Posted on 06/17/2002 8:25:38 PM PDT by JMJ333
There is a body of water in Eastern Canada that has the improbable name of "Lake Despair". This sinister appellation is an accident of language. The French originally called it Lac d'espoir (Lake of Hope). English-speaking settlers in the region, accustomed to hearing only their own language, misperceived its name. And so it became known, culturally and cartographically, as Lake Despair. This type of metamorphosis occurs just as easily on a moral plane.
Pornography takes human sexuality, with its hope of love, fidelity, family, and fulfillment, and turns it into an empty and lifeless husk. It does this as a predator destroys its prey, by eviscerating sexuality of all its inherent grace. This transmogrification, which some mistake as emancipation, takes place through processes that are neither liberating or enriching, but Depersonalizing, Enslaving, Self-destructive, Preposterous, Alienating, Isolating, Reductionistic. The process can be subtle enough that, for some, it goes unnoticed. But ultimately, the difference between the reality of human sexuality and its residue in pornography is all the difference in the world. It is the difference between what "gift" means in English and what "Gift" (poison) means in German. Indeed, it is the difference between hope and despair, heaven and hell.
DEPERSONALIZING
Pornography displaces love with lust. The fundamental reason that lust is listed as one of the Seven Deadly Sins is precisely that it gives pleasure primacy over the person. Lust prefers the experience of pleasure to the good of the person. Rather than loving the other, lust prefers to appropriate the other for the self. Such an inversion of proper values is at once unjust to the other who is regarded primarily as an instrument of pleasure, and destructive of the self inasmuch as it undermines his own nature as a loving being.
In his "Theology of the Body," John Paul II states that lust "'depersonalizes' man making him an object 'for the other'. Instead of being 'together with the other' - a subject in unity, in fact, in the sacramental unity 'of the body' - man becomes an object for man: the female for the male and vice versa." With lust, the subjectivity of the person gives way to the objectivity of the body.
In his book, The Case Against Pornography, David Holbrook argues that pornography is connected with the same processes of objectivization that is essential to the Galilean-Newtonian-Cartesian tradition that lowers nature and man "to the status of dead objects". Psychiatrist Leslie Farber and others have described the depersonalizing effects of pornography most vividly by stating that it transfers the fig leaf to the face. Pornography is not interested in the face, through which personality shines, but the objectivized and devitalized body. Pornography represses personality and exalts the depersonalized, despiritualized body.
ENSLAVING
The process by which one objectivizes the other, results in an objectivization of the self. This is the basis of slavery. "The enslaving of the other," writes Christian existentialist Nikolai Berdyaev, "is also the enslaving of the self." Viewing the other as a depersonalized, despiritualized object is incompatible with communion.
But only through inter-personal communion is one liberated form the world that is enclosed in the material. "By objectivization," Berdyaev goes on to say, "the subject enslaves itself and creates the realm of determinism."
Pornography enslaves by imprisoning people in the material. It also enslaves because it erodes personal freedom. "There are people who want to keep our sex instinct inflamed in order to make money out of us," wrote C. S. Lewis. "Because, of course, a man with an obsession is a man who has very little sales-resistance."
A third way in which pornography enslaves is through chemical addiction. When the pornography addict indulges in his habit, the adrenal gland secretes the chemical epinephrine into the blood stream. According to David Caton, author of Pornogrpahy: The Addiction, epinephrine goes to the brain and assists in locking in the pornographic images. These locked-in images can result in severely changed behavior, including an obsession with pornography that has much in common with chemical addiction.
SELF-DESTRUCTIVE
The depersonalizing and enslaving effects of pornography are inevitably self-destructive. The high rate of suicides among pornography actresses is a graphic indication of this.
The notion of "stripping," especially when applied to the pornographic film, goes far beyond the act of disrobing. It represents the stripping away of inner qualities as well: character, moral values, shame, fundamental decency, restraint. The logical end-point of such pornographic stripping is the complete dissolution of the self. In this regard, pornography leads to sado-masochism and death, as illustrated in the infamous "snuff" films.
Canadian Business magazine reports that "Hard-core Capitalists" stand to make so much money in peddling illegal porn that they are undeterred by the criminal sanctions against it. One producer, that fittingly calls itself Dead Parrot Productions, caters to the appetite for sado-masochism and self-destruction.
