President Thomas S. Monson–the leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints–died on January 2, 2018. Here is how the NYT covered this event:
For contrast, this is what they tweeted when Fidel Castro died:
The NYT also had nice / neutral things to say about folks like Hugh Hefner and Hugo Chavez when they died. Hefner “founded Playboy magazine in 1953 and became inseparable from his brand” and Chavez “died after a long battle with cancer.”
Under Fidel Castro, anti-gay discrimination was institutionalized.
After a discussion of homosexuality at the Cuban Educational and Cultural Congress in April 1971, homosexuality was declared to be a deviation incompatible with the revolution. Homosexuality was considered sufficient grounds for discriminatory measures to be adopted against the gay community, and homophobia was institutionalised. Gay and lesbian artists, teachers, and actors lost their jobs. Gays and lesbians were expelled from the Communist Party. Students were expelled from university. Gays were prohibited from having contact with children and young people. Gays were not allowed to represent their country.[ref]Wikipedia[/ref]
It is worth noting that by the end of his life, Fidel Castro had done a 180 on gay rights. By 2010, he was calling their treatment under his own regime in the 1970s “a great injustice, great injustice!” and accepting responsibility for that treatment.[ref]Wikipedia[/ref]
Even so, the contrast between the NYT’s treatment of President Monson and Hefner, Chavez, Castro, etc. is illuminating. As Ben Shapiro wrote, commenting on Hefner and Chavez,
…it’s much worse, from the Times’ perspective, to be a religious person who abides by religious dictates on female ordination and same-sex marriage than to be a sexual profligate who trafficked in pornography, or to be a socialist dictator who destroyed an entire country. Monson was obviously a monster.
There’s a slightly deeper issue at play, which none of the news or reporters that I’ve seen has addressed. That is the observation that for “Christians opposed to marriage” (my term), the reasons–including scriptures and arguments about what’s best for children or ‘family’–ought to sound as loudly with respect to divorce. And yet in many voices divorce seems to get a pass.
This is a legitimate point, and it’s worth more of a reply than I gave in the comments at the time. So, what explains the discrepancy between Christian opposition to same-sex marriage (which seems loud and absolute) and Christian opposition to divorce (which seems quiet and muddled)?
1. People are selfish hypocrites sometimes, and this includes Christians. Divorce is something that a lot of heterosexuals have participated in and/or may expect to participate in at some future time. So it effects them in a way that gay marriage simply doesn’t. Therefore opposition to divorce is seen as either limiting their future options or condemning their past actions, and so they are more likely to accept it than same-sex marriage which they can safely depend on never impacting them directly.
2. According to Christian sexual ethics, divorce (or something like it, e.g. separation, annulment) is morally acceptable and even beneficial and necessary in a small but regular and persistent set of cases (e.g. in cases of abuse). But, by the same code of ethics, same-sex behavior is not routinely acceptable, even in a minority of cases. So you can’t attribute all the discrepancy between opposition to divorce and opposition to gay-marriage to selfish-hypocrisy, because some of the difference is actually intrinsic to the underlying Christian philosophy. Of course, I don’t expect any same-sex marriage supporters to accept that this is correct, but at least it is consistent.
3. Christians have been more opposed to divorce than I think the general public is aware. This is simply because conflict draws attention. When Christians oppose divorce and try to strengthen marriage they are, for the most part, not really arguing with anyone. There is no broad, popular movement that celebrates divorce or infidelity or walking out on your family. As a result, Christian opposition to these things tends to fly under the radar and go unnoticed. But it is there. In fact, that’s what made me think of this post. Thrice, which is my favorite band, has not one but two tracks on their fairwell album Anthology that address this issue directly. Here’s one of them, “The Weight.”
The other is “Promises.” Both of them are full-throated condemnations of modern sexual morality, including not only infidelity but serial monogamy, which is generally accepted through most of American culture.
