In addition to this long one from yesterday, the other post I’ve had percolating in my head is about porn and violence. It comes in response to something I hear quite often from folks: why is it that so many Christians seem so concerned with pornography, and less concerned with violence. For example, in response to my post on “anxiety and arousal” last week, “Dethboy” writes:
…the dirty secret of porn (is) that most of it is actually not that bad…
The most graphic pornography I have ever encountered entailed a woman having needles inserted, one by one, into her breasts, and then extracted. There was a trickle of blood, and it was expressed that it was painful, but overall, the atmosphere was erotic but clinical, precise. Compare this to Saw II, or Hostel, or Turistas. Is seeing someone have sex as negative an impact as seeing someone get thrown into a pit full of needles, have their kidney cut out while their awake, or have their eye torn out in graphic detail? Is seeing a woman get facialed as upsetting as seeing a man impaled on a spike? Would you rather have your children see a woman having sex, or a man being shot in the face? Hugo stands in the middle of a burning house, demanding that, right now, the candle be put out on the night stand, because it’s the *real* problem, not the walls catching fire or the ceiling caving in.
I’ve missed the horror films Dethboy references, but I get the point. “Porn is just about sex”, folks say; “violence is so much worse.” Surely it’s misplaced puritanism to get so worked up about pornography and to be less concerned about violence. There’s a thoughtful response to that, one that others have made (one that my brother Philip makes quite eloquently), and in this post I want to get to it.
Let me be clear that I have little stomach for graphic violence. I hated pictures like Natural Born Killers, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction because of the violence — bloodshed so relentless that it vitiated any redeeming artistic qualities the films had. I went through a brief period in early adolescence where I liked scary movies, but that ended by the time I was old enough to drive. I view the current revival of low-budget horror films as a cynical attempt by Hollywood to maximize profits by working with C-list actors and D-list writers to produce films that can generate quick and massive returns.
I’m willling to sit through heavy violence as part of a larger story; I actully liked last year’s “A History of Violence”, and I’ve sat through my share of war movies in the “Saving Private Ryan” and “Letters from Iwo Jima” vein. And of course, I’m also comfortable with sex scenes in movies, particularly when those sex scenes serve the primary purpose of advancing the plot and providing a depth to the characters, rather than serving merely to titillate. (The graphic sex in “A History of Violence”, for example, fit that bill.) I’m not by nature prudish! I am reluctant to see the bodies of others exploited on screen for my pleasure, whether that pleasure comes in the form of chills (as in a slasher film) or arousal (as in porn). When bodies tell a story, that’s somehow radically different than when they serve only to arouse or shock.
But the thing about depictions of violence in films, television, or in print is simple: it is the graphic depiction of something that we know to be fundamentally bad. To use Dethboy’s example, everyone recognizes instinctively that throwing someone onto a bed of needles is wrong. There is never an instance where to do so is good and loving. In certain instances, killing a bad guy might be justifiable, but most of us are aware that violence itself, while perhaps necessary, is never an a priori good. The violence we see in these films is violence of the sort few of us will ever engage in, Lord willing. The violence we see depicted is what the vast majority of us would never want done to us, and would never want to do to another.
But sex is different. Most of us will have sex at some point in our lives, with ourselves or someone else. Most of us want to have sex, and most of us (it is to be most fervently hoped) will have very good sex at some point with someone we love very much. Sex is, at its best, spine-tinglingly, earth-shatteringly, transcendently good. And most of us know that, or very much want to know it!
Porn lies. Porn misrepresent sex. It takes something that is fundamentally good and joyful and mutual and makes it selfish. It teaches a strong connection between the bodies of others and one’s own pleasure without demanding an iota of concern for the well-being of the other. Ask women whose husbands and boyfriends regularly use porn: are they better lovers as a consequence? Though they might pick up a “trick” or two, they are also far more likely to be distant, remote, and concerned with their own pleasure as a consequence.
Pornography is ultimately more harmful than depicted violence because of the far greater likelihood that those who watch porn will want to imitate what they see. Dethboy refers to “facials”: the ubiquitous habit in modern porn of ejaculating onto a woman’s face. When I was growing up, facials weren’t common in porn. And none of my male friends with whom I talked in great detail about sex talked about the practice; now, I hear frequently from young women whose boyfriends are eager to “try it”. Most of the women, understandably, are at best ambivalent about having their faces and their hair splattered! “Facials” are just one example of a “learned behavior” from porn.
When we see axe murders in the movies, only a tiny fraction of us (thank heavens) will say “Gosh, I’d like to try that!” When we see porn, and particularly when the young watch porn, they are far more likely to draw inspiration from what is shown. (Think about it, people: A young man, watching “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” with his girlfriend, is very unlikely to have an insatiable urge to trundle down to Home Depot, buy a Husqvarna*, and dismember her. Watching the male star of “Cum Bunnies of Cleveland VII” ejaculate on the faces of his co-stars may spark a more imitative response!) For those who watch porn regularly, particularly in adolescence, their sense of what sex is and of how it is supposed to work is deeply affected by what they see. And what they see is almost never loving or mutual. What they see, alas, is a lie.
So yeah, porn bothers me more than violence. And while watching a horror movie might give a teen a night of bad dreams, watching porn may help shape a whole worldview about men, women and pleasure. I’m pretty clear which is more harmful.
*Though you wouldn’t think if of effete little OKOP me, I know quite a bit about chainsaws, having spent much of my childhood on a ranch, clearing brush with an enthusiasm that would put our president (a famous brush-clearer) to shame. And based on years of experience, I’m a great and loyal believer in Husqvarna saws, another fine product from the socialist democracy of Sweden. This is the one I currently covet.
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