I'm only AA, but I think in XXX

Today, Senator Sam Brownback (R.-Kansas) examined the effects of pornography during a Senate hearing. In just over a year, Brownback [a possible deviant sexual term if ever I heard one] has already held three hearings on the subject of sex.

According to Jill Manning, a BYU sociologist called to speak at the Senate hearing, pornography is responsible for:

• An increased risk of divorce
• Decreased marital intimacy
• Letting people know that other kinds of sexual behavior (S&M, beastiality, group sex) exist

Another panelist, Pamela Paul, also let us in on the internal conflict you married men face day in and day out:

They must choose between masturbating at a computer and finding sexual satisfaction with their wives. "If they go to their wives, well, just practically speaking, they have to make sure they have done all of the chores around the house they were supposed to do. They need to have a half-an-hour conversation about what they did that day," said Paul. This courtship could take up to an hour and a half. By contrast, she said, it takes "five minutes to go online."

Oh, you poor things.

So far, Brownback hasn't written one piece of legislation to address this porn "problem." Seems to me he likes talking about sex more than he does legislating it. But he has to know that expanding obscenity laws, or expanding the definition of what is considered "obscene" is highly subjective. This little pet project of his is heading down a slippery slope, because what is considered obscene will differ from community to community.

Tom Hymes, spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, told Salon in a phone interview after the Brownback hearing that red states enjoy porn more so than blue states. Fuck, I love me some irony:

"The hotel rooms in Utah, for instance, download more adult movies than any other state. I have that on a very good source."

Yeah, I've heard rumors about them Mormons, man. Kink-AY.

Look. Porn is fun. It's entertainment. It's informative. A "learning experience," if you will. Of course, I think we can all agree that there a line does exist differentiating what we find exciting and sexy versus what we find obscene and deviant. This will differ from person to person. And our obscenity laws already target certain kinds of smut that are threats to public safety. We don't need some guy from Kansas telling us that pornography and masturbation lead to loss of judgment, or that it's going to cause the collapse of the civilized world.

Please, stop legislating sex. Seriously. Stay out of my bedroom. Or dressing room. Or back seat of my car. Or rooftop. Or whatever.

(Photo composite credit: Bob Watts/Salon)