Does porn = adultery?

[SeattleUte]

Again, this is a great post. I was reading some Baudrillard the other day and this subject came to mind. The Zizek article wherein he talks about the fiber-optic camera strapped to someone's penis is the ultimate example of your "fetishized object" as a decentered sex commodity. This has been on my mind even more than normal lately because I found out on Sunday that one of our friends divorced her husband because he was addicted to porn.

I don't understand SIEQ's post.

Your friends didn't divorce because of anybody's porn addiction. The worst thing about porn may be its demonization. People's failure to confront their failures honestly is a terrible thing. Then again, maybe she is being honest with herself, just not with you. I guess it's nobody's business but their own why they divorced. But tawdry character assassination of your ex-spouse never is very edifying for anyone.

[Surfah]

I don't understand SIEQ's post.[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

Your friends didn't divorce because of anybody's porn addiction. The worst thing about porn may be its demonization. People's failure to confront their failures honestly is a terrible thing. Then again, maybe she is being honest with herself, just not with you. I guess it's nobody's business but their own why they divorced. But tawdry character assassination of your ex-spouse never is very edifying for anyone.

I agree. I didn't understand SIEQ's post either, but Cowboy helped.

[Sleeping in EQ]

I would liken SIEQ's post to poetry in this sense -- a poem can import great significance to just about anything. Consider the drop of water dangling from an icicle on a warm day. Think about how the sunlight sparkles on that drop of water, and how the roundness of the swelling form flips and magnifies the world around it like a tiny little lens. As with William Carlos Williams' Red Wheelbarrow, the little drop of water can become a window looking out onto a whole world of meaning. But it is also just a banal little drip of water. This is one of the things that human beings do -- we construct meaning and imbue things with significance, and that meaning and significance are real for all people who embrace it.

There are real reals, things that will affect our lives whether we accept them or not, and there are constructed reals, which are things that will only ripple through our lives if we embrace them. I think that SIEQ's ideas about porn fall into the second category.

One inescapable real reality for many of us, depending on how nature baked us, is the need for sexual release. Nature requires that humans 'get off' from time to time, and I personally think that self-denial in the 'getting off' department will have consequences that many people would consider to be unhealthy. Does 'getting off' always need to be some epic display of love between a committed pair of adults? I don't think so. I think that sounds like an exhausting prospect. Sometimes I want sex to be filled with meaning and purpose, and sometimes I just want to 'get off' because my body is telling me it wants that release.

Whatever great significance some people choose to impart on pornography, it is also just a banal tool for 'getting off.' Personally, I'd rather imbue the water drop at the bottom of the icicle with great significance, and leave porn to the dustbins of banality. Ironically, I think, porn becomes more central to Mormon identity than it is to my own identity precisely because Mormons choose to imbue it with so much unnecessary significance.

With regard to human beings, all meaning is constructed. That doesn't make it relative, though.

The commodity critique is common in sociology, and is not unheard of in philosophical disciplines like phenomenology. I certainly didn't just invent it for the post.

Your second paragraph doesn't address my position at all. I certainly haven't conflated pornography (a commodity) with the drive to "get off" (natural biology). If you want to take on my commodity-natural binary, than do so, but do so with the acknowledgement that its values are rooted in a critique of fascism, of spectacle, of the modern domination of sight over other senses.

The notion that your position is somehow more real (really real) than mine is is exactly the sort of moralizing that faux-relativists retreat to when they have no other cards to play. Of course we have more influence over the meaningfulness of some objects than we do of others; but that doesn't make meaning inherent to objects (which is an intent of fascism and of pornography--the closing off of the means for alternative interpretations, the reduction of an object to a single dimension, such as sexuality). It also isn't a reason to dismiss the influence of economics and technology on meaning making (which I have refused to do).

[ERCougar]

How is the domination of sight overother senses ' modern'? It's our mostfinely developed sense, the product of millions of years of evolution, the only one where we can really claim superiority over most other species. Of course it's going to dominate.

[RobinFinderson]

With regard to human beings, all meaning is constructed. That doesn't make it relative, though.

I don't disagree.

The commodity critique is common in sociology, and is not unheard of in philosophical disciplines like phenomenology. I certainly didn't just invent it for the post.

I had to look it up to even figure out what you were talking about. Even after reviewing Marx's ideas, I still don't find the link between porn and fascism to be very convincing. People generally choose to use porn for brief periods of time for the purpose of 'getting off.' To the extent that sexual partners are available, porn consumers are generally capable of having meaningful sexual relationships in addition to their porn use. Porn, as an aid to masturbation, simply becomes part of an individual's attempt to find equilibrium between sex drive and the availability of willing partners.

