the handles’ owners. The move was organized by the Commission for the Promotion and Prevention of Vice, also known as Haia, the Saudi religious police.

The good news for porn fans in the region is that a lot of these restrictions seem fairly easy to overcome. It’s not uncommon to find vendors lining the streets armed with pornographic videos. Nor is it rare to find young men hanging around popular shopping centers, selling cards to disable Internet blocks.

Is this a sex problem? Or is it a porn problem? Or is it just another hiccup in the long, thorny path to gender equality? Women are given center-stage in a lot of pornography, after all. Maybe some in the Middle East aren’t interested in seeing that happen. Or maybe they feel that sex should be restricted to a more private and procreative space. Many Muslim states declare that cemented social morals should not be violated. The data out there, however, suggest their public may feel otherwise.

Tom Daley - Bisexuals Versus Gays

Personally, I was please when Tom Daley came out as apparently a bisexual.  His announcement that he was dating a guy but that he still liked girls wasn't so well received by some in the LGBT community who thought that Daley was copping out and avoiding using the gay word.  I think sexuality is fluid and differs from person to person.  True, there are gay men who will use the bisexual label until they can get comfortable with saying they are gay.  But that doesn't apply to all.  Thus, in answer to the question, are there really bisexuals, I would say yes since attraction is a complicated thing.  There are many straights - especially among the homophobes - who think gays are ready to jump in bed with any other male.  That is clearly not so - there are many men I find decidedly NOT attractive - and each of us has their own particular "type" that they find attractive.  And beyond the physical attributes one finds attractive, there is the essential element of personality and "chemistry."  A piece in the New York Times that I bookmarked some days ago looks at the issue Daley ignited:

“Of course I still fancy girls.”

Those six little words, tossed off like a request to please hold the mustard, were among the most deconstructed in Tom Daley’s YouTube video last month, in which the 19-year-old British Olympic diver announced that he was dating a man. 

Leaning against Union Jack pillows, he continued, “But, I mean, right now I’m dating a guy, and I couldn’t be happier.” Mr. Daley’s message was sweet and simple, and gay rights advocates seemed thrilled to welcome an out-and-proud athlete into their ranks. (The cattier comments came later, when the “guy” was reported by numerous tabloids and blogs to be the screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who is two decades his senior.) 

But the cheers were premature, or at least qualified. Despite the trending Twitter hashtag #TomGayley, Mr. Daley never used the word “gay,” and there was the matter of his still fancying girls. While many commenters embraced the ambiguity (“I don’t care if Tom Daley’s gay or bi or whatever ... He’s still fit,” one tweeted), others raised eyebrows. 

Was it a disclaimer? A cop-out? A ploy to hold on to fans? Was he being greedy, as some joked? Or was he, as the video’s blushing tone suggested, simply caught up in the heady disorientation of first love, a place too intoxicating for labels? 

Whatever the answer, Mr. Daley’s disclosure reignited a fraught conversation within the L.G.B.T. community, having to do with its third letter. Bisexuality, like chronic fatigue syndrome, is often assumed to be imaginary by those on the outside. The stereotypes abound: bisexuals are promiscuous, lying or in denial. They are gay men who can’t yet admit that they are gay, or “lesbians until graduation,” sowing wild oats before they find husbands. 

“The reactions that you’re seeing are classic in terms of people not believing that bisexuality really exists, feeling that it’s a transitional stage or a form of being in the closet,” said Lisa Diamond, a professor at the University of Utah who studies sexual orientation. 

Population-based studies, Dr. Diamond said, indicate that bisexuality is in fact more common than exclusively same-sex attraction, and that female libido is particularly open-ended.

Male bisexuality, by contrast, is more vexed, and much of the skepticism comes from gay men. In the aftermath of Mr. Daley’s announcement, Ann Friedman wrote a post for New York Magazine’s The Cut blog predicting that male bisexuality would become more visible as gender mores evolved. “Traditional definitions of masculinity — which tend to go hand in hand with homophobia — are going through a real shake-up,” Ms. Friedman wrote. “More hetero men are tentatively admitting that they’re turned on by certain sex acts associated with gay men.” 

