Dear Friends,

Do you think it’s morally acceptable to create sexually explicit videos of yourself and others for the entertainment of friends or strangers?

Do you think it’s morally acceptable to consume such videos?

Notice that I am not asking if you think porn is icky.

I’m not asking if you think it’s stupid.

I’m not asking if you think porn internalizes the patriarchy.

I’m not asking if there is a statistically significant correlation between porn consumption and violence toward women.

I’m asking you if you think porn is right or wrong.

Don’t believe in rigid concepts like right and wrong? Sure you do.

In 21st century America, some of us have been fooled into thinking that we have moved beyond simple, dichotomous concepts like “right and wrong“. But, we don’t have any trouble warming up to the concept when we are the ones who have been wronged, do we?

We don’t have any trouble condemning the actions of a thief who steals our car, do we? Do we say “Well, I will call the police and hope to get my car back, but ultimately there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with someone stealing my car”? No, that’s not what we say. In fact, we are much more likely to say or imply something along the lines of “That was wrong!”.

And when it comes to the kidnapping of a child, it’s really not a challenge for us to condemn that as wrong….no matter whose child it is.

Now, are there some “right or wrong” questions that reasonable people can disagree on? Of course…but that doesn’t negate the fundamental concept.

So, yes, right and wrong is a thing…no matter how much we try to squirm out of it. So, why not embrace the concept and see if it can’t bring some stability to our tumultuous lives?

To: Rashida Jones

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From: A man

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Re: Porn

I’ve been wanting to write about porn for a couple years. I think it started when I read this New York Time article by Rashida Jones (1), and was saddened to read her endorsement of porn:

“Do you personally consume porn now? I do. When I was single, it was a great way to stay at home. It’s nice that you can separate the idea of personal pleasure from the pressure of a relationship. ”

In an earlier article that was a bit more confrontational to our hyper-sexualized culture, she issued this invitation (2):

“Men: WHERE ARE YOU??? Please talk to us about how all this makes you feel. You are 49 percent of the population; don’t sit around and let women beat one another up while you intermittently and guiltily enjoy the show. Speak up! We care what you think!”

OK, here goes, Rashida:

Pornography is wrong, evil, disgusting, degrading to the creators and the consumers, a cancer of the mind and of the soul, and should be avoided by men and women everywhere like the plague. The thought of watching pornography, especially as a married man, is horrifying to me.

Today, I want to address pornography at a fundamental level. I won’t address techniques for beating a porn addiction, or ways for a woman to address her husband’s porn habit, or legislative debates. Instead, I want to attack pornography at its foundations; I want to reach out to those who think porn is actually OK, or could be OK if it was done “ethically”, or are not sure.

Regarding the elephant in the room: No, I do not watch porn. I saw some on a few occasions many years ago, but was never addicted to it.

No! I do not condemn you

Dear child of God….please, please do not misunderstand what I am telling you. I am not claiming to be better than anybody else because I don’t watch pornography. In God’s eternal courtroom, we all stand guilty before a Holy God, if not for the blood of Christ. So, although I am saying that pornography is a terrible thing to be involved in, it would be very foolish of me to look down my nose at any human being because they make or consume porn. We are all equally bankrupt in sins if not for the riches of Christ. The mere fact of me staying in a room where people were watching porn, and that I watched along with them for a while, is a sin. And in God’s eternal courtroom, sin is sin. Period.

All I’m really trying to do here is be your brother. It’s not about who’s better and who’s worse. It’s about me trying to show love to you, and one way to show love is to point people to a better way. And when I go astray, regardless of which area of my life it is, I need my loved ones to point me to a better way also.

Will you let me point you to a better way?

The wrong side of the ledger

To those of you who neither use nor condemn pornography: Is it possible that your refusal to condemn porn makes you feel justified in holding on to some other sin in your life?

Note, I’m not claiming special insight into your situation; I’m just asking questions.

Are you worried that the Christian worldview, which provides a solid, straightforward basis for condemning the porn industry (more on that in the next post), will also prevent you from having some other thing that you really want?

It’s true that Christianity comes with a cost. God will sometimes disagree with you…and you won’t feel good about the disagreement until you line up on God’s side of it.