Or how about Fight the New Drug? The anti-pornography organization “presents itself as a non-religious and non-legislative organization”[ref]Wikipedia[/ref]. That’s not at all dishonest–the group has no religious or political dogma or goals, but it is a marketing tactic to have a broad-based appeal. The fact remains that all four founders of the group are Mormon.[ref]LDS Living[/ref]
Then, as I mentioned in the comments at the time, there’s also covenant marriage:
Covenant marriage is a legally distinct kind of marriage in three states (Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana) of the United States, in which the marrying spouses agree to obtain pre-marital counseling and accept more limited grounds for later seeking divorce.[ref]Wikipedia[/ref]
This is a pretty direct attempt to mitigate the effects of no-fault divorce and, while it is not become at all common even in the states where it has been enacted, it illustrates a Christianity that is working to bolster traditional views of sexual morality in the public sphere.[ref]Whether or not you think that is a good idea is a separate issue, which I’m sure will be addressed many times at Difficult Run in the future.[/ref]
The reality is that the Christian fight to defend and bolster marriage is only visible when it conflicts with the mainstream of society, and it is visible in direct proportion to the extent of that conflict. When Christians sing about fidelity and marriage, basically no one notices. I’d wager that a lot of fans of Thrice don’t even know what Dustin Kensrue is singing about. When Christians campaign in ways that are indirectly opposed to social trends, such as fighting for abstinence-only or abstinence-first sex education–they are seen as obnoxious, backwards meddlers. But it’s not exactly headline news. And when Christians find themselves in a fight with an organized, dedicated, savvy coalition such as the gay-marriage campaign, then they are seen as bigots and it absolutely does become headline news.
In other words, a lot of the impression that Christians mysteriously decide to care about marriage just in time to oppose same-sex marriage is a function of the fact that no one notices what they are doing the rest of the time.
Now, a couple of closing caveats / clarifications. I’ve said “Christians” a lot, but traditional Muslim and Jewish traditions also oppose same-sex marriage. So do a small number of atheists and agnostics, including some homosexuals. But the focus here was on Christians, so that’s what I emphasized. There’s also some ambiguity around the term “Christian.” Is everyone who is born and raised as a Christian really a Christian? I don’t want to get into the business of being a gatekeeper and judging who is “good enough” to be Christian. That’s misguided, counterproductive, and distasteful. But it is worth noting that, when you see polls that show the extent to which individual Catholic opinion differs from Catholic teachings, a lot of that has to do with the interplay between religious conviction and sheer social-cultural inertia.
As long as religious belief is the default, and for the time being it still is in most of America, being an atheist is going to be a much more meaningful descriptor than being a Christian for the simple reason that–by and large–atheists are people who choose to be atheists. The same can’t be said of Christians, since the category embraces both people who consciously choose to be Christian but also people who haven’t really given it much thought and just happened to be born into a Christian family (to, quite possibly, parents who also haven’t given it much thought).
This is important, because it means that you should not be surprised when a minority of Christians actually get out there and support Christian beliefs. That’s not because Christians are more hypocritical than other groups. It’s because, as the dominant religious group in the US, the category includes a lot more “by default” members than other groups. That’s just something to keep in mind.
Note: This piece is cross-posted at Junior Ganymede because I think they are awesome and they said I could.
Almost all of the many articles and blog posts in the lead up to the 50 Shades of Grey release last weekend have been negative, so I had some hope that better sense would prevail and people would stay home rather than prove that controversy and porn are quick and easy paths to profit. That just goes to show you that my sense of cynicism has room to grow. “Box Office: ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Explodes With Record-Breaking $81.7 Million,” reads the headline at Variety, with the first paragraph providing the depressing details:
“Fifty Shades of Grey” sizzled at the weekend box office, setting new records for the highest-grossing Presidents Day holiday opener of all time and ranking among the biggest R-rated debuts in history.
Let’s start with some background. 50 Shades of Grey started out as an erotic Twilight fanfiction called Master of the Universe. When the book became massively popular online, E. L. James (who had written Master of the Universe under the penname “Snowqueen’s Icedragon”) rewrote it as independent book to avoid charges of copyright infringement. Apparently, she did this by basically using “find and replace” to change the names, because the supposedly stand-alone 50 Shades is more or less identical to the Twilight-derived Master of the Universe.[ref]Stephanie Meyer hasn’t sued yet, but then again she of the ostentatiously chaste vampire romance novels may be just as happy as E. L. James to downplay the connection.[/ref]
Fanfic is universally derided for poor quality compared to the source material, and Twilight is hardly great literature to begin with. Thus Sir Salman Rushdie: “[50 Shades of Grey] made Twilight look like War and Peace.” These books are truly, irredeemably bad. [ref]In case you’re curious: I did read Twilight. I have read many excerpts from 50 Shades, but not the entire thing. I’m willing to sacrifice for you, dear reader, but I have my limits.[/ref]
Poor quality didn’t hurt sales, however, and by 2014 50 Shades had sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. In June 2012 when sales were at their peak, “nearly one in five adult fiction books purchased for women in June were from the 50 Shades Trilogy.” (Yes, world, there are two more: 50 Shades Darker and 50 Shades Freed. There will be movies. I’m sure we’ll all do our best to quell our rapture and maintain a decorous façade.) That quotes is from Jo Henry, by the way, who is the Director of Bowker Market Research which described the 50 Shades audience as “more likely to be women, live in the Northeast, and have a significantly higher household income.”
