Pornified How Pornography Is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families

From the bestseller lists to teen comedies to Internet hot spots, porn has become ubiquitous-and is dramatically affecting men, women, and children in ways we cannot imagine, but shouldWelcome to Porn America. Pornography, once the taboo vice that no one dared to mention, has become part of our daily lives-affordable, accessible, anonymous, and, increasingly, acceptable. The all-pornography, all-the-time mentality is everywhere-not just in cybersex and Playboy magazine but in mainstream magazines, in Paris Hilton's saleability as a celebrity, in the advice columns of women's magazines, and on the bestseller lists. But, even more striking, porn has become a big part of the personal lives of many Americans. Critically acclaimed author Pamela Paul argues that as porn has become more pervasive, it has changed our marriages and families as well as our children's ideas of sex and sexuality. In the dozens of interviews and a nationwide Harris poll that she conducted as part of her research for this book, Paul exposes how porn has infiltrated our lives. From a wife agonizing over the late-night hours her husband spends on porn sites to parents stunned to learn that their twelve-year-old son has seen a hardcore porn film, we see the costs and consequences of pornography, as intimacy is replaced by fantasy and emotional isolation. Pornified is an insightful, shocking, and important investigation that will rekindle the debate on how and where pornography meets the public eye.

Pamela Paul is a contributor to Time magazine and the author of The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony. Formerly a senior editor at American Demographics, she writes for such publications as Psychology Today, Self, Marie Claire, Ladies’ Home Journal, The Economist, and The New York Times Book Review. She lives in New York.