Pornographic pleasure and pain of mock disapproval of the vile

An Uplifting Update, on the Terrible World of Pornhub

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/opinion/pornhub-news-child-abuse.html

Superb reporting. Sexual abuse is grounded in arousal of the forbidden, the titillating, the special privilege of authority, but these are only surface manifestations of deeper urges which perhaps since time immemorial have driven desire to dominate others, not only sexually but comprehensively. In this way urges to assert power over others in innumerable ways underlies aggression individually, ethnically, theologically, politically, warmakingly.

The word porn has become a popular way to indicate obsessive behavior of almost any type, and the heavy casual usage has diminished the gravity of the pornographic. It may also lessen concern about the harm of sexually abusive porn, almost an acceptance of the titillative allusion, the normalization of the four-letter offensive.

The huge economic success of diverse porn on the internet, the weirder the better, coupled with the rise in exposes of authoritarian sexual abuse of children (not to overlook adultery), suggests titillation is the driving force of both pleasure and pain, as Sigmund Freud and others asserted.

Presumably there will be social and intellectual means to de-titillate, de-arousal, de-shockingly appealing, sexual abuse but it may take a while to defuse denial, daresay pornographic, pleasure and pain of mock disapproval of the vile.