Actual 50 Shades movie poster with actual 50 Shades book quote. (the6thsiren)
And this is where we come to a real puzzle. It’s not that 50 Shades is popular despite being awful. There’s no accounting for taste, after all. It’s not even that 50 Shades is popular despite being pornographic. That is, tragically, just a sign of the times. It’s that 50 Shades is popular specifically with women (80% of the audience) despite being (according to a plethora of writers) deeply and irredeemably misogynistic. The series is basically a tale of how one powerful man grooms one vulnerable woman, isolates her from her family and support network, stalks her, assumes domineering control over her life (the classes she takes! the clothes she wears!), and eventually abuses and rapes her. And then they get married and live happily ever after. (Sorry, spoilers.) Who says romance is dead?
I am, of course, not the first person to hazard an explanation for 50 Shades’ popularity, and I think many of the extant explanations have merit. One of the best comes from Kirsten Andersen who explains the story’s appeal this way:
All we know about each girl [Bella from Twilight, Ana from 50 Shades] is that she’s ordinary – like, so ordinary that if you looked up the word “ordinary” in the dictionary, you would find their pictures – only you wouldn’t; you’d find a little mirror reflecting your own face back at you, because that’s the entire point. You’re meant to insert yourself into the story, and suddenly it’s you, in all your banal lack of glory, who has proven irresistible to these powerful, godlike, beautiful, deeply damaged men, and only you can help them find their humanity again. The best part? You didn’t have to do anything to capture their undying devotion but be yourself.
The wish fulfillment angle is especially ironic given the reactions of the stars who play Christian and Ana in the film. Jamie Dornan (who plays the abusive billionaire) found his role “a massive challenge” compared to playing other characters who were “sick dudes, serial killers.” For her part, Dakota Johnson (who plays Ana) said simply “I don’t want anyone to see this movie.” The people who come closest to having fulfilled this particular wish don’t appear to have enjoyed the experience.
Andersen certainly has the voyeuristic narcissism pegged, and she also explains the appeal of “damaged men” by a need to be simultaneously saved and savior. Despite all the filth, she insists this reveals that the “core” of the story is “about unconditional love and redemption.” Not that Andersen has been beguiled. She points out that “in reality, Christian’s all-consuming “love” would warrant a restraining order, and Ana’s refusal to leave him would eventually land her at a battered women’s shelter or dead.”
I like Andersen’s explanation a lot, but there’s one aspect it doesn’t resolve. Christian is not just a damaged man in need of saving. He is a dangerous, abusive, manipulative rapist. What’s the appeal there?
It may be that there is some reality to conventional wisdom that girls prefer the bad boys and that nice guys finish last. Last year a Newsweek article reported on a study that determined that heterosexual men view kindness (measured as emotional responsiveness) as a favorable trait when evaluating potential mates. Women, by contrast, were less attracted to men that they rated as more responsive. One of the researchers speculated that “women may perceive a responsive man as… less dominant.”
The idea of dominance cropped up in another study, this one reported in the Telegraph, which found that marriages are stronger when one partner is dominant. The study also found that in more than three quarters of cases, the dominant partner was the male partner. A German study covered in Psychology Today reached more nuanced conclusions. According to that study, women prefer more aggressive men (“who often embody the Dark Triad, a personality constellation that encompasses Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism.”) for short-term relationships, but preferred “less masculine” men for long-term relationships. The authors theorized that this strategy allows women to “maximize their reproductive success” because “appetitive-aggressive” violence (commonly found in stereotypical bad boys) might actually “be an advertisement of good genes.” If that’s the case, then a short-term relationship with a (genetically superior) bad boy followed by a long-term relationship with a (more reliable and supportive but genetically inferior) good guy could be the optimal evolutionary strategy.
Now, I’m not going to try and draw a straight line from popular journalistic accounts of a few academic studies to the sales figures for 50 Shades. If that worked, the best-seller lists would be dominated by professors cashing in on their expertise. Human nature is too complex for that and evolutionary psychology is particularly vulnerable to tendentious etiologies. At the same time, however, it would be foolhardy to presume that millions of years of evolution suddenly ceased to have an effect on human sexual behavior in the last few tens of thousands of years.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what the dominant feminist theory of today days. Christina Hoff Sommers identified this strain of feminism as gender feminism in Who Stole Feminism? She contrasted it with the older school of feminism she calls equity feminism. Equity feminism is about equal legal rights for men and women. Gender feminism is dedicated to ending sexism and defeating patriarchy.