PREPOSTEROUS
Preposterous, as its etymology indicates (prae + posterius) means putting before, that which should come after. Trying to remove your socks before you have taken your shoes off, rather than after, is clearly preposterous. Pornography is preposterous because it puts sex before personhood, lust before love, pleasure before conscience.
When Adam awakened from a deep sleep and looked upon a woman for the first time, he joyously exclaimed: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Gn. 2:23). "He rightly understood that his partner was first and foremost a human being, like himself, and secondarily sexual. He did not exclaim: "This at last is the opposite sex, a convenient instrument for my sexual gratification." The human relationship comes first; the sexual relationship must be grounded in personal love.
As a result of the Fall, Adam and Eve began to get things backwards. They experienced shame because they suddenly regarded each other first as sex objects and secondarily as persons. They then made aprons of fig leaves to cover themselves. Pornography and pornovision, by placing the part before the whole, sexuality before personality, is preposterous and therefore, in a sense, ludicrous.
ALIENATING
The porn world is not without rules. One cardinal rule is that its performers remain safely alienated from their clients. Because pornography is primarily centered on the despiritualized, depersonalized body, alienation is essential to it.
In the telephone sex industry, operators are instructed to advise customers who want to arrange a tryst that "company policy" forbids it. Also, because pornography in its various forms, relies heavily on illusion, it cannot abide the light of realism. The voyeur is obliged to remain an alienated spectator. The tenuous relationship between the voyeur and the exhibitionist evaporates once personality enters the picture. As C. S. Lewis pointed out in his Allegory of Love, lust seeks "for some purely sexual, hence purely imaginary conjunction of an impossible maleness with an impossible femaleness."
ISOLATING
Alienation between people leads to the isolation of the self. This isolation of the self from a significant other and from community must not be confused with the right to privacy. Privacy means two things. In the first sense, it is contrasted with what is public. Sexual intimacy between husband and wife is private in this sense. John Paul II has rightly criticized pornography and pornovision for violating this legitimate right to privacy of the body.
On the other hand, privacy can refer to self-isolation, of withdrawing from social encounters. Pornography violates legitimateprivacy and encourages the illegitimate privacy of isolation. It exposes a personal privacy that should be protected, while it promotes an isolated privacy that should be avoided. Consequently, it is highly injurious to marriage and the family, often leaving spouses, particularly husbands, isolated from the rest of their kin.
REDUCTIONISTIC
Pornography reduces the person to a thing. Perhaps a more revealing way of putting it is to say that pornography exchanges a name for a number. Hence its preoccupation with numbers: the size of the organs, the duration of intercourse, the number of partners, the frequency and intensity of orgasm. The so-called "vital statistics" do not denote life as such as much as a person reduced to a thing.
Mechanization, which invariably stamps things with sameness, has a strong affinity with pornography. They are both highly impersonal processes whose language is not of names, but of numbers. Pornography forces the impression upon the imagination that a human being is not an individualized person, but an amalgam of parts. One of the more pernicious consequences of the Freudean reduction of the person to conflicting parts is the willingness to ascribe rights to its most basic part, namely, the id. O. Hobart Mowrer has inveighed against Freudeanism for "championing the rights of the body in opposition to a society and moral order which were presumed to be unduly harsh and arbitrary."
Nonetheless, a human being is not a conflict of parts but a dynamic whole that has a communal nature and a personal destiny.
***************
The porn industry, with its words, images, voices, and videos, is, indeed, a formula for despair. From its very essence springs the need to create the illusion that the body is in fundamental conflict with the unified person. Its unremitting aim is to bring about a condition of utter shamelessness through the gradual annihilation of authentic personality.
Well, I didn't say which was worst! They are all bad. Christianity teaches that pride is the worst. You don't have to agree with that, though you might see the wisdom of it.
It's a false comparison, apples and oranges, regardless of one's perceptions about pornography and murder. The depiction of crime and murder in PG entertainment isn't real. Hardcore pornography is.
Nobody is going to take away your little porn stash, don't worry. BUt I know that I will teach my sons that getting into porn will only hurt them.
I saw a program on TV about a woman in a porn video who needed extra money and so had sex with 30 men in that video. She shortly later came down with AIDs.
These people are usually of a religious bent...though to hear
one denomination lathering up about demon rum while
another denomination swills at leisure is reminiscent of
the porn-noporn debate, with a twist of irony.
