Thomas J. Farrell
University of Minnesota Duluth
Abstract: In this essay, I succinctly highlight and critique Matt Richtel’s article “It’s Time to Talk About Pornography, Scholars Say: More adolescents than ever are watching it. What’s needed, researchers say, are frank conversations and ‘porn literacy’” (dated December 12, 2024) in The New York Times. To construct my commentary about and interpretation of the ubiquitous mom-son porn on the internet, I draw on the work of the Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theorist C. G. Jung (1875-1961) and on the work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University.
I first discussed free heterosexual porn on the internet in my OEN article “Thomas J. Farrell’s Encore of Robert Moore” (dated October 24, 2024).
The late Robert Moore (1942-2016; Ph.D. in religion and psychology, University of Chicago, 1975) of the Chicago Theological Seminary was a Jungian psychotherapist and psychological theorist.
Next, I discussed free heterosexual porn on the internet in my OEN article “Texas’ War on Porn, and Robert Moore’s Theory of the Archetypes of Maturity” (dated December 6, 2024).
Now, I want to briefly discuss Matt Richtel’s article “It’s Time to Talk About Pornography, Scholars Say: More adolescents than ever are watching it. What’s needed, researchers say, are frank conversations and ‘porn literacy’” (dated December 12, 2024) in The New York Times.
Briefly, the entire focus of Matt Richtel’s article is on teenagers who view pornography on the internet. He quotes three scholars who study adolescent viewing of pornography ([1] Brian Willoughby of Brigham Young University; [2] Emily Pluhar of Harvard Medical School; and [3] Beata Bothe of the University of Montreal) — and Matt Richtel also cites certain surveys of adolescent viewing of pornography.
Matt Richtel reports that the aim of porn literacy is “to teach adolescents that the explicit content they encounter is unrealistic, misleading about many sexual relations and, as a result, potentially harmful.”
Question: Are there really adolescents who need to taught “that the explicit content they encounter is unrealistic”? For example, are there really adolescent boys who need to be taught that the explicit content in mom-son porn videos on the internet is unrealistic? Don’t adolescent boys already know from their own experience with their own mothers that the explicit content of mom-son porn videos on the internet is unrealistic?
No doubt heterosexual porn on the internet is unrealistic. The skits involved are fantasies – not realistic portrayals of realistic heterosexual sexual relationships.
In recent years, the most ubiquitous heterosexual porn on the internet has been mom-son porn. No doubt mom-son porn is unrealistic!
The taboo against mom-son sexual relations is centuries old. Mom-son sexual relations may not have ever been socially sanctioned. Moreover, despite the ubiquity of mom-son porn on the internet, I do not expect to see the taboo against mom-son sexual relations abolished in the foreseeable future.
Thus, the question arises, “Why is mom-son porn on the internet so popular?”
Yes, to be sure, other forms of incest-themed porn are also popular on the internet. If we date internet pornography as emerging in 1995, as the Wikipedia entry on “Internet pornography” does, then we may also pose the question, “When did incest-themed porn emerge on the internet?”
I do not have a precise answer to this question. I will simply note here that there was a time before which incest-themed porn emerged on the internet.
For example, the extraordinarily popular pornstar Jenna Jameson (born on April 9, 1974; active 1993-2008) did not perform in incest-themed porn.
For further information about Jenna Jameson, see the Wikipedia entry “Jenna Jameson.”
Similarly, the pornstar Bree Olson (born on October 7, 1986; active 2006-2011) did not perform in incest-themed porn.
For further information about Bree Olson, see the Wikipedia entry “Bree Olson.”
However, as far as I know, no pornstar who has played the role of the mom in the fantasy skits in many mom-son porn videos on the internet has a Wikipedia entry about her. Yes, I suppose that this could change in the near future. However, despite the millions of views of certain mom-son porn videos on the internet, I do not expect this to change in the near future. Why not? Both Jenna Jameson and Bree Olson achieved some public notoriety for certain non-porn events in their respective lives. I suspect that such non-porn notoriety was a determining factor in determining their eligibility for a Wikipedia entry. Even though all pornstars are exhibitionistic, I suspect that the current pornstars who perform the role of the mom in the fantasy skits in mom-son porn videos on the internet are not going to seek out non-porn notoriety. In short, the exhibitionistic pornstars in mom-son porn videos on the internet are satisfied with their porn notoriety.
