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I want to separate this thread from the active thread about addiction, and I want to lay out by problem with porn clearly. From my own experience dealing with this issue over the years, there are some important points I think need to be understood in conversations like this:
1) I agree totally that there are many Victorian attitudes that mess up people’s understanding of what healthy sex can include. I can’t stress that enough. it’s a HUGE problem in our current culture.
2) I agree totally that there are lots of things that are perfectly fine and healthy that are repressed generally in our modern Mormon culture (FAR more than was the case in the early days of the LDS Church). I also can’t stress that enough – and it’s a HUGE problem in our current culture
3) Having said that, there are many elements of porn (hard-core porn, especially) that are not examples of “healthy” sex – and, in many cases, marital issues arise when a spouse (husband OR wife) begins to want and expect the other spouse to act like the people in the porn – or, knowing there is no way the other spouse is going to act like the people in the porn, uses porn as an outlet for fantasies revolving around those unhealthy practices.
4) Porn tends to portray extremes in sex – and I don’t just mean “extreme activities” when I say that. There is never sex that isn’t “perfect”; there is never sex that is a compromise when one person really isn’t feeling it; there is never an attempt to do something that is not wanted, a statement of “no, I’m not comfortable with that” and an acknowledgment and acceptance by the person who is comfortable with that; there never is anything that involves real discussion and “middle ground” of any kind. At the most extreme, there are lots of things that are “extreme”, in and of themselves, by any reasonable definition – including things that are cruel, controlling, sadistic and, literally, based on the elimination of agency and love. Lots of porn is “dehumanizing” in the sense that it removes individuality and focuses solely on the animalistic nature of the physical activity to the exclusion of everything else that involves being a human.
5) This restates #4 and builds on #5, but the extremes that are the norm often lead to unrealistic expectations, and that can put enormous pressure on spouses to accept things they naturally wouldn’t accept – and enormous pressure on the one with those expectations to find an avenue for those expectations to be met. That combination can be very destructive in a relationship.
6) Finally, porn as an industry is brutal for many of those who are involved. I won’t go into details here, but it is as repulsive as anything I’ve ever researched.
It is very similar to prostitution in some ways – the disease rate, the lack of decent health insurance, the lack of long-term employment (for lots of reasons), the preying on people who get into it out of desperation or to make money while pursuing other dreams that never materialize as they get “used up” by the industry; the huge underground reliance on runaways and youth, in general, especially in other countries but even in the USA. The celebrities in the industry get all the attention and make it look glamorous, but those who constitute the “fodder” pay a huge price – and, again, that’s even here in America. The porn industry in other countries is nearly unspeakable and truly vile and evil.
Seriously, the research is horrific.
Again, using prostitution as an example, I live in Nevada – where prostitution is legal and “ladies ranches” are common. There is one just outside Carson City, where I live, that is the focus of an HBO show. Apparently, the show makes prostitution at that ranch look somewhat glamorous – but I know a woman who wrote a book about the industry in Nevada who visited lots of ladies ranches, interviewed owners and the women who work there and talked about what life actually is like for them. They are forbidden to leave without supervision (since the owners don’t want them to leave or to get paid for anything that can be hidden from them, thus cutting into their profits); the managerial take is comparable to what pimps get through illegal prostitution; women are discarded immediately, with no financial security, if they get AIDS or any other “serious” sexual disease; “minor” sexual infections are overlooked and not disclosed to the “customers”; etc. In the case of the famous, seemingly benevolent owner of the ranch in the HBO show, he refers to the women who work there as “my stock” – literally, in the exact same way a rancher speaks of his cattle. In many cases, pimps from California transports their “stable” to Nevada and employ them at the ranches – taking their own cut on top of the owner’s cut – leaving the women with next to nothing except a roof over their heads until they go back to their home turf.
