Demagoguery, hate literature, television ads, and X-rated videos have a lot in common. We already noted the pornographic content of the first Nazi propaganda magazine, and a lot has been written about the prurient appeal of Klan-type propaganda accusing Black men of sexual crimes against white women. The people whose hatreds are inflamed by this material are getting off on it at the same time. My personal theory about this strong familial tie between porn and propaganda, from ancient Greece to the American White People's Party of our own century, is that sexual content helps to short-circuit the reader or viewer's critical or moral faculties . Advertisers have long said that sex sells, and it seems to sell disinformation, slander, and ideology just as well as it sells car tires, beer, and blue jeans.
Factual analysis destroys their appeal immediately, taking the fun out of it.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The most insistent recitation of facts and statistics will not sway anyone who is deeply attached to a prejudice, a religion, or a lover. After all, if the simple physical details of sex were all that counted, no more than twenty or thirty sexual scenarios would have to be described, once for all time, and could be xeroxed indefinitely for generations of satisfied readers. In fact, like propaganda and advertising, pornography sells people their personal and precious fantasies. When anti-pornography activists are asked to define pornography, it is usually in contradistinction to erotica, of which we are all confidently expected to approve.