Now I don't claim that my relegating porn to the dustbins of banality is any less an imposition of meaning than your attempt to wrap it up in a carpet, weight it down with connections to 'fascism' and dump it over the side of the bridge. I simply think that, if a hypothetical population were forced to choose between accepting my 'porn-is-banal' imposition of meaning, or your 'porn-is-a-kind-of-fascism' imposition of meaning, my population would experience fewer 'negative' results than yours ('negative' being a relative thing, since the population invested in the idea that 'porn-is-fascism' might not view the incessant focus on the 'evils of pornography' as a bad thing at all, whereas I would much rather be contemplating that water drop at the tip of the icicle.) People can decide for themselves whether or not your connections between porn and fascism are persuasive. You obviously know where I stand.

Your second paragraph doesn't address my position at all. I certainly haven't conflated pornography (a commodity) with the drive to "get off" (natural biology). If you want to take on my commodity-natural binary, than do so, but do so with the acknowledgement that its values are rooted in a critique of fascism, of spectacle, of the modern domination of sight over other senses

.

Fascism isn't cool, but spectacle often is very cool. I may be wrong, and if I am, I would appreciate correction, but it seems that you are making a logical error. Fascism may always use spectacle to achieve fascist ends, but not all spectacle is fascist. Or, if you are arguing that all spectacle is fascist, because the presenter of the spectacle seeks to limit how the audience experiences things, then you are talking about a pretty benign fascism, no? I mean, maybe a personal relationship with Kesha would be awesome, but for most of us, a concert will be as good as it is going to get. Maybe it is just me, but if you worry about 'fascism' when weighing the option to attend a Kesha concert, I think you have a pretty peculiar way of existing.

The notion that your position is somehow more real (really real) than mine is is exactly the sort of moralizing that faux-relativists retreat to when they have no other cards to play. Of course we have more influence over the meaningfulness of some objects than we do of others; but that doesn't make meaning inherent to objects (which is an intent of fascism and of pornography--the closing off of the means for alternative interpretations, the reduction of an object to a single dimension, such as sexuality). It also isn't a reason to dismiss the influence of economics and technology on meaning making (which I have refused to do).

I don't think that my 'real' is more 'really real' than yours. I just think it is more compelling. I simply think that most people have better things to do with their time than import all sorts of moral baggage onto pornography. Apparently, from this thread, one of the things that I think is a more interesting thing to do is to try to persuade people that obsessing about the evils of pornography is less useful than relegating it to the dustbins of banality, which is a amusingly ironic.

[Sleeping in EQ]

I don't disagree.

I had to look it up to even figure out what you were talking about. Even after reviewing Marx's ideas, I still don't find the link between porn and fascism to be very convincing. People generally choose to use porn for brief periods of time for the purpose of 'getting off.' To the extent that sexual partners are available, porn consumers are generally capable of having meaningful sexual relationships in addition to their porn use. Porn, as an aid to masturbation, simply becomes part of an individual's attempt to find equilibrium between sex drive and the availability of willing partners.

SIEQ: I appreciate that you went to the trouble to look up the commodity critique. Marx is one of the beginning points, but it really takes shape in terms of fascism with the Frankfurt School Scholars in the 1930s and with some Italian scholars who were opposed to Mussolini. In the U.S., Lewis Mumford gets in on the conversation. Eventually, Guy Debord and the French Situationists pick up the threads and even some conservative scholars, such as Postman, adapt the critique.

The Frankfurt scholars were trying to re-think Marx, were influenced by Weber's critiques of Marx, and were trying to get a handle on the relationship between industrialization, media technologies, and fascism. Their critiques of spectacle had 20th century European fascism in its crosshairs. Many of them fled Nazi Germany only to find many of the same tendencies in the U.S., but in a muted form.

As to your discussion of porn, masturbation, relationships and so on, I object to your word "simply." Yes, these are frequently what people have in mind when they partake of pornography--but that doesn't give them control over what pornography is, and it doesn't negate the consequences I identified.

Pornography is a commodity, and is one that constructs its participants, to the degree possible, exclusively in terms of their sexuality. Such construction closes off most attempts at reinterpretation, and therefore has fascist tendencies.