Now, back to Matt Richtel’s article. Adolescents today who view heterosexual porn on the internet cannot avoid viewing incest-themed porn – and all the fantasy skits enacted in incest-themed porn on the internet are unrealistic. Consequently, if adolescents today who view incest-themed porn on the internet are not already aware that the fantasy skits are unrealistic, then porn literacy should aim to make them aware of this.
In the meantime, I want to turn my attention here to the ubiquity of mom-son porn on the internet and the fantasy dimension of the skits in mom-son porn on the internet – and interpret the appeal of mom-son sex fantasies.
To construct my interpretation, I turn my attention first to the prolific Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theorist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). In 1912, Jung published the book in German titled in English translation as Transformations and Symbols of the Libido. In 1952, Jung substantially revised this early work and re-titled it in English as Symbols of Transformation: An Analysis of the Prelude to a Case of Schizophrenia, second edition, translated from the German fourth edition, by R. F. C. Hull (1967).
For further information about Carl Jung, see the lengthy Wikipedia entry “Carl Jung.”
Now, in the front matter of the 1967 second edition, Jung’s “Forewords” to the second German edition, the third German edition, and the fourth German edition are included.
In Jung’s “Foreword to the Second (German) Edition” (pp. xxviii-xxix), he says that “the book is far more concerned with working out the fantasy material of an unknown [to Jung] young American woman, pseudonymously known as Frank Miller. This material was originally published by my respected and fatherly friend, the late Theodore Flournoy, in the Archives de psychologie (Geneva). I had the great satisfaction of hearing from his own lips that I had hit off the young woman’s mentality very well. Valuable conformation of this reached me in 1918, through an American colleague who was treating Miss miller for the schizophrenic disturbance which had broken out after her case was so exhaustive that even personal acquaintance with the patient had not taught him ‘one iota more’ about her mentality. This confirmation led me to conclude that my reconstruction of the semi-conscious and unconscious fantasy processes had evidently hit the mark in all essential respects” (p. xxviii).
Subsequently, Jung also says, “The real purpose of this book is confined to working out the implications of all those historical and spiritual factors which come together in the involuntary products of individual fantasy. Besides the obvious personal sources, creative fantasy also draws upon the forgotten and long buried primitive mind with its host of images, which are to be found in the mythologies of all ages and all peoples. The sum of these images constitutes the collective unconscious, a heritage which is potentially present in every individual. It is the psychic correlate of the differentiation of the human brain. This is the reason why mythological images are able to arise spontaneously over and over again, and to agree with one another not only in all corners of the wide earth, but at all times. As they are present always and everywhere, it is an entirely natural proceeding to relate mythologems, which may be very far apart both temporally and ethnically, to an individual [person’s] fantasy system. The creative substratum is everywhere this same human psyche and this same human brain, which, with relatively minor variations, functions everywhere in the same way” (p. xxix).
Incidentally, what Jung here refers to as “the primitive mind” is the equivalent to what the American Jesuit scholar Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) refers to as the primary oral mind of all our human ancestors before phonetic alphabetic literacy emerged in ancient Hebrew culture and in ancient Greek culture in out Western cultural history.
Ong famously differentiated out contemporary secondary oral culture based on the communications media that accentuate sound (television, telephone, radio, movies with soundtracks, DVDs, CDs, tape-recording devices, and the like) from primary oral culture.
Taking various hints from Ong, I have discussed our contemporary secondary oral culture in my essay “Secondary Orality and Consciousness Today” in the well-organized anthology Media, Consciousness, and Culture: Explorations of Walter Ong’s Thought, edited by Bruce E. Gronbeck, Thomas J. Farrell, and Paul A. Soukup (1991, pp. 194-209).