Absolutely, porn can be highly addictive – and it’s created specifically by its producers to be as addictive as possible. There are ranges of porn (soft-core vs. hard-core and lots of degrees all along a scale), but, just like any other commodity in our society, it has been researched extensively to be marketable. I view porn as perhaps the best example we have of addiction peddling and the result of “evil which does and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the latter days” – and I’ve done enough research and known enough people over the years to feel strongly about that, even as I also recognize how screwed up our view of sex is and how much that contributes to the problem that is porn.
The constant obsession about porn among my fellow Latter Day Saints really bothers me. I get tired of listening to it. It strikes me as sad, depressing and disturbing. At church, I like to hear about Jesus and not porn. I wonder sometimes if the primary reason I don’t look at porn is because I didn’t grow up in the church. As a teenager I was never told that masturbation was a sin. Therefore, I looked at porn during my teenage years and got it out of my system. Sort of like playing with fire, I don’t see the attraction in my adult years.
Doesn’t Utah have the highest subscription rate of any American state? SamBee wrote:Doesn’t Utah have the highest subscription rate of any American state?
If there are statistics to prove this, I would love to see them. I am not referring to you SamBee, but I feel like a great deal of anti-Mormon types use “Utah has the highest rate of…”, but I can never find where the statistics come from. Sorry, didn’t mean to threadjack.Ray’s covered much of what I’d say about porn, but I’ll add a couple of things. * Rated R movies aren’t necessarily porn, nor is nudity. I’ve heard church leaders equate rated R moves to pornography. Maybe it’s sometimes true but not always.
* Girls dressed in short shorts, skirts, tank tops are not walking pornography. Corollary: girls are not responsible for boys’ sinning if they dress in skimpy clothing. I firmly object to the firesides that are in vogue right now that tell girls to dress more modestly so that boys don’t sin. Burqas anyone? Modesty is so much more than shorts to the knees and shoulder-covering tank tops.
* It’s unclear to me whether pornography is addictive in a medical / physiological sense. I heard a BYU professor of religion come out and say that pornography doesn’t meet the clinical definition of addiction. If you were suddenly cut off from it you’d miss it but your body wouldn’t be dependent on it. That’s not to say it’s easy to overcome, and maybe there is more than one definition of addiction.
* Masturbation doesn’t have to equal pornography although the two often go together.
The reason I say these is to point out that sometimes we as a church or as church leaders do a disservice to the real problem by over simplifying or labeling things as pornography that are not. I also think talking about it constantly is not helpful.
Speculation / opinion: I think pornography should be avoided but I don’t think a youth should be flogged over it. I’ve been to bishopric trainings where literally every bishop says that the vast majority of the youth in their ward struggle with pornography. I personally think that many adults struggle with it, and if we were honest that probably half+ of the active adult LDS view it regularly also.
It’s strange that as a teenager in las Vegas I hardly noticed when girls were dressed “immodestly”. But with all the emphasis on it here in Utah they just stand out. And we get conditioned to think she’s a “bad girl” which leads to bad thoughts… But its not the (lack of) clothes causing the bad thoughts. Its the conditioning that only bad girls dress like that that leads to the thoughts
Also, I think is fair to say not all nudity is porn and not all porn is nudity. The line for me is when it becomes dehumanizing or degrading…
I always think the best test is ” would this bother me if this was my daughter”. If so… you should probably stay away since that *is* someone’s daughter…
Buy be that as it may, feeling hopelessly guilty over something isn’t healthy. I think the church uses guilt too much.
Quote:The constant obsession about porn among my fellow Latter Day Saints really bothers me.
I agree – as much as I hate the porn industry.
The biggest issues, in my mind, are the conflation of nudity with porn and the Puritanical attitudes about / obsession with sex in general. There is nothing wrong with sexual urges and thoughts, in and of themselves, and we have created a culture in which ANYTHING that is sexual in nature is being repressed. Repression doesn’t work; it only leads to explosion – and explosion is seen as gross iniquity – which leads to depression and extreme guilt – which perpetuates a cycle.