Now I don't claim that my relegating porn to the dustbins of banality is any less an imposition of meaning than your attempt to wrap it up in a carpet, weight it down with connections to 'fascism' and dump it over the side of the bridge. I simply think that, if a hypothetical population were forced to choose between accepting my 'porn-is-banal' imposition of meaning, or your 'porn-is-a-kind-of-fascism' imposition of meaning, my population would experience fewer 'negative' results than yours ('negative' being a relative thing, since the population invested in the idea that 'porn-is-fascism' might not view the incessant focus on the 'evils of pornography' as a bad thing at all, whereas I would much rather be contemplating that water drop at the tip of the icicle.) People can decide for themselves whether or not your connections between porn and fascism are persuasive. You obviously know where I stand.

.

SIEQ: Indeed, I think I do have a good sense of where you stand. You seem to stand in hedonism.

I stand on pornography as a problematic commodity that reinforces aspects of society that are in contrast with my philosophy, my concerns about consumerism, and the excesses of modernity.

Fascism isn't cool, but spectacle often is very cool. I may be wrong, and if I am, I would appreciate correction, but it seems that you are making a logical error. Fascism may always use spectacle to achieve fascist ends, but not all spectacle is fascist. Or, if you are arguing that all spectacle is fascist, because the presenter of the spectacle seeks to limit how the audience experiences things, then you are talking about a pretty benign fascism, no? I mean, maybe a personal relationship with Kesha would be awesome, but for most of us, a concert will be as good as it is going to get. Maybe it is just me, but if you worry about 'fascism' when weighing the option to attend a Kesha concert, I think you have a pretty peculiar way of existing.

SIEQ: You're a smart, well-read fellow. Put Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle in your cue.

I don't think that my 'real' is more 'really real' than yours. I just think it is more compelling. I simply think that most people have better things to do with their time than import all sorts of moral baggage onto pornography. Apparently, from this thread, one of the things that I think is a more interesting thing to do is to try to persuade people that obsessing about the evils of pornography is less useful than relegating it to the dustbins of banality, which is a amusingly ironic.

I'm importing philosophical baggage onto pornography, but only as a single component of my philosophy of modernity.

I don't see anyone obsessing about pornography in this thread. I do see you setting up a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" double standard where people either embrace your hedonism or you intimate that they are obsessive, repressed, and/or puritanical.

Do get your hands on Debord's book if you have time. I'm sure you'll enjoy his discussion of religious spectacle.

[wuapinmon]

I don't understand SIEQ's post.

Your friends didn't divorce because of anybody's porn addiction. The worst thing about porn may be its demonization. People's failure to confront their failures honestly is a terrible thing. Then again, maybe she is being honest with herself, just not with you. I guess it's nobody's business but their own why they divorced. But tawdry character assassination of your ex-spouse never is very edifying for anyone.

Perhaps porn gives someone who doesn't have the courage to end a failed marriage the public out they need to garner support to handle the emotional side of ending a marriage. "I couldn't stand another day of living with his porn."

In the Church, that will almost immediately provide tons of sympathy, which is a little farked up, given that it's a one-way street.

[edward777]

Perhaps porn gives someone who doesn't have the courage to end a failed marriage the public out they need to garner support to handle the emotional side of ending a marriage. "I couldn't stand another day of living with his porn."

In the Church, that will almost immediately provide tons of sympathy, which is a little farked up, given that it's a one-way street.

I could not agree more! Porn is a Mormon "get out of jail free" card in regards to marriage. Think about it -- most Mormon males use porn at least occasionally (many women do as well but that doesn't count, haha) so if a wife is tired of a marriage she could use the "irreconcilable differences" routine but that doesn't sound "spiritual" in Relief Society circles. So if she instead can find any use (in church any use = addiction) she can claim the victim card. What is really an irony is that no secular court of law would accept such a thing as grounds for denial of custody so I have known of at least one case where a man whose wife had made the porn accusation lost custody of her kids when it went to court. Must have been a sign of Satan's control of the judge, huh?

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Very interesting to see this thread get bumped. Over the weekend, we found out that some of our very close friends are now separated and headed towards divorce. Saturday night we all paired off to get filled in on at least some of the details. The girls gathered at our house and the guys at another.

My buddy revealed enough detail that in their six years of marriage, his wife had cheated on him with at least two different men, with one relationship lasting for more than a year. He described that one of the most crushing elements was the fact that their sex life apparently wasn't worth much and she had convinced him that "it just wasn't her thing." To find out that she was pushing him away all the while relationing with someone else, was too much for him.