I would argue that our secondary oral culture resonates in the human psyche with what Jung refers to as the collective unconsciousness. However, I will discuss Ong’s work further below.
Regarding phonetic alphabetic literacy in ancient Hebrew culture and residually oral cultures, see my article “Walter Ong and Harold Bloom Can Help Us Understand the Hebrew Bible” in Explorations in Media Ecology (2012).
For further information about Ong’s life and work, see my introductory-level award-winning book Walter Ong’s Contributions to Cultural Studies: The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication (2000). My book received the Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the field of Media Ecology, conferred by the Media Ecology Association in June 2001.
Now, as the term world-wide web (abbreviated as “www”) suggests, the internet is worldwide. Moreover, from what I have read, I surmise that heterosexual porn is also worldwide. However, from what I have read, I cannot tell if mom-son porn on the internet is as ubiquitous elsewhere in the world as it is in the United States.
Indeed, the widespread popularity of porn in the United States, is a concern of certain American conservatives, as Jonathan Weisman reported in his article “Porn Industry Jumps Into the Presidential Campaign, Targeting Project 2025: In seven swing states, the industry’s websites will feature ads decrying the conservative policy blueprint’s ban on pornography” (dated October 7, 2024) in The New York Times.
In it, Jonathan Weisman says, “Quoting the Survey Center on American Life, the group said younger men are the biggest consumers of the industry’s products: Among men aged 18-29, 44 percent had watched porn within the past month. Among men aged 30-49, it was 57 percent.”
Now, in Part One, Chapter II: “Two Kinds of Thinking” in Jung’s Symbols of Transformation (pp. 7-33), he delineates two kinds of thinking that he refers to as (1) fantasy thinking (involving images), and (2) directed thinking (involving logic).
What Jung terms fantasy thinking involves what Ong refers to as primary orality, and what Jung terms directed thinking involves what Ong refers to as phonetic alphabetic literacy. See Ong’s 1982 book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, his most widely translated and most widely read book.
Because what Jung refers to as directed thinking involving logic, we should note here that Ong’s 1958 massively researched book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason is a history of the formal study of logic from Aristotle down to the French Renaissance logician and educational reformer and Protestant martyr Peter Ramus (1515-1572) and beyond.
I discuss Ong’s media ecology thought in his 1958 massively researched book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue in my somewhat lengthy OEN article “Walter J. Ong’s Philosophical Thought” (dated September 20, 2020).
We should also note here that what Jung refers to as fantasy thinking also involves what the classicist Eric A. Havelock refers to as the Homeric mind in his landmark 1963 book Preface to Plato, and what Jung refers to as directed thinking involving logic also involves what Havelock refers to as the Platonic mind.
Now, for my present purpose of interpreting the appeal mom-son porn on the internet, I want to note here that the skits in mom-son porn involve fantasies. Therefore, those skits are related to what Jung refers to as fantasy thinking – not to what he refers to as directed thinking.
Next, I want to turn to Part Two: Chapter V: “Symbols of the Mother and of Rebirth” in Jung’s Symbols of Transformation (pp. 207-273). It is not a big stretch to see the pornstars who play the role of mom in the fantasy skits of mom-son porn videos as symbols of the mother image in the psyches of male viewers.
Ah, but this now brings us to Jung’s theme of associating symbols of the mother with symbols of rebirth.
Now, I have already said that I do not see the taboo against mom-son sexual relations being curtailed in the foreseeable future. For this reason, I cannot interpret the fantasy skits in mom-son porn videos as having any serious implications for the taboo against mom-son sexual relations.
Consequently, I must look elsewhere for an interpretation of the fantasy skits in the ubiquitous mom-son porn videos on the internet and in DVDs.
Is it a stretch to see the appeal of the ubiquitous mom-son porn videos on the internet and in DVDs to male viewers as appealing to their desire for rebirth in some sense of the term?
If the desire for rebirth is related to symbols of the mother in the psyches of the male viewers of mom-son porn, then the pornstars playing the role of the mom in mom-son videos would surely suffice as symbols of the mother in the psyches of male viewers.