There is a HUGE difference between “real” porn (the focus of this post) and how our culture has blurred the lines and expanded the definitions in unhealthy ways.
AngryMormon wrote:SamBee wrote:Doesn’t Utah have the highest subscription rate of any American state?
If there are statistics to prove this, I would love to see them. I am not referring to you SamBee, but I feel like a great deal of anti-Mormon types use “Utah has the highest rate of…”, but I can never find where the statistics come from. Sorry, didn’t mean to threadjack.I’m not sure where I heard it but even if it’s true the real question is why would that be the case? For example, it doesn’t necessarily mean most stake presidents, bishops, EQ president’s, etc. are hypocrites secretly looking at porn. For one thing there is so much free porn on the internet that it could easily be viewed ten times as much as the subscription site(s) it sounds like these statistics originally came from. Also the last time I checked you can’t buy hard-core movies here in Utah and even magazines like Playboy and Penthouse are usually kept under the counter where no one can see them. So it wouldn’t surprise me if internet porn is more popular in Utah than other states not just among active Church members but non-Mormons and completely inactive members as well for that reason alone without it meaning that the overall porn viewing is higher here on average.
Thanks Ray for starting this post…I didn’t want to jack the other thread and was not sure if we could discuss this, glad to know we can! I agree 100% with Ray. Thank you Ray for stating the various aspects of this issue so well.
My post is two fold, first a side of porn that many men do not know or think about and then what could the church do to help solve the problem.
If you go onto UNICEF or Women’s International you will find that the human trafficking of women and children is # 2 on the global market for illegal income, that is before weapons dealing. Not all are sold as sex slaves but a staggering % are used for the sex industry in one way or another. Many sites that depict young/horrific scenes are using enslaved women/children and that includes right here in the US. In the US the pimps/animals prey on runaways or even outright kidnap girls and then “turn them out”. There is a whole prostitution circuit that is used by these guys that removes the girls far from their home towns and gets them hooked on drugs. Again not all are runaways, many are tricked and lured by other girls/women that the guys control and they are then put on drugs and placed on the circuit across the country. Craigslist and other meet and greet sites often first have a film of the entrapped girl on a site with an “opportunity” to “date” the girl or boy for a fee.
I know that most of the LDS guys or men in general do not think about the person in the films other than how she makes him feel. If you stop and think about some of the warped things out there do you really think oh yes she must love that. Really? As Ray said excessive use will warp your view of what healthy sex is suppose to be and look like and allows for sexual exploration of behaviors that most men would find horrific if it was their wife or daughter.
It has been said that there will be opposites in all things. Porn is the opposite of what true intimate sex can be. Porn is most often done alone, there is no connection, it is only about yourself, it can be very dark, when it is over there is relief but also a nothingness. It is the opposite of what can occur between two people who give and take in the most vulnerable and intimate way possible. Yes sometimes sex is just sex even with your partner, but even then there is still a connection with the other person.
I also agree that the LDS view of what is or is not porn is warped and damaging for many of its members of both sexes. The guilt and shame the church places on people for normal physical needs and feelings is just adding to the problem of porn addiction and sexual dysfunction on many levels. When telling girls/women that they are responsible for males thoughts and do not want to be “walking pornography” we are warping our women as well as our men.
So my question is…. if the church allowed that one could masturbate without using Porn or something else as a stimulant would that relieve the intensity and desire to view porn/have sex without being married?
I ask seriously because I have often wondered if we were allowed to take care of our natural desires in what many call a healthy way… without involving others (porn)….would that be better than having generation after generation of members being shamed for normal desires?
Do men always need an outside source or would it be possible to take care of things solely by yourself without any stimulants? And if solely would that decrease the amount of addiction and guilt that occurs with so many of the members?
Or once you start with Porn do you have to use it if by yourself?
I know touchy question but I know of several Christian churches that do not view non aided masturbation as a sin.
