PASADENA, Calif. – In a recent post by J.S. Park, XXX Church offers four helpful suggestions for keeping porn out of one’s home. While none of these require a costly investment in a high-tech security system, the use of armed bodyguards or signing up for LifeLock, the suggestions may not prove effective for everyone who seeks to deter porn’s invasive ways.
Take, for example, Park’s first and fourth suggestions:
“1) Change up your whole living space, from bed sheets to pantry to picture frames”
and
“4) Be willing to leave your house immediately.”
I tried combining the two pointers, but I quickly discovered it’s actually pretty hard to accomplish much rearranging of my “whole living space” when I’m constantly fleeing out the front door every time I think I hear someone faking an orgasm.
Park’s second suggestion proved logistically problematic for me, as well: “Keep your electronics insulated in boundary zones.”
Now, I’m no expert on insulation (or “boundary zones,” whatever those are), but I do know insulation is designed to prevent heat loss or prevent sound from intruding into a space.
Accordingly, I tried wrapping my laptop, tablet, television, smartphone, desktop computer, microwave oven, refrigerator, washer, dryer and various home stereo components in several layers of thick blankets, but all this did was render all of them very difficult to use. True, I could no longer watch porn on my microwave, but this wasn’t really much of a problem to begin with — not when compared to getting a bunch of wool in my reheated macaroni and cheese, anyway.
This left me with one other option, per Park: “Keep alternative options close by.”
“The best way to break a habit is to replace it with something else,” Park noted. “If your hands can find something else to do, you’ll break your familiar cycles. Nearly every article on fighting porn suggests alternative behaviors, from going to the gym to chewing gum to getting a dog to writing in a journal to calling a friend. If your home is full of these options, you can short-circuit yourself every time the ‘urge’ strikes.”
At this point, frankly, I’m starting to wonder if Park is not-so-subtly accusing me of something, or suggesting I’m complicit in porn’s attempt to invade my home. What is this “urge” of which he writes? I’m just trying to porn-proof my freaking house here, not quit smoking the stuff.
Maybe Park’s methods will work for other folks, particularly those who never actually have use for their electronic devices or don’t have much stuff to rearrange, so they can afford to take the time to go for a jog whenever they get antsy about the possibility of naughty videos slipping under their front door.
For me, though, direct methods are always the best methods, so I’ve composed a list of four other, more proactive ways to porn-proof one’s home, none of which involve buying enormous rolls of Owens Corning VaporWick.
1. Build a wall. If you think about it, porn is like an illegal alien: Many people underestimate its impact on society, it often doesn’t speak English very well and it spends a lot of time around day laborers, especially those who work for the Environmental Protection Agency. As we all now know, thanks to the straight-talk of a certain presidential candidate who is hell-bent on making America great again, the best way to deal with foreign intruders is to build a great big wall. If you feel you can’t afford to build a sufficiently intimidating wall, don’t let budgetary concerns stop you. I understand the Mexican government hands out wall-construction grants like they’re going out of style.
2. Dig a moat. Both as a practical deterrent and in terms of landscaping aesthetic, nothing pairs better with a great big, beautiful wall than a murky, foreboding moat. Depending on the climate in which you live, it may not be feasible to stock your moat with alligators. If you’re porn-proofing a home in Florida or Louisiana, however, the menacing creatures not only will add an additional layer of protection against invasive porn, but they’ll also quickly take care of the stray cats who regularly crap in the planters on your porch.
3. Two words: Duct tape. Seriously, is there anything this stuff can’t do?
4. Get one of those “porn-sniffing” dogs. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how porn-sniffing dogs work, but I guess I shouldn’t find it surprising to learn porn has a smell to it. I guess I am a bit confused as to why we humans can’t smell it, too, though. Maybe porn loses some of its pungency in the digital compression process? At any rate, even if the dog you add to your security system isn’t particularly effective in terms of detecting marauding erotica, it’s always a good thing to give a dog a home — just make sure not to let him swim with the gators in your moat.
Follow these steps, and I guarantee you’ll not only make it far more difficult for porn to enter your home, but you’ll also drastically reduce other unwanted visitors, like rodents, postal workers, Mormon missionaries and census takers.