Steven Pinker identified gender feminism as a part of the larger project of denying human nature in The Blank Slate. He wrote that this denialism is “entrenched in intellectual life” and specifically described gender feminism this way:
Gender feminism is an empirical doctrine committed to three claims about human nature. The first is that the differences between men and women have nothing to do with biology but are socially constructed in their entirety. The second is that humans possess a single social motive—power—and that social life can be understood only in terms of how it is exercised. The third is that human interactions arise not from the motives of people dealing with each other as individuals but from the motives of groups dealing with other groups—in this case, the male gender dominating the female gender.
The reason that gender feminism is so compelling is that it has such a simple story to tell. If all the differences between men and women are socially constructed and artificial, then the path to equality is obvious: eradicate those socially constructed differences. Furthermore, because gender feminism sees society strictly in terms of power and dominance, the assumption is that any difference is not only an unnecessary impediment to equality, but an instance of oppression.
This is why gender feminists fixate on differences in gender representation, quickly assuming that whenever there are fewer women this is proof of successful male domination. This seems credible when we’re talking about fewer female CEOs, political leaders, or academics in STEM fields. It’s less clear how gender feminism’s belief in universal male domination holds up in the context of some other discrepancies, however, such as fewer women in prison, more women in college, fewer women unemployed, more women winning custody of children, and fewer women dying in workplace accidents.
Equity feminism, with roots in individualism and classical liberalism, is much more flexible. An equity feminist can examine gender differences on a case-by-case basis to determine when differences are the result of sexism or discrimination and when they might be the result of individual choices. But, where equity feminism may win on nuance or flexibility (not to mention compatibility with basic science), the conceptual simplicity and ability to manufacture unlimited amounts of righteous indignation make gender feminism perfectly adapted to our viral, outrage-addicted society.
The end result is that the most dominant form of feminism is also the one that is dogmatically opposed to any and all gender roles. Combine that with the fact that biology and anthropology both reveal that gender roles are a part of our innate human nature, and we have a recipe for trouble.
Of course, claiming that gender roles are innate is not one of those things that you’re supposed to do in modern discourse, so it’s worth pointing out that Pinker includes a bullet-point list of the evidence in The Blank Slate that is impossible to summarize because it goes on for five full pages. As a couple of highlights, for example, he notes that “All cultures divide their labor by sex, with more responsibility for childrearing by women and more control of the public and political realms by men. (The division of labor emerged even in a culture where everyone had been committed to stamping it out, the Isreali kibbutz.)” He also observes that “many of the psychological differences between the sexes are exactly what an evolutionary biologist who knew only their physical differences would predict.” He concludes by saying that “If that [social constructionism] were true, it would be an amazing coincidence that in every society the coin flip that assigns each sex to one set of roles would land the same way.”
So, going back to the research stated earlier, it is entirely possible that many women are attracted to men who show stereotypically masculine traits like aggression and domineering. The mistake that drives many people away from an understanding of evolved human nature is to erroneously assume that if we have innate characteristics then everything is pre-determined. That’s not true, because in many cases our innate characteristics conflict. The most important reason for being open-minded and accepting about the science of human nature is that—far from reducing us to impotent fatalism—it provides more control.
This is particularly true of maladaptations. Citing Pinker again:
The study of humans from an evolutionary perspective has shown that many psychological faculties (such as our hunger for fatty food, for social status, and for risky sexual laisions) are better adapted to the evolutionary demands of our ancestral environment than to the actual demands of the current environment.
So, in an ancient setting where calories were scarce, a hunger for fatty food made sense. In a modern setting where calories are plentiful, the same trait is one reason why obesity is a leading cause of death. And yet many techniques for combatting this maladaptation work by tapping into other innate characteristics. Think of a dieting group like WeightWatchers; it taps into our innately social natures and allows us to leverage mentor and friend relationships to win the battle against our drive to eat fatty food. Innate characteristics is not the same thing as genetic determinism.
So in a world where innate characteristics and gender roles are openly discussed and considered, it is possible to bend them in useful directions. A lot of this already happens without any conscious direction on our part. Organized sports, for example, can form a more civilized, pro-social alternative to violent aggression between men.
