Jim Gaffigan on Porn, Masculinity and Fatherhood | Big Think

The idea of being a man has changed so dramatically, right. But particularly I think not just the responsibilities of being a father, which has always been, not to get all Kahlil Gibran like, these children are on loan to us and we’re supposed to make sure that we take care of them, and we’re the stewards of these human beings.

Male roles, which is something my wife and I have written about in the show, because the concept of a father today is dramatically different. I mean, obviously it’s different in every family culture, but it’s different from a generation ago. And the idea of what a father’s responsibility, whether it’s co-parenting, whether it’s a stay-at-home dad, or just someone that does lip service to the idea of sharing responsibility, is so different from 1910.

I have this joke where it’s like – and then you go back to cavemen and they’re literally eating their children. I think it’s perspective on how we treat women, right. That is the beginning and the ending of it. We are animals. I start from that premise. And we choose to not behave like animals. And that’s, you know, a pretty guiding force through humanity, whether it gets completely out of control or just panting like a dog when an attractive woman walks by.

I even look at like pornography and all this stuff where it’s, yeah, you know, it’s like, look, I love naked women, I really do. But I also know that I am a visual human being and I can’t, you know, consume images of naked women and not have that influence how I view other women. I mean, that’s my personal opinion. It’s like my sexual desires are very valid and real, but if I, you know, follow through on every sexual desire, first of all I’d have a thousand children. No, but I think then that’s not how you get – I wouldn’t feel very good. Do you know what I mean?

When I look at my young sons, I think that, look, I know that we love and like the normalization of porn, and I’m not, you know, it’s like to each their own, right. But I don’t think that I want my sons consuming pornography. I want my sons to look at an advertisement and say that is a beautiful woman, but she’s being objectified. And I do want, even beyond that, I personally think that in the United States, we give credit and appreciate attractive people too much.

And so I think that I want to instill that. I mean, I think a lot of parents who desperately want to have nerdy children. So I don’t know. I want my kids to be, my sons to be better men than me. But I think also, you know, it’s different paths to getting there. I mean, look, I’m Catholic, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but I think that’s an important tool also. But I also think that understanding the logic and science behind it is vital.

But culturally, it’s interesting. I saw a clip of Match Game, which was a game show when I was growing up from the mid-70s, 80s, I don’t know. And the beginning of the show, it was just filled with the host more or less sexually harassing the female contestants. And it was not malicious, and that man did not know he was doing it. And maybe those women didn’t feel icky. But from our standards today, it was ridiculous.

I mean, I also feel like to discredit everything I’ve said, I also think that I don’t want us to get to the point where there isn’t passion, right. When I met my wife and we went on our first date, I aggressively kissed her. Not in a monstrous way, but even hearing myself describe it, I don’t know if we could do that today. And I’m sure I could have because there’s a communication that’s unspoken when you’re courting someone.

But courting like it’s the 1800s. Like you’re riding a horse to meet them. But there is something about – there are rules, but there’s also what’s so great about relationships is that tingling feeling when the chemistry that we can’t articulate works.