thought i'd throw out a new discussion. let me give you a definition first and then the question. this is the definition of 'pornography' from dictionary.com it goes a bit beyond the traditional understanding only in that fact that it veers a bit outside of being just visual.
Books, photographs, magazines, art, or music designed to excite sexual impulses and considered by public authorities or public opinion as in violation of accepted standards of sexual morality.
i read an article on relevant.com entitled "emotional pornography", and it talked about the amount of unhealthy depictions of relationships and imagery out there that has nothing to do with what we consider traditionally as pornography. it went on to say that affairs are seen as normal and almost desirable in some situations, there are books out there which place unrealistic expectations on how men should be,(twilight series), that is no more fair than the visual images of women we see in traditional pornography.
which leads me to my question.
what is pornography?
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ReplyDeletei think pornography might be most easily defined by its outcomes. i was most recently struck by an interesting implication contained in the condemnation of sexual immorality by Paul in the great passage in 1 Cor 6:12-20. if we look at the context, Paul is exhorting believers to have healthy and vibrant interpersonal relations as a body of believers and advocating an (almost) situational morality in which each of us is responsible for the moral well-being of our fellow man. just a few verses later, Paul takes an relatively high view of sex within marriage (although marriage is only for people who are too deviant to remain single), imploring that neither member of the marital relationship withhold sex from the other and that refraining from sex should be (1) mutual and (2) focused on spiritual discipline. while Paul advocates such a social view of morality and an interpersonal view of sexual relations, it seems that pornography completely destroys any chance of that. it becomes entirely about the ability of a single person to adequately satisfy his/her own desires and completely eliminates the interpersonal and spiritual dependence which seems to be so crucial to Paul's understanding of sexual relations. so pornography might be less about the object(s) used for sexual arousal and more about the purpose. is the purpose to isolate sexual experience, divorcing it (pun intended) from the socially grounded contexts in which it was meant to function? i think that might make it pornography, no matter what the manifestation.
ReplyDeletei guess no one else wanted to touch the pornography topic.
ReplyDeleteseems like it. we have it mastered.
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