But if the pornstars playing the role of the mom in mom-son videos, do not resonate in the psyches of male viewers as symbols of the mother in the psyches of the male viewers, then what exactly are those various pornstars appealing to in the psyches of the male viewers?
But I should also point out here the fluidity, as it were, of the meaning of rebirth. As a symbol of rebirth, the symbol of the mother must be involved in all forms of rebirth over the lifetime of each male viewer of mom-son porn videos.
Instances of experienced rebirth may also be described as experiences of transformation – and the title of Jung’s book is Symbols of Transformation.
Rebirth = Transformation.
Transformation = Rebirth.
Mom-son porn = Desire for rebirth.
Yes, as I have stated above, the skits of the ubiquitous mom-son porn on the internet are unrealistic. Which is why we should not interpret them by the standards of realism. Rather, we should interpret them as symbolic expressions.
As to whether or not, this interpretation of mom-son porn should be part of porn literacy, I will leave to others to debate.
Now, the time has come for me to discuss Ong’s work further. As have argued above that our cultural conditioning from our contemporary secondary oral culture resonates in the human psyche with what Jung refers to as the collective unconscious – the home in the human psyche of the repository of mythic images, mythic images that manifested in the unconscious as dreams when we sleep and in ego-consciousness as imagination and works and expressions of imagination.
Now, in Ong’s 1971 book Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the interaction of Expression and Culture, he succinctly sums up the eight stages of consciousness that the Jungian psychoanalyst Erich Neumann (1905-1960) delineates in his synthesis of Jung’s work in his 1954 book The Origins and History of Consciousness, translated from the German by R. F. C. Hull:
“The stages of psychic development as treated by Neumann are successively (1) the infantile undifferentiated self-contained whole symbolized by the uroboros (tail-eater), the serpent with it tail in its mouth, as well as be other circular or global mythological figures [including Nietzsche’s imagery about the eternal return?], (2) the Great Mother (the impersonal womb from which each human infant, male or female, comes, the impersonal femininity which may swallow him [or her] up again), (3) the separation of the world parents (the principle of opposites, differentiation, possibility of change, (4) the birth of the hero (rise of masculinity and of the personalized ego) with its sequels in (5) the slaying of the mother (fight with the dragon: victory over primal creative but consuming femininity, chthonic forces), and (6) the slaying of the father (symbol of thwarting obstruction of individual achievement, [thwarting] what is new), (7) the freeing of the captive (liberation of the ego from endogamous [i.e., “married” within one’s psyche] kinship libido and the emergence of the higher femininity, with woman now as person, anima-sister, related positively to ego consciousness), and finally (8) the transformation (new unity in self-conscious individualization, higher masculinity, expressed primordially in the Osiris myth but today entering new phases with heightened individualism [such as Nietzsche’s so-called overman] – or, more properly, personalism – of modern man [sic])” (Ong, 1971, pp. 10-11).
Ong also sums up Neumann’s Jungian account of the eight stages of consciousness in his (Ong’s) book Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness (1981, pp. 18-19; but also see the “Index” for further references to Neumann [page 228]), the published version of Ong’s 1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University.
Now, “endogamous kinship libido” refers to the libido energy married within one’s psyche to images one has of one’s mother-figure and father-figure and the like with other family members. In the case of mom-son porn videos on the internet, the relevant endogamous image is one’s mother-figure.
As you can see, Ong here sees cutting-edging thought today as manifesting stage “(8) the transformation (new unity in self-conscious individualization, higher masculinity, expressed primordially in the Osiris myth but today entering new phases with heightened individualism – or, more precisely, personalism – of modern man [sic].”
But misogynistic Trump and his misogynistic male MAGA supporters have not yet experienced stage “(7) the freeing of the captive (liberation of the ego from endogamous [married within one’s psyche] kinship libido and the emergence of the higher femininity, with woman now as person, anima-sister, related positively to ego consciousness).”
But “the emergence of the higher femininity, with woman now as person, anima-sister, related positively to ego consciousness” involves what the Jungian psychoanalyst Edward C. Whitmont refers to as the return of the goddess in the human psyched in his book Return of the Goddess (1982).
