I too have been disturbed by the prevalence of degradation/humiliation themes in pornography. Also disturbing is the correlation with such attitudes in otherwise seemingly nice friends of mine. While I think the militarism has something to do with it, I believe that in our culture it is the combined effects of patriarchal/militaristic Judaism and Christianity, which, contrary to the apologists, has historically been one of the most virulently sex-negative memes of the last 2000 years.
I have wondered whether exposure to porn (which tends to glorify the sex-negative) has warped the overall approach to sex, and strengthened the degradation/humiliation element in the populace at large. I note that the cohort born in the 80's (and thus effectively "always" having had the Internet) have decidedly callous attitudes regarding sex, and that many people's bedroom repertoires seem entirely informed by detached things such as "technique" and focus less on really paying attention to the particular person they are with. The idea seems to be that good performance in the bedroom has less to do with reading your specific partner's body and more to do with some universal template which is supposed to work with everyone. Not incidentally, this template seems to come directly from our sleazy, lowest-common-denominator porn industry. This creates some dissonance for me, as I am all about sexual liberation, so this topic is difficult for me to sort out--to be "pro porn" in the face of the current "industry" (says it all, really) seems to be a position which is ironically supporting a sex-negative stance.
I agree that the common mentality is frightfully analogous to that of the Romans. It seems to me that the public discourse is dominated by an exceedingly compassionless perspective--a brutal, imperialist perspective, in fact. Dehumanization seems to be the rule of the day. The Black Iron Prison has reasserted itself with a vengeance.
Tangential musings...
I have wondered whether exposure to porn (which tends to glorify the sex-negative) has warped the overall approach to sex, and strengthened the degradation/humiliation element in the populace at large. I note that the cohort born in the 80's (and thus effectively "always" having had the Internet) have decidedly callous attitudes regarding sex, and that many people's bedroom repertoires seem entirely informed by detached things such as "technique" and focus less on really paying attention to the particular person they are with. The idea seems to be that good performance in the bedroom has less to do with reading your specific partner's body and more to do with some universal template which is supposed to work with everyone. Not incidentally, this template seems to come directly from our sleazy, lowest-common-denominator porn industry. This creates some dissonance for me, as I am all about sexual liberation, so this topic is difficult for me to sort out--to be "pro porn" in the face of the current "industry" (says it all, really) seems to be a position which is ironically supporting a sex-negative stance.
I agree that the common mentality is frightfully analogous to that of the Romans. It seems to me that the public discourse is dominated by an exceedingly compassionless perspective--a brutal, imperialist perspective, in fact. Dehumanization seems to be the rule of the day. The Black Iron Prison has reasserted itself with a vengeance.