Church's anti-porn site

[SoonerCoug]

I think the majority of people that are reacting negatively to this are not doing something in defense of porn. It's just that some of us think the Church's obsession with the issue might be doing more harm than good.

[LA Ute]

I think the majority of people that are reacting negatively to this are not doing something in defense of porn. It's just that some of us think the Church's obsession with the issue might be doing more harm than good.

I'll grant you that possibility. Serious, non-trolling questions: What should the Church do about porn? Anything? If it should do less than it is doing, then why?

[myboynoah]

From what I've seen, divorce can ravage and at the very least is the ultimate test for families, and adultery is a primary catalyst (I'll just focus on sex-related causes). In general adultery can be more injurious to families than porn. (Can we agree on this much?) In my experience, here is the profile of someone at risk of adultery:

1) unsatisfied with home sex life; this can be brought on by physical issues or even just kids, stress, overfamiliarity, a mother's decreased libido after childbirth, or just bad chemistry; sometimes people who got married when, say, they were in their early twenties don't like each other any more twenty years later (hellooo!!! is this a surprise?)

2) a lot of free and unaccountable time; for example, stay at home mom and dad who travels a lot (either one, take your pick);

3) some disposable income and loose if any accountability between spouses of expenditures;

4) not unattractive and possessing some modicum of panache or charisma;

5) possessing some power;

Note, porn consumption is not on the list.

If a person is described by all five of these factors, he/she is at risk of adultery. Each one of them represents a risk factor. I've seen this to be equally true within and outside the LDS church.

Please direct me to the LDS website on each of these evils.

lol.

What's the sample size for your little study here?

[SoonerCoug]

I'll grant you that possibility. Serious, non-trolling questions: What should the Church do about porn? Anything? If it should do less than it is doing, then why?

I think that banning things is the easy and lazy way of doing things. It's easy to ban coffee. It's hard to encourage people to avoid fast food and have a healthy diet. Coffee doesn't do nearly as much harm as fast food.

It's the same thing as far as marriage, etc. It's easy to ban porn. It's easy to tell people not to get divorced. It's much harder to teach people how to be happy in a marriage.

I think the emphasis should be on forgiveness and positive things rather than obsessing over specific bad behaviors that might even be relatively minor compared to larger fundamental marital problems. Most people who occasionally view porn are not addicted. Usually for something to be classified as an addiction it has to be interfering with someone's ability to function at work or at home.

[Tick's wife]

http://combatingpornography.org/cp/eng/

Does my spouse have a pornography problem?

Here are the warning signs according to the Church:

1. Irritability
Is your spouse more irritable and "on the edge"?
2. Financial
Are there unaccounted for expenditures?
3. Unaccounted Time
Does your spouse consistently have a lot of unaccounted-for time?
4. Disconnected
Does your spouse seem emotionally disconnected?
5. Relationship
Have you noticed a significant or even subtle change in your physical, emotional, and/or social relationship?
6. Spiritual
Does your loved one seem less interested in spiritual things?


Of course, they don't mention the verified possibility that a spouse could be acting MORE spiritual if he is looking at porn.

Other signs:

1. Loss of interest in sexual relations or insatiable sexual appetite.
2. Introduction of unusual sexual practices in the relationship.
3. Diminished emotional, physical, social, spiritual, and intellectual intimacy.
4. Neglect of responsibilities.
5. Increased isolation (such as late-night hours on the computer reading CUF); withdrawal from family.
6. Easily irritated, irregular mood swings.
7. Unexplained absences.
8. Preference for masturbation over sexual relations with spouse.
9. Unexplained financial transactions.
10. Sexual relations that are rigid, rushed, without passion, and detached.

I'm sure that some of these things are quite accurate, but it really upsets me the way the Church throws around "science" on this site (talking about brain structures, etc). The Church only uses data that support their position. They have an MD with basically zero publications writing about the science of porn addiction. It doesn't make the Church look credible.

Holy S, I guess we are all damned to Hell because that sounds like an average person on any occassional day....

[SeattleUte]

i'm not sure why porn consumption and adultery are exclusive. i think there's a really good argument that porn can often lead to extra-marital affairs. but, i agree for the most part with the premise that there has been an absurd amount of coverage here.

They are not exclusive but they are both symptomatic of similar, deeper problems. That "Anonymous" author in The National Review article in the companion thread is a classic example. Her conclusion that her husband's adultery and decision to leave her was caused by porn seems more than a little too self-interested or unreflective, and implausible. (Her belief certainly impairs her crediblity and impartiality as an expert.) Yes, porn may be an interediate step to adultery, but I highly doubt it's the proximate cause of the adultery and diverce. To me a more logical argument might be that porn actually delays or makes the temptation of adultery less urgent.

Far be it from me to jump to any conclusion that "Anonymous" bears any fault for her husband's adultery and leaving her. It might be that he is just a bad person or this is just something that happened. Whatever. Porn like adultery is the result not the cause of moral, interpersonal, or whatever you want to call it failure. In our modern age we don't say, "I failed." We say, "so and so is sick" (peferably not the speaker, but apparently even calling yourself sick is preferable to saying I failed or I keep screwing up).

[SeattleUte]

lol.

What's the sample size for your little study here?

Sample size is overrated. Logic and a little observation will carry you a very long ways.

[Viking]

11. An uncanny ability to type with their left hand only.

Dave Chappelle calls that a "stranger".