As I have just indicated, I see misogyny as a decisive factor is blocking the experience of what Whitmont refers to as the return of the goddess in men and boys who are acculturated in misogyny and as blocking men acculturated in misogyny from experiencing stage (7) the freeing of the captive (liberation of the ego from endogamous [married with one’s psyche] kinship libido and the emergence of the higher femininity, with woman now as person, anima-sister, related positively to ego consciousness.”
Jung does not attach a specific age to the possible experience of any of the eight stages of Consciousness. Rather, he uses the expansive term mid-life crisis to refer to the psychological processes involved in experiencing stage (7) of the eight stages of consciousness.
Ah but teenage boys, by definition, are not in a position to experience stage (7).
But teenage boys are in a position to have been acculturated in misogyny already.
In terms of mom-son porn videos on the internet, the key variable in male viewers is the extent to which they have been acculturated in misogyny already. In short, misogynistic male viewers will experience mom-son porn videos on the internet in a way that will reinforce their misogyny.
Ah, but older male viewers who have experienced stage (7) as part of their mid-life crisis will experience mom-son porn videos on the internet is a symbolic way that expresses their desire for rebirth through the mother-figures in the mom-son porn videos on the internet.
But this exploration brings us now to the trickier question of whether certain mom-son porn videos on the internet are misogynistic – that is, is the fantasy skit of the mom-son sex misogynistic?
Yes, certain fantasy skits of mom-son sex involve the son sadistically forcing the mom to have sex with him. Such fantasy skits are misogynistic.
However, the pornstar who plays the mom is certain fantasy skits in which the son sadistically forces the mom to have sex with him may very well play the mom in other fantasy skits in which the mom successfully seduces the son to have sex with her without sadistically forcing him to do so – and without being sadistically forced to have sex herself.
Now, because I have mentioned above, in passing, the work of the late Jungian psychotherapist and psychological theorist Robert Moore (1942-2016; Ph.D. in religion and psychology, University of Chicago, 1975) of the Chicago Theological Seminary. According to Moore’s theory of the archetypes of maturity, one archetype of maturity is the masculine Warrior archetype in the human psyche. However, according to his theory, the masculine Warrior archetype of maturity is associated with two “shadow” forms: (1) The Sadist “shadow” form and (2) The Masochist “shadow” forms.
In those fantasy skits in mom-son porn videos on the internet involving the son sadistically forcing the mom to have sex with him, the fantasy skit is appealing to The Sadist “shadow” form in the male viewers, regardless of their ages.
For an accessible book about Robert Moore’s theory of the masculine archetypes of maturity, see Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s introductory-level book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine (1990).
For a more detailed discussion of the masculine Warrior archetype in the human psyche, see Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s book The Warrior Within: Accessing the Knight [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (1992).
In conclusion, mom-son porn videos on the internet may be misogynistic, or they may not be misogynistic. Either way, I do not expect the ubiquity of mom-son porn videos on the internet to change the centuries-old taboo against mom-son sex in the real world, as distinct from the fantasy world of porn on the internet.
References
Anonymous. (2024). Bree Olson. Wikipedia URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bree_Olson
Anonymous. (2024). Carl Jung. Wikipedia URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung
Anonymous. (2024). Internet pornography. Wikipedia URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_pornography
Anonymous. (2024). Jenna Jameson. Wikipedia URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenna_Jameson
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Richtel, M. (2024, December 12). It’s time to talk about pornography, scholars say: More adolescents than ever are watching it. What’s needed, researchers say, are frank conversations and “porn literacy.” The New York Times URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/science/pornography-adolescents-teenagers.html?searchResultPosition=2
Weisman, J. (2024, October 7). Porn industry jumps into presidential campaign, targeting Project 2025: In seven swing states, the industry’s websites will feature ads decrying the conservative policy blueprint’s ban on pornography. The New York Times URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/07/us/politics/porn-actors-project-2025-ad.html?searchResultPosition=7
Whitmont, E. C. (1982). Return of the goddess. Crossroad Publishing.
