Pornosophy: Gossip Porn

A recent "The Sweet Spot" column in the Style section of The Times ("I Found My Girlfriend's Sex Tape Online. Should I tell Her?' 9/11/18) registers a confusing situation. A contributor relates that her girlfriend has warned that if she ever seeks to look for a porn video in which she’s appeared, it’s curtains for the relationship. “She was aware of being filmed but did not consent to its being released online,” relates the writer. By accident, the letter writer discovers her girlfriend’s video and learns that it’s been seen 15 million times. She’s writing in since she wants to spare her girlfriend from opprobrium at a time when the girlfriend's career is taking off. First of all, why write to The New York Times when you’re trying to keep a secret? Isn’t this something that would better be confided to a therapist? And why is The Times colluding so obviously in the letter writer’s self-undoing? Steve Almond who’s one of the editors of the column writes, “I understand why you’re worried about your girlfriend unraveling. But the person unraveling at the moment is you. You’ve become obsessed with images of her degradation, and an understandable desire to expunge them from the internet. Just as important, though, is how you can banish these invasive thoughts from your mind.” Anyone who has watched pornography will realize that Almond brings up an interesting conundrum in pointing to the indelible tattoo that pornography leaves on consciousness. You might wipe clean a hard drive, but it’s often well nigh impossible to erase highly stimulating images from the mind. So what to do? And will the woman who appeared in the video be convinced that her lover wants to bring the subject up for purely eleemosynary reasons if she ever finds out what's transpired? Furthermore, are the answers to these questions pornography themselves or mere gossip?