[Viking]

I actually appreciate that the church is so ardently anti-porn, for the sake of my kids.

I would have also appreciated it during my first marriage if they had embarked on an anti-oprah campaign.

[SeattleUte]

I'll grant you that possibility. Serious, non-trolling questions: What should the Church do about porn? Anything? If it should do less than it is doing, then why?

I'm almost positive the LDS Church is doing nothing constructive about porn, despite the enormous attention it devotes to the problem. I am sure its obsession with porn is causing a lot of paranoia and pain, and distracts hugely from what people should be doing to address root problems in their lives of which porn addiction is a symptom.

I don't know if Sooner has correctly identified the motivation here. But I suspect there's some institutional pathology that fuels this pornphobia, maybe nothing other than the terrible fear that here is something people can do in secret, and though completely in the realm of the imagination and it does not cause pregnancy or venerial disease or liver or brain damage or car accidents or oil tankers to run aground, it nevertheless seems out of line with the way the LDS church has traditionally dictated its members conduct their lives at least since Joseph Smith. The contemporary LDS church feels its reason for being is to tell its members what to do and how to think.

(I confess to having no personal or second hand experience with anyone "addicted" to porn. I have not seen any lives ruined by it. Personally, I've not spent a nickle on it, and my wireless connected work issued lap top doesn't even allow me to view Youtube or ESPN clips without numerous fits and starts. So basically I'm taking socially conservative activists' word for it that there is such a thing as porn addiction. Still, I'm not convinced that such as it is, porn addiction is as big a problem as many other societal ills you could readily name off that, say, have demonstrable physical harmful effects and are demonstrably addictive.)

I think religions should eloquently teach correct principles, make good music and teach and live by the golden rule, give charity, provide a ceremonial means for interring the dead, and provide general love, support and comfort to those who turn to them in times of crisis. They should not dabble in pop psychology or try to micro-manage anybody's personal life. These days, if the LDS Church makes a public statement about a current event or issue, invariably it involves sex. I think of the Church Lady; it's not inspiring.

One way this web site Sooner linked is counterproductive is that it makes the LDS Church look foolish. It is somewhat comical to the extent it isn't just lame. No one here seems able or inclined to defend it.

[MarkGrace]

This thread had some serious gems. Glen Quagmire approves.

[Rosebud]

I'm almost positive the LDS Church is doing nothing constructive about porn, despite the enormous attention it devotes to the problem. I am sure its obsession with porn is causing a lot of paranoia and pain, and distracts hugely from what people should be doing to address root problems in their lives of which porn addiction is a symptom.

I agree. It just doesn't make any sense to continually strike against a symptom. It doesn't do much good. I think the whole sex obsession is pretty weird. Sure, the foyer sex threads get old, but IMO one reason we talk about these things here is because they're such a big part of Mormon culture. It would be strange if we didn't.

So, I've been trying to figure out what it is about our culture that causes us to unrelentingly strike against sexuality. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that we're afraid that porn and homosexuality will destroy the family and thus the work of God so it's our duty to put a stop to them. It's just that it isn't too hard to think of a dozen other things that might be "destroying the family" that we don't talk much about. Is it as simple as a fixation on the natural man being an enemy to god idea, or is it symptomatic of our troubled polygamous history or something worse?

No, I'm not defending porn. I just kind of feel bad for all the Mormon women who feel like personal failures because their husbands use it. YW are taught that marriage to a worthy male is their ultimate goal and that porn use makes men dirty and unworthy. IOW, if our husbands use it, we failed in one of the most important tasks of our lives: getting married to a worthy male. IMO, it's kind of hard for women to suddenly discard these irrational beliefs (that they've been taught come from god) when faced with something they've regularly been told is the penultimate evil no matter how well any website is (or isn't) put together.

And while I'm on the topic, I also think it's pretty lame that our church anti-porn and masturbation education seems to imply to young girls that they are less sexual than the boys adn therefore morally superior to them. This doesn't do much towards helping women gain a healthy understanding of their own sexuality. It's more like it teaches girls that it's their job to keep male sexuality in check. And do we not talk about female porn use and masturbation because doing so would force us to admit out loud that women are sexual or something? Did just reading that sentence scare you?

What a mess this sex obsession is. I wish we'd get over it already. Rant over.

[Clark Addison]

I'll grant you that possibility. Serious, non-trolling questions: What should the Church do about porn? Anything? If it should do less than it is doing, then why?

I think it is true that the Church has a lot of critics in this area, but a relative scaricity of people who have good alternatives, which is one reason I tend to stay out of these debates (the main reaon being I just wish we had less porn discussion in the Foyer).

Having said that, the stance the Church takes does, to me, seem to produce some very strange points of view. I hate to pick on CB, but this post there struck me:

http://www.cougarboard.com/frames/frames_main.html

In it, the OP says that "pornography will destroy every home, marriage and family that it is allowed to enter in." In a follow up post, he says that "standard movie nudity is porn." So he feels that every marriage that views R Rated movie type nudity will be destroyed. That is IMO a very weird and distorted view about the danger of Porn. It is very much like saying that no marriage in which alcohol is consumed can survive. Also, he says this in a way that you can tell he thinks this is a standard viewpoint that anyone would agree with.

Again, I don't know the answers to this, but I think the current mindset in much of the Church is not incredibly healthy.

[SoonerCoug]

I'm very interested to see whether this site is unveiled during the priesthood session or a general session.