An interesting assertion--and perhaps it's true. Easy to make such claims, but have you got any quantitative evidence to back it up? Or is this just anecdotal wisdom? Some blithely claim that liberation from society's suppresive norms leads to happier lives. Whom should we believe? Where's the evidence?
Please don't take this as too sarcastic. I only mean to point out that a lot of assertions are made in the course of these arguments. It's very hard to prove things one way or another. But each side argues (or implies) its way is inherently morally superior--whether or not there are unequivocable facts to back it up. Anyway--even if porn and lust are such pernicious scourges, I just can't believe they amount to much compared to other pressing problems. That's MY subjective viewpoint...no evidence to back it up...ok, nevermind.
Abortion is different, since it involves another human being (especially in something like partial birth abortion).
(For the record, I am against "smoking laws").
Trying to refute the vice warriors is a waste of time.
If it's legal, refutation is unnecessary, particularly if
they swear they aren't trying to take your freedom
to do exactly as you please away. Which is how
they start. :)
True.
Anyhow, I agree with you about becoming "freer" when one overcomes sexual animal desires. Sex isn't wrong in the right context... which is between a husband and wife. Outside of this type of arrangement, people often become slaves to sexual desire because there tends to be less obligation and consequences (no children, family, etc., etc.). The body isn't "dirty" (God himself took on a human body) and sex is only wrong when removed from it's proper place and then it becomes a distortion... just like many other things (money, food, etc.). To sum it up, when anything other than God becomes the center of one's existence, it is wrong and leads to many miseries. I see pornography as a severe distortion of what sex was intended to be and it makes me cringe when I hear about children being exposed to it. Currently, it seems a far more common occurence than when I was growing up and it makes me worry about future generations.
I know that some will disagree and that's fine, but I just thought I'd try to state my perspective on it. Hopefully, it made some sense as I'm quite tired at the moment.
And yet it was important enough for you to waste the past hour on this thread.
My apologies. All this time I thought you were talking about porn. My mistake. It is pron that you are attacking. Well, I fully agree with you. I too hate pron. Pron destroys lives and turns people into worthless automatons. I only hope to worthy enough to join you in the righteous crusade to destroy that sicko pron.
I agree that partial birth abortion is murder.
Well, here is gcruse's post #48 and my post #74 that offer some quantitative evidence.
The problem with porn discussions is they generally devolve into criticism of intent rather than legitimate discussion, which is the point to shut down discussion. I know of no other topic which such a large group of people who don't think porn should be dicussed critically at all, on any basis. It's almost like porn is a religion and dissent is blasphemy.
The ARTICLE (not necessarily the poster), from the tone itself, screams out that something should be done.
I didn't get that from reading the article. It seemed just the opposite, that the author was deliberately trying to steer away from proscriptive solutions and instead bring up valid (to him) criticism.
Obviously criticism has inherent in it a measure of proscription. The movie critic may persuade you not to spend your money on a particular movie. Likewise with a music or book or restuarant critic. However, I don't think that can be assumed to be the intent unless explicitely stated "Don't see such and such movie or buy such and such book".
Usually criticism it is more esoteric. Also, it is sometimes meant to goad others into improving the message, which I think could be a legitimate area of criticism in porn.
If I had to insist on one point, it's that porn is utterly trivial compared to other social ills. Just my point of view.
Well, I agree it's relative. All things are relative. Even so, another legitimate area of criticism would be potential links between porn and other "social ills". At least it can be explored through discussion, assuming it it is not (again) preemptively deemed off limits to discuss such things.
It's not hidden to me; it's hidden to you.
Firstly, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness aren't mentioned in the Constitution; they're mentioned in the Declaration Of Independence. (One down.)
Secondly, if your happiness involves beating me over the nose with a tire iron, you don't get to do it. You'll get yourself hurt and you'll go to jail. If your happiness involves having sex with my underage niece, you don't get to do it. You'll get yourself severely hurt and you'll go to jail. If your happiness involves stealing my car for a joyride, you don't get to do it. If you're caught, you'll go to jail.
And, just to be clear about how the Founding Fathers regarded "morals laws": when Thomas Jefferson was alive, if your happiness involved committing sodomy, he thought it proper to have you castrated. (Two down.)
So, as I said, your pursuit of happiness isn't mentioned in the Constitution and it isn't necessarily a right, no matter how much you'd like it to be.
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