Pornography has become considerably more acceptable lately. A few years ago it was widely condemned as a threat to women, to children, to the family, and to non-exploitative relationships between the sexes. Then the internet arrived and suddenly every household had a free pornography dispenser. People love to get things free.
Attitudes toward pornography still vary widely. Men, for example, love it. They can’t get enough of it. I imagine the Archbishop of Canterbury has seen a few things on his computer that don’t show up in reports to the General Synod of the Church of England, if you catch my drift. I mean – he’s a guy.
Of course, when he’s up in the pulpit, so to speak, Arch has to go on about pornography demeaning the human spirit etc. It’s his job. But then, when you’re doing your job you have to do what the boss tells you to, and Jesus was quite clear on this issue. According to Him, if you looked on a woman with adulterous lust in your heart, not only had you actually committed adultery, but you should go ahead and pluck your eyes out so you couldn’t do it again. The median number of eyes among contemporary Christians still seems to be two, but when they’re promoting the religion they have to follow company policy.
As for other religious leaders, Benedict XVI is the head, so to speak, of one of the biggest fetishistic organizations on the face of the earth. For one thing, there’s all those guys wearing dresses. And who invented the nun’s habit? It wasn’t the atheists.
As for the evangelicals, their opposition to pornography may be a little more heartfelt, since they seem to prefer hookers.
Women seem to have less positive attitudes about pornography. For one thing the whole question of the threat pornography constitutes to them and to society has never really been dealt with. In Canada, of course, there have been other concerns, such as raising the age of consent from 12 (twelve). It is difficult to inveigh against pornography, and especially against child pornography, when the law allows Canadian children to have sex with adults at the age of fourteen (at twelve you can consent to sex only with other immature children – what a protection).
Perhaps the answer is to look at pornography from a different perspective. Instead of looking at the threat it poses, let’s look at its benefits (metaphorically, I hasten to add):
- pornography has allowed Hugh Hefner to live most of his life in his pyjamas
- free advertising for the breast implantation industry
- promotion of high-speed internet connections (that ain’t just Disney movies they’re downloading)
- uh, that’s it
Wait – just thought of another benefit. Pornography is one of those questionable things we allow because, if we didn’t, then other things of demonstrable value might be outlawed. For example, much of what has been written over the last forty years about women’s reproductive rights might well have been suppressed in earlier days for the same reason that people want to suppress pornography – to stop people from encouraging immoral acts. Pornography is a form of speech, and if it can’t be suppressed then manifestly beneficial forms of speech can’t be, either. If pornography didn’t exist, we would have had to invent it.
Of course, that sort of argument is easier to make because research has never provided persuasive evidence for the argument that pornography encourages rape or other violent offences against women. In fact, it seems to be the countries with the least pornography which have the most abuse of women. Not much pornography in Saudi Arabia, and not too many women there singing “I Enjoy Being a Girl,” either.
But if it did turn out that pornography caused harm to society – then what? We still haven’t managed to ban tobacco, and that shit has killed more women than pornography has.
We talk a good game, though.
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