But what if God’s commandments to us are like the boundaries established by a loving father? What if God has a desire to gather you like a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wing? What if adopting Christianity will allow you to confidently condemn pornography and to make positive changes in other areas of your life? What if that boyfriend that would be offended by your firm opposition to pornography is not the right man for you anyway?

What if, my dear friend, you are putting God’s standards of holy living, and God’s model for marriage, on the wrong side of the ledger?

Dear friends, don’t overthink this one

Does your worldview allow you to join me in saying porn is evil? Or are you waiting for a comprehensive enough sociological or psychological study before you can give your opinion? Are you waiting until you have time to review the existing literature, and then you can form an opinion? Are you still wondering if there could be ethical porn, or if feminism can redeem porn?

We have a huge problem in our technologically advanced, (supposedly) enlightened society: Science is the primary truth reference for too many questions. Uh oh.

Yes, very interesting psychological and sociological research can be done into the harmful effects of porn. If you do research in these areas, more power to you.

But here’s the rub: if you consider such research to be the last word on porn, you need to rethink your worldview. Porn is a worldview test. It’s like the death of a child. It’s like the Holocaust. How does your worldview handle porn? The answer tells a lot about the strength of your worldview.

Can you give an unequivocal statement against porn like the one I made above? If not, there’s something wrong with your worldview. Your worldview should allow you to make such a statement, without knowing anything about the research.

Yes, I love me a good data set

I’ve said it before, and I think I need to say it again at this point. I work in high technology. My career is all about data and what conclusions can be drawn from them. That is my bread and butter, folks. So don’t think for one second that I’m using morality or the Bible as a cover for my inability or unwillingness to grapple with abstract concepts or statistics. No, chances are I know more about statistics and data analysis than you do.

But porn…porn is not one of those issues where you should need data to answer this basic question. Any sociologist who goes into this field without knowing that porn is wrong needs to rethink his or her worldview….not the availability of data showing that porn leads to sexual violence.

Someone will say, “Oh, you want biased research????”

I want us all to apprehend basic moral principles, whether that leads to biased research or not. If a researcher starts looking into child porn because he or she wants to know the answer to the basic question of, “Is it evil?”, then there is a problem. This is not something you should need research to know, my friend! In fact, science isn’t well equipped to answer questions of good and evil anyway.

Now, could a researcher have his or her opinion on this topic changed by looking at the data? Sure…but very few of us are in a position to rigorously and scientifically research these questions using statistically sound methodology. Neither is it easy to critically evaluate the research of others. Granted, when it comes to something like what is the best treatment for cancer, the consensus of medical experts is probably the best thing you have to go on. But porn? We have something better than research to refer to if we simply want to know if porn is evil or not: namely, we have a basic, embedded sense of right and wrong.

“We aren’t supposed to criticize people’s fantasies.” Says who????

This is a quote from the NYT Rashida Jones article:

“But I had a hard time finding the kind of porn I wanted, because I had to sift through so much stuff that isn’t for me — like abuses of power, dark porn — and I know we aren’t supposed to criticize people’s fantasies, because everybody has their own thing, but unfortunately, the first thing you see when you go to a tube site is often pretty violent stuff.”

Excuse me, but who made the rule that we can’t criticize other people’s fantasies?

Dear Rashida, I want you to know that my objection to abuses of power and dark porn is not that it “isn’t for me”. My objection to kiddie porn is not that it “isn’t for me”. My objection to violent porn is not that it “isn’t for me”.

Rather, my objection is that it is sickening, degrading and just plain evil. It’s evil to fantasize about sleeping with your neighbor’s wife. It’s evil for a pedophile to longingly undress a child with his eyes (and yes, it’s evil for me to yell at my wife, which I have done….again, this post does not address the question of who’s “good” and who’s “bad”!).

Yes, Jesus stands ready and willing to criticize your fantasy, dear child of God. If you are ogling a woman who is not your wife, Jesus says no. Stop! You should be looking at your wife!!!!

Can you say it with me?

Oh, what a terrible state we are in that so many in mainstream society cannot condemn porn. That we have to have endless debates about male patriarchy and the link between porn and sexual violence in order to answer such a basic question: Is porn evil?

Yes, porn…is…EVIL!!!

Can you say it with me? If not, please give Christianity a second look.

Jesus loves you.

Links:

1: NYT Rashida Jones

2: Rashida Jones: The pornification of everything