Old-Timer wrote:Absolutely, porn can be highly addictive – and it’s created specifically by its producers to be as addictive as possible. There are ranges of porn (soft-core vs. hard-core and lots of degrees all along a scale), but, just like any other commodity in our society, it has been researched extensively to be marketable.
I view porn as perhaps the best example we have of addiction peddlingand the result of “evil which does and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the latter days” – and I’ve done enough research and known enough people over the years to feel strongly about that, even as I also recognize how screwed up our view of sex is and how much that contributes to the problem that is porn. I see all the hysteria about porn as mostly the result of misunderstandings between the way men really are and what actually happens time after time in real life versus an idealistic pie-in-the-sky fairytale about the way men should be in the minds of many people. Basically porn is a symptom of completely natural feelings that most men and teenage boys have. However, because women typically don’t have the same natural interest in it the knee-jerk reaction to finding out their husband has been looking at porn is often to wonder what in the world is wrong with him and why he would ever do that.
So we react to the knee-jerk reactions in an attempt to validate women’s feelings of shock and dismay and even many (especially older) men’s general dislike for it as distasteful filth in their opinion by condemning porn even more than before. And now we hear overblown hype about how if you like porn you must be a sick pervert and if you don’t want to stop looking at it permanently then you are supposedly a porn “addict.” What people that talk like this don’t seem to realize is that this demonization and hard-line anti-porn rhetoric is never going to eliminate it or even reduce its popularity that much over the long run. The main thing this has really accomplished within the Church culture as far as I can tell is simply that it has driven continued porn use into hiding and resulted in widespread denial and dishonesty.
Sure I can live without porn easily enough but how long can we really keep up the charade in future generations? Maybe it was possible to declare war on nature and almost succeed before the internet made porn so easy to access but now I think it will get to the point where if women think it is so important to be completely porn free that it is worth breaking up or getting a divorce over they will start to end up alone in increasing numbers. There have been some tragic stories on NOM where all the talk about how bad and unacceptable porn is really messed up some young men’s lives and they spent many painful years as single adults with constant guilt and shame about how unworthy they supposedly were.
Great opening post Ray. One thing I’m ‘proud’ of being mormon is the church speaking against it. It really bothers me that it’s become seen as ‘normal’ and ‘recreational.’
I’ll ‘disclose’ from the outset that I’ve struggled with it in the past. I wish I hadn’t. Yes it is addictive. I don’t care what the BYU professor might have said. Addiction may have different definitions. Maybe there’s one which is physical dependency (like alcohol), but addiction can be an emotional dependency.
I get the appeal. But it deadens the soul. It reduces ones empathy for others. It supports an industry that often depends on women who have lost their self-esteem. They were often abused as children and the abuse is continuing.
Does it get confused and badly presented by the church? Yup. I wish sex, modesty, ‘unholy’ practices (what even is an unholy, married sexual practice), masturbation and porn wouldn’t be grouped together.
Our sex education if it’s needed at church should say ‘sex is a wonderful, brilliant experience. It’s even better if it’s saved for one person. That’s why fidelity matters. That’s why only seeing your wife naked (and not the girls on screen) matters. That’s why (perhaps) masturbation matters.’
We should tell the youth that sex is like a beautiful meal. The most satisfying, delicious thing you can imagine. Look forward to it! But don’t spoil your meal with ‘cheap snacks’ like porn. Like a meal, once it’s blessed (through marriage) enjoy it! And if both adults consent and are comfortable, anything goes. For me, in the marital bedroom, the church should have no opinion.
It’s tragic that some youth grow up thinking sex is evil, that their naked body is dirty. To me that’s an ‘unholy practice.’