But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world where gender feminism is categorically opposed to all gender roles, and therefore overt, potentially beneficial, and healthy avenues for exploring female attraction to male aggression and dominance are categorically ruled out. Men are actively discouraged from enacting these roles, and women are actively discouraged from appreciating them. Dating and courtship are dead, long live the hookup culture.
In simple terms: if you see huge demand for an inferior good, the most reasonable conclusion to draw is that there must be a dearth of the superior good. There are some major works with overt and pronounced depictions of gender roles (Twilight was one of them), but by and large any major book or movie has to go out of its way to apologize for, downplay, or offset any appearance of traditional gender roles. If you want to unabashedly celebrate gender roles, you’re going to run afoul of the gender feminism dogma police. It is therefore absolutely no surprise to find the pre-eminent example (50 Shades) coming from the margins of our entertainment ecosystem. There just aren’t enough dogma police to patrol every pornographic, self-published, fanfic out there.
In a healthier environment, 50 Shades would face competing models of male leadership, but gender feminism’s take-down of gender roles has left 50 Shades as pretty much the only game in town. It represents the collision of deep human desires for gender roles with an ascendant political ideology that is dedicated to eradicating them. It’s possible that the rape, abuse, and general misogyny play no role in attracting women to Christian Grey, but when it comes to finding someone to represent that aggressive male role there just aren’t a lot of options. When gender roles become monstrous in the eyes of society, only monsters like Christian Grey are left to enact them.
Actual 50 Shades movie poster with another actual 50 Shades book quote. (the6thsiren)
Compromise and innovative solutions are both more likely when a problem is seen as important but not intrinsically partisan. Unfortunately, Democrats have decided to try and turn women’s issues into a partisan issue by declaring a Republican “war on women,” and an overwhelmingly liberal media has been complicit in legitimizing this narrative. I’m not going to commit the same mistake in reverse: I understand that many social liberals (1) care deeply about these issues and (2) have perspectives and ideas that can be part of a common-ground, consensus-building approach.
Instead, let’s look at how a socially conservative voice reacted to the hacked photo scandal. I’m using the word “scandal” intentionally because there is a scandal, and the scandal was the fact that so many people went out and looked for nude photos of Hollywood stars that had been illegally and immorally stolen from their private phones. Fight the New Drug–the anti-porn site I’ve cited frequently before–was clear on this point from the very start:
Note that we don’t use the word “leaked photos” in this post. That’s because the term “leaked” is a soft, misleading word that implies that these photos somehow found their way onto the internet by the celebrity or someone close to them. Not the truth. These photos were illegally hacked and stolen, unknowingly to those violated.
The post goes on to directly address those who “are judgmental and [say] that if the women hadn’t taken these photos in the first place, that they wouldn’t be in this position.” A lot of people took this position, and I think there was an unspoken perception that it was predominantly conservatives who would leap to blaming the victims. But FTND–a very conservative group–demonstrates that victim blaming isn’t a partisan issue, or at least that it need not be one.
The story got a little more interesting after Vanity Fair released an interview with Jennifer Lawrence.[ref]She was one of the stars who was victimized by the attack[/ref] In the article, Lawrence wrote–probably in an offhand way–that “either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you.” That was the line that prompted the open letter response from Fight The New Drug. The letter starts by emphasizing again that Lawrence bore no guilt whatsoever for the hacking of her phone[ref]I realize it’s obvious when you write it like that, but apparently not everyone grasps the obviousness.[/ref] The letter then goes on:
We’re sorry that society has been “pornified” and that we are living in a culture that thinks that hacked and stolen photos of naked people are something to seek out, cheer for, laugh about, and spread around. With a society that thinks a woman is only as good as her body, it’s easy to see why you would feel like your boyfriend would turn to porn even when dating a talented and beautiful woman like yourself.
Think about this question, Jennifer. Should any person ever have to feel that they need to give their partner something because if they don’t then their partner will turn away and get it from someone else?
That’s a pretty damn good question, if you ask me. And I think the point it raises is a very important one, and one that conservatives are perhaps uniquely able to draw attention to. As Lawrence told Vanity Fair, she had people she knew personally who looked at the pictures online. To me, that is one of the most disturbing details of the entire story. We’ve reached a point as a society where our appetite for voyeuristic photos has reached a point where even people who personally know the victim of this “sex crime”[ref]Lawrence’s own words.[/ref] apparently see nothing wrong with participating themselves.