Upon returning home, my wife and I compared notes on the stories we had been told. Despite being very angry with her friend, she at one point makes the comment, "well apparently [wife] found out that [husband] has a porn addiction...or at least has looked at porn. So he's not exactly innocent in this." I was tired and didn't feel like going down that path, but this comment really seemed to draw out the LDS women sympathies.

I wanted to say, "So you're telling me that: the woman who refused to have sex with her husband during most of their marriage, and as you just admitted felt so guilty about her dabbles with adultery that she was treating him so poorly, so that he would end the marriage and she would never have to confess the affairs is SHOCKED that said husband has at some point or another gone to another source of stimulation just to remind himself that he's a man?"

So no, I don't consider porn and cheating comparable "offenses."

[UtahDan]

Very interesting to see this thread get bumped.

Wuap bumps lots of old threads. This is a very run of the mill occurrence.

[LA Ute]

This thread's title sets up a straw man. Only the most extreme Mormons think the two are equivalent.

[Jeff Lebowski]

This thread's title sets up a straw man. Only the most extreme Mormons think the two are equivalent.

Did you read the article in my opening link? The article had nothing to do with Mormonism.

[lambdacoug]

Very interesting to see this thread get bumped. Over the weekend, we found out that some of our very close friends are now separated and headed towards divorce. Saturday night we all paired off to get filled in on at least some of the details. The girls gathered at our house and the guys at another.

My buddy revealed enough detail that in their six years of marriage, his wife had cheated on him with at least two different men, with one relationship lasting for more than a year. He described that one of the most crushing elements was the fact that their sex life apparently wasn't worth much and she had convinced him that "it just wasn't her thing." To find out that she was pushing him away all the while relationing with someone else, was too much for him.

Upon returning home, my wife and I compared notes on the stories we had been told. Despite being very angry with her friend, she at one point makes the comment, "well apparently [wife] found out that [husband] has a porn addiction...or at least has looked at porn. So he's not exactly innocent in this." I was tired and didn't feel like going down that path, but this comment really seemed to draw out the LDS women sympathies.

I wanted to say, "So you're telling me that: the woman who refused to have sex with her husband during most of their marriage, and as you just admitted felt so guilty about her dabbles with adultery that she was treating him so poorly, so that he would end the marriage and she would never have to confess the affairs is SHOCKED that said husband has at some point or another gone to another source of stimulation just to remind himself that he's a man?"

So no, I don't consider porn and cheating comparable "offenses."

My ex tried to use this as her excuse as well. In her mind my viewing of pr0n was just as bad as her actually sleeping with dozens of other guys, forging my name on documents and spending tens of thousands of dollars on her affairs. I told this to my lawyer and his response was "Fuck that!". That's when I knew I had the right lawyer. To this day, she feels justified cheating because I viewed pr0n.

Porn and cheating are not even close to the same. They are separated by several orders of magnitude of severity and consequence.

[edward777]

My ex tried to use this as her excuse as well. In her mind my viewing of pr0n was just as bad as her actually sleeping with dozens of other guys, forging my name on documents and spending tens of thousands of dollars on her affairs. I told this to my lawyer and his response was "Fuck that!". That's when I knew I had the right lawyer. To this day, she feels justified cheating because I viewed pr0n.

Porn and cheating are not even close to the same. They are separated by several orders of magnitude of severity and consequence.

You had a great lawyer!!!! My advice is this to any young LDS man who is dating an LDS woman who makes any comments that suggest looking at porn is second only to shedding innocent blood, or who says she has never masturbated even once in her life...RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN AND DON'T LOOK BACK!

Elder Bednar told a story of a young woman with multiple ear piercings who was dating a self-righteous prick who eventually dumped her because she would not take the extra ear-rings out. He actually never even said a word to her about the ear-rings! The happy part of the story is that the poor girl avoided a life of misery.

Oh I know that was not the intent of his story, but I prefer to take the part that I like from talks and apply them to life.

[LA Ute]

Did you read the article in my opening link? The article had nothing to do with Mormonism.

Lol, you got me. Well, it was 3 years ago. I did read it back then. Anyway, I was responding to the question equating the two. I don't think even Douthat does that:

This isn’t to say the distinction between hiring a prostitute and shelling out for online porn doesn’t matter; in moral issues, every distinction matters. But if you approach infidelity as a continuum of betrayal rather than an either/or proposition, then the Internet era has ratcheted the experience of pornography much closer to adultery than I suspect most porn users would like to admit.

I agree with that. I don't agree that "porn = adultery."