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.
Exactly. The problem is that JMJ333 isn't interested in rational debare of the arguments put forth by the article. He merely wants to call those who disagree with him libertines.
Yep. I've finally found one but 99% are as you say.
DEPERSONALIZING
"Pornography displaces love with lust."
When? To what degree? What kind of love does it displace? Does pornography always displace all love whenever it's present?
It replaces intimate love. It takes away the focus of bestowing love on your partner and refocuses it on self. It degrades women into mere playthings for men. I would say it indeed displaces love whenever present. There is no respect or love only a degredation into animal behavior.
ENSLAVING
"Pornography enslaves by imprisoning people in the material."
What does this sentence mean, exactly?
It means the material is highly addictive. I would say especially to men who are very visual. Your eyes and your ears are the window to your soul. Looking at these images has an enslaving impact just as drugs have an enslaving impact. Those who run internet porn sites might agree [gleefully!]
"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."
So does everything else that produces the chemical reaction we call happiness.
Being enslaved is happiness? I guess to some. But most women who have been in the porn business and are now out disagree with that sentiment. There is no happiness in being degraded--or degrading yourself-- like a dog.
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."
Does the high rate of suicides among musicians or authors indicate that music or literature is inevitably self-destructive? Or how about the high rate of suicide among dentists and psychiatrists? Is dentistry or psychiatry inevitably self-destructive?
You'll have to back your statiscics up before I answer. The statistics and references for this article can be found by following the link and scrolling to the bottom.
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."
Exactly how does one measure personhood, love, and conscience?
Well, it certainly isn't by acting base. I would measure it by content of character, morality, and behavior...for a short list.
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."
Porn is fantasy. "Alienation" is not the correct word for the fantasy world pornography creates.
LOL...Don't tell me...I don't want to know....
Actually, it does alienate because one isn't living in reality. Women in the real world are not mere playthings.
ISOLATING
"Alienation between people leads to the isolation of the self."
This point is so obtuse I have trouble questioning it. Is the author trying to suggest pornograpy somehow violates the "right to privacy" because it . . . I am terribly confused.
I think they are referring to becoming despondent. You get absorbed in a porn addiction and any real woman will not have it. You end up alone.
REDUCTIONISTIC
"Pornography reduces the person to a thing." Well here, I agree. But I'd rephrase: pornography is about fantasy. It uses human actors to create an unreal fantasy world. But that could be said of any movie, television show, photograph, book, song, etc. ever produced.
It affects real women, who are reduced to machines. It has an impact on how young men..men in general...view us. We are not some simple to tool to exploit for pleasure. Give us some dignity! Demand better of women. And I would hope women would demand better of themsleves.
I have to run, but I will be here later this afternoon and will answer any reply you leave.
Regards! =)
Sorta like your non arguements.
She just wants someone with more than two braincells to put forth an effort beyond that of a gradeschool reply.
I sir, am a libertine.
Sorry about mistaking your gender, but my reply was hardly gradeschool. It was an analysis of pornography and free-market capitalism in relation to the argument you put forth. Calling my argument "gradeschool" is an avoidance tactic; an easy slur, made in order to avoid having to respond to my argument with an intellectual reply. Again, that's quite disingenous of you.
DEPERSONALIZINGIt replaces intimate love. It takes away the focus of bestowing love on your partner and refocuses it on self. It degrades women into mere playthings for men. I would say it indeed displaces love whenever present. There is no respect or love only a degredation into animal behavior.
Counter: Pornography only "replaces" intimate love when one is incapable of expressing intimate love wholly independent of pornography. I know you like to submit evidence that porn "ruins marriage" to prove your point, but I think you've merely replaced the root cause with its expression. If, in a relationship, "intimate love" is replaced by pornography, intimate love was never there in the first place---an approximation of it was. You cannot claim the absence of something as evidence of a problem if it was never really there in the first place.
ENSLAVING
It means the material is highly addictive. I would say especially to men who are very visual. Your eyes and your ears are the window to your soul. Looking at these images has an enslaving impact just as drugs have an enslaving impact. Those who run internet porn sites might agree [gleefully!]
Counter: Because something is addictive doesn't mean it's demonic. Exercise is addictive.
"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."
So does everything else that produces the chemical reaction we call happiness.
Being enslaved is happiness? I guess to some. But most women who have been in the porn business and are now out disagree with that sentiment. There is no happiness in being degraded--or degrading yourself-- like a dog.
Counter: You're mixing your arguments. The article discusses the end-user addiction scenario---being chemically addicted to porn because of the epinephrine released by the adrenal gland. (That's the base chemical reaction for all happiness, I believe. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.) Yet you're talking about the happiness of porn stars in the porn industry. That's not the kind of happiness the article addressed.
SELF-DESTRUCTIVE
You'll have to back your statiscics up before I answer. The statistics and references for this article can be found by following the link and scrolling to the bottom.
Counter: Why take the easy way out? I have neither the time nor inclination to search for proof for what I know I've read in the past. Or do you believe porno actors/actresses have a professional lock on suicide?
PREPOSTEROUS
Well, it certainly isn't by acting base. I would measure it by content of character, morality, and behavior...for a short list.
Counter: Nobody's asking pornographers or porno actors/actresses to be paragons of virtue. In fact, one expects just the opposite. So what if they act base?
ALIENATING
Actually, it does alienate because one isn't living in reality. Women in the real world are not mere playthings.
Counter: Nor are cops superheroes, lawyers altruistic, or the good guys always noble. Are you suggesting that all art---and I'm applying the term loosely, of course---must always adhere to reality, lest anyone be alienated in the process?
ISOLATING
I think they are referring to becoming despondent. You get absorbed in a porn addiction and any real woman will not have it. You end up alone.
Counter: That's simplistic and subjective. Plenty of real women enjoy porn.
REDUCTIONISTIC
It affects real women, who are reduced to machines. It has an impact on how young men..men in general...view us. We are not some simple to tool to exploit for pleasure. Give us some dignity! Demand better of women. And I would hope women would demand better of themsleves.
Counter: You seem to adhere to this notion---I wouldn't do it, or champion it for myself, so it must be bad for everyone. That's your real objection to pornography, isn't it? I mean, when all is said and done, everything seems to rest upon the fact that you don't like pornography.
Happens all the time, but at least I'm being paid for the privilige of being degraded, reduced, and humiliated.
;-)
What is more reductionist than the commodization of goods and services that previously only skilled tradesmen could produce?
And don't think for 1 minute that the producers of Porn don't know this as there has been a resurgence in porn of seeing the bitch do anything you want. Porn actresses are plucked from the ranks of strippers, who take their act one step further for viewers who in real life would not stand a chance getting in their pants. Some of us would never want to anyway and prefer paying them to be as nasty as we want. All of this feeds on itself in an neverending loop.
In the Apollonian-Dionysian worlds Pornography stands in the shadows while in the lihght of everyday we are constantly exposed to softcore porn as well as the hyper sexualisation of young people.
Where's the outrage? Railing against a regulated and small niche outlet is a form of masturbation while the larger issue of hypersexualised Abercrombie and Fitch marketing goes on relentlessly.
Sometimes we sound like whinning liberals trying to save mankind from itself. Your last sentence is very profound and cuts through to a truth which I subscribe to: life ain't allways grand and that when natural selection is working, and it allways is save for some intervention, it ain't pretty, but is a major Law of the Land.
I have much more respect for a man who doesn't than one who does.
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