Now do I have your attention? I’ve been meaning to muse about this for awhile now. Only about porn tangentially. More about an aside in a movie review that said what pornography is usually accused of is its tendency to “inflame and coarsen.”

Inflame I understand. People look at dirty pictures or read sexy stuff to get hot. Fine. It’s the “coarsen” that interests me. And not even that, actually. It’s coarsen’s opposite — refinement. If bad writing coarsens, does good writing refine?
I’d like to hear from anybody who has made a habit of reading good writing and who therefore feels more of a connoisseur, more tasteful and discriminating. And I’d especially like to hear from someone who has felt coarsened by bad writing. Not just dirty words, but bad writing.
P.S. Porno+graphos = writing of harlots. And there are all kinds of harlots. Not that I’d know from personal experience. I just read a lot.