The gay conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan swiftly countered on his own blog, The Dish, saying, “I suspect, pace Friedman’s dreams, that there will always be far fewer men who transcend traditional sexual categories — because male sexuality is much cruder, simpler and more binary than female.” He called Mr. Daley’s claim about liking girls “a classic bridging mechanism to ease the transition to his real sexual identity. I know because I did it, too.”

Such thinking has irked bisexual advocates, who see bias within gay circles as evidence of “biphobia.” The claim has been lodged repeatedly at the sex columnist Dan Savage. In 2011, the blogger Chris O’Guinn accused Mr. Savage of saying “blatantly hurtful, cruel and insulting things about bisexuals,” including his remark in the documentary “Bi the Way” that “I meet somebody who’s 19 years old who tells me he’s bisexual, and I’m like: ‘Yeah, right, I doubt it. Come back when you’re 29 and we’ll see.’ ”  

[A] follow-up study at Northwestern concluded the opposite: male bisexuality is real. Why the change? Whereas the first study advertised for subjects in gay-oriented publications and included men who identified as gay, straight or bisexual, the second recruited from places catering specifically to bisexuals and selected only those who had seriously dated both men and women. 

Advocates, a touch exasperated, applauded the new results, though some pointed out that physical stimulation is only one ingredient of sexual orientation, which also stems from emotional intimacy.

In Mr. Daley’s case, the difference may be generational. People who have grown up in a more assimilated world may not see the value in labels like “gay” or “bisexual,” when the communities they describe are no longer as marginalized. 

“Among the younger generation, I’ve seen much more openness about bisexuality in both men and women, and often a rejection of all labels,” Dr. Diamond said. “They’re more open to the idea that, ‘Hey, sexuality is complicated, and as long as I know who I want to sleep with it doesn’t matter what I call myself.’ ”

In my own case, it was very hard to get to the point of looking in the mirror and admitting to myself that I was gay.  That said, I clearly knew that it was guys to whom I was really attracted.  Sexuality is complicated and we should not judge others. 

FRC: We Are In The Age Of Pagan Sexuality

Typically, the folks at Family Research Council are railing against modernity and seeking society backward in time.  Now, one of their dubiously titled "scholars" is whining that the nation and society have gone too far back in time to the age of pagan sexuality. Apparently, FRC only wants to go back to the days of slavery - or at least segregation - women not having the vote and being treated as chattel, gays being invisible if not executed, and Christian theocracy.   BuzzFeed looks at this latest hate group batshitery.  Here are  some highlights:

[T]he Family Research Council said Wednesday that America has entered the age of pagan sexuality.  Dr. Patrick F. Fagan, director at the Family Research Council’s Marriage and Religion Research Institute, made the comparison a policy lecture titled “Porn in the Dorm.”

“Basically porn is now everywhere,” Fagan said.

“Particular for Christians, Catholic, evangelicals, and for Jews and Muslims too, the same thing holds. This is almost like our times are a time a bit analogous to pagan Rome, where Christianity first grew up,” Fagan continued. “The sexuality of pagan Rome was pretty similar to what we restored here. So, what we really have outside is a pagan sexuality which is totally different from a Christian sexuality. And I don’t think enough Christians have yet put that way starkly enough to themselves. What you’re really being invited with all this is entry into pagan sexuality.”

Fagan continued, linking homosexuality, abortion, infidelity, pornography, euthanasia to ancient Rome.

“There’s a pagan sexuality which is a pan-sexuality which is the erotic. Abortion, homosexuality, infidelity, pornography, euthanasia, infanticide all of those things were just the common sexual practice of pagan Rome and Christians were not for being very different. Monogamous, faithful, struggling, etc…you know the chastity, purity.”

No one is more obsessed with sex than the "godly Christian" folk - e.g, online porn sites receive high traffic from evangelical Christians in the Bible Belt ; evangelical Christian have the highest divorce rate.  Perhaps rather than trying to police the sex lives of everyone else, this nut cases ought to worry about their own psychoses and, of course, hypocrisy.