DA, I draw a very clear line between addictions and inclinations / urges. I hope nobody who reads this post and my comments thinks I equate all cases of looking at pornographic material with addiction – or even somewhat regular viewing as addiction. I don’t equate them – but I also understand that addiction to pornography is real and powerful, just like any other addictions. I also hope it is crystal clear that I don’t view nudity as pornography – even in cases where the nudity is full and complete. I absolutely don’t view women who dress in a manner that many members consider to be immodest as “walking pornography”. I do understand that phrase to be accurate in the sense that MEN can view women in such a way that those men make women into pornography in their own minds, but I don’t like the way that phrase was used in the talk, since it put a degree of responsibility (not all of it) on the women (which I don’t accept, unless such a result is the intentional desire of the woman – and, even then, the men still are responsible for their reactions and how they view those women).
Having said that, hardcore porn, created specifically to be marketed and sold and, therefore, be as “compelling” or addictive as possible, has absolutely no redeeming value – and the conditions under which it is produced are abominable in many cases.
Ray makes an interesting point. The side effects of porn can be devastating in the lives of those creating it. Not all but I am sure many women are manipulated into performing in porn. It is a sad commentary on human existence that women have since the beginning of humanity been used to satisfy the desires of men. So I would agree porn should be avoided for this reason alone. If there is no demand there is no porn. That however is never going to happen. The other side of this is the actual viewing of porn. For sake of argument if you set aside the cost to the performers is the act of viewing porn bad? Like video games there are mild and extremely violent ones. I would assume it is the same with porn. So to restate is it bad to view mild or semi erotic porn? Does it damage you as the church says? Ray indicated that it may create unreal expectations. I can certainly see that happening, yet why are they unreal? Is not having low expectations just as damaging to a relationship? If you have one party that wants to be adventurous and the other who is repelled by such things we seem to always side with the mild one and point the finger of scorn at the other, that they are perverted somehow. I am not talking extremes here but more near the middle. I do not think men have to have porn to have heightened expectations of sex, and I believe the church does so much to teach men and women from birth that sex is bad, so they carry to many inhibiting factors into a relationship that causes them to be sexually naive. Not all for sure, but way to many.
Three things about how our culture deals badly with porn, from a psychological standpoint: 1) One of the worst things you can do for a friend who is an alcoholic is to talk incessantly about alcohol when you are with him or her. An alcoholic doesn’t need to be reminded of alcohol constantly – since, in many cases, it also brings to memory all the “good” associated with the prior drinking, not just the bad. It’s the same general concept of not asking someone to babysit who is attracted to young children.
2) Talking about something all the time also keeps it in the minds of those who are not naturally inclined or prone to think about it, which means the constant exposure to it in that manner keeps it front and center as a “temptation”. In moments of “weakness” of any kind, what comes to mind often is what has been in mind the most – so preaching about porn over and over and over and over again actually keeps it “active” as a “living temptation”, if you will, for those who have not viewed it in the past.
3) Talking about it in open meetings also puts it into the minds of children who are young enough not to be thinking about it on their own.
I’m not saying church leadership never should talk about porn – but talking about it as much as happens right now is not a good solution, imo, for ANYONE, except those who respond only to warnings and threats – and I believe those people are nowhere near the majority and that our current approach hurts more people than it helps.
Mackay11- Sorry to hear about your struggles with porn. Kudos to you for dealing with it. I mean this with lots of love and not anger, but your response sort of pumped me up. Maybe it is because I am in recovery from drugs and alcohol. To me you sound like people at church and people I hear at meetings. I think you are painting it with a really broad stroke just because you have personally struggled with it. Just because I couldn’t drink responsibly, doesn’t mean others cannot. The problem is my addictive behavior, not how others view alcohol. IMHO, it’s a way to not accept responsibility. After all, most people can drink and look at porn without becoming full blown addicts.
If you think pornography deadens the soul etc.. , that’s your opinion and I respect that. However, just because you had a problem with it and couldn’t use it in moderation doesn’t mean that others can’t.
Mormons at church need to stop bashing porn or the industry and instead try focus on their own behavior! Clean your own house out before you go after someone elses house. Mormons should first stop selling (Marriots) and looking at pornography, then go after the porn industry. I feel like we are being hypocritical and puritanical.
Sorry everyone! I need to get off my soapbox and rant somewhere else.
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