The Problem with Porn

Posted: 23 November 2013

widenative-408x264You may have already heard the boiling frog story but it goes something like this: if you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will frantically jump out, however, if you place the frog in a pot of lukewarm water that is slowly heated, the frog will not notice the impending danger and allow itself to be boiled to death. Pornography in our modern Western society is somewhat like that pot, it has been heating up over the last few decades and is at such a boiling point that it completely pervades culture. Ironically, while this complete pervasion is more visible – like the frog – we are mostly unaware at the effect it is having upon us.

Considering the problem with pornography one could choose any number of different areas. We could discuss the physical harm that is done to the bodies of ‘actors’ in the porn industry; we could study the neurological effects of pornography on the brain of the person who watches it, or, we could analyse the harmful social effects that come about as a result of engaging in pornography. But let us leave aside all those aspects to consider the way that pornography harms the basic dignity of the human person.

Obviously no one is offended at the sight of a naked cow or chicken. Why? Because a cow is just that, a cow, there is no more to it. But we are persons, human persons, male and female, and we have the capacity to think, to dream and most importantly, to love. In other words we have a spiritual dimension to us, we have a soul. The soul has been identified as part of the human person from Aristotle to Augustine to Aquinas.  In philosophy the soul is referred to as the form of the body.  In fact, when a person dies we refer no longer to John Smith but to the body of John Smith, even our language recognises that the essence of the person is deeper than his or her physical make up. Pornography however does not make this distinction; it looks upon men and women in the same way as we would look upon cows and chickens, as animals with no deeper reality.

I want to present the idea though that the person is not an animal. A person is not a spirit trapped in a body or a body without any spiritual dimension. Our body means something, it indicates a deeper reality. If a person’s body is raped, it is not just the body that is effected, but the inner reality of the person. It has been said that the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much, but that it shows too little. In other words we are more than just the sum of our bodily parts; you are more than your arms, legs and genitals. Pornography is not a problem because people are engaging in sexual actions, pornography is a problem because people are being viewed like animals.

The truth is that the woman taking off her clothes in that porn video is someone’s daughter, someone’s sister and possibly someone’s mother. The man is someone’s son, someone’s brother and possibly someone’s father. Pornography does not show any of that, it does not want you to think about any of that because in the world of porn, men and women are commodities, bought and sold like animals.

It may seem that pornography is about sex but they are two very different things. Pornography actually has nothing to do with sex, it takes human sexuality out of its natural context – intimacy between two persons – and makes it a product to be bought and sold. Pornography subliminally tells us that human sexuality is no more than an activity for consumption, and once a particular video, magazine, (or person) is not meeting our sexual needs or fantasies it can be thrown away, for there will always be a new fantasy awaiting.

Pornography is a problem because it destroys the lives of those who use it. It abuses our sexuality by presenting a world that does not exist and so confuses us that we risk being unable to live well in the world in which we do exist. Pornography does great harm to the dignity of those who watch it and to those who are in it. We need to be alert and honest about pornography and not allow ourselves to be like the frog in the pot and slowly boiled to death.