On the other hand, however, that incredible moral blindness does have a kind of twisted logic to it. Lawrence framed the central problem with the theft as being one of violated consent:
It does not mean that it comes with the territory. It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting.
She’s absolutely right that no one has any right whatsoever to look at sexual photos that are stolen. But what about the implied other side of that coin: do we really have a moral right to look at sexual photos that aren’t stolen? I don’t think that we do. I think that it’s a horrible myth to believe that, just because a woman gives consent to have sexual photos taken and publicized, that she is somehow empowered. There is an intrinsic violation in using the image of another human as a means of sexual gratification. Sexual imagery is always dehumanizing, not just when the photos are stolen.
No one has any excuse to look at the stolen photos of Lawrence (or the other stars), but I–along with FTND–question whether any one should be looking at sexually explicit photos of any kind. Once you accept that pornography is OK, the moral blindness sets in. Once you are living in a paradigm where it is acceptable and routine to treat human beings as means to ends and that it is OK to sexually objectify anyone, you’re already starting down a slippery slope. And, as we’ve learned, no matter how much consent should matter it is reduced to little more than a speed bump in that paradigm.
I don’t like writing about porn any more than I like writing about sex, but I think it’s important. Earlier this week I posted an article about how one man stopped watching porn because he felt it was warping his ability to express warm, respectful, and compassionate sexuality. This link is to the flip-side of that, a study in England that demonstrates how boys who don’t moderate or (better still) abstain from pornographic content end up coercing their girlfriends into sex. Where does one draw the line between convincing a partner to do something, pressuring a partner to do something, and outright rape? No matter where that line is, it seems clear at least some of these young men have crossed it.
Researchers interviewed 130 men and women aged 16–18 from diverse social backgrounds in three different locations in England. The report, published last month, states that young people “frequently cited pornography as the ‘explanation’ for [engaging in] anal sex,” although masculine competition between boys to see who could engage in the activity the most often also played a role.
They found a “key element” in this risky new behavior is the “normalization of coercion and ‘accidental’ penetration. It seemed that men were expected to persuade or coerce reluctant partners.”
“Some events, particularly the ‘accidental’ penetration reported by some interviewees, were ambiguous in terms of whether or not they would be classed as rape (i.e., non-consensual penetration), but we know from [one] interview that ‘accidents’ may happen on purpose,” wrote Dr. Cicely Marston and Ruth Lewis of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in a report published in BMJ Open.
Historically, social conservatives have a reputation for crying wolf about dangers to children. The usual examples are the Dungeons and Dragons scare in the early 1980s and, more recently, the connection between violent video games and real-world violence.[ref]Obviously there is a connection between violent behavior and violent video games since one would expect people who are violent to enjoy violent entertainment. It’s much, much less clear that violent video games cause violent behavior in any serious or lasting way.[/ref] This history of hysteria is going to make it easy for articles and studies like this to be dismissed as “social conservatives say Playboy turns normal kids into rapists.” That’s the exaggerated version. The actual point is that pornography–especially hardcore pornography that is easy to find online–correlate with violence towards women and that we have good reason to suspect some of that relationship is causal. This doesn’t mean a nice, caring man will turn into a serial rapist after watching 30 minutes of porn one day, but it does mean that–aggregated across society–porn is very likely having an impact in fueling a very real culture of rape that treats women as objects to be exploited for pleasure and prestige.
Criticizing porn is not popular, but it’s important. It’s important because pornography does a lot of damage to men, women, to relationships, and to families. Often it’s religious individuals and groups who lead the charge on this topic, so I thought this TEDx talk was particularly interesting because it comes from a man who is not religious (as far as I can tell) and who doesn’t embrace the religious ideals of chastity, monogamy, and waiting for marriage to have sex. His reasons for removing porn from his life, therefore, are kind of the lowest-common denominator, most generic, most widely relatable. The short version: porn kills love.
It’s an insightful and humorous talk, however, and definitely worth the listen. Be forewarned, however, that it does veer into some frank description of sex and pornography. It’s never salacious or disrespectful, but some of his argument for what is wrong with porn involves describing what specifically takes place in porn that is very different from the kind of sex real people have with the ones they love in real life. As a side note, I think being able to talk frankly and directly about sex is an important skill for a social conservative to have. We can’t articulate our views on healthy sexuality in the public sphere if we’re afraid to raise the topic at all. And we can’t articulate these views to our own children if we’re silent, either. Sex is sacred, as the saying goes, but it needn’t be secret.
Email subscribers will have to go to the site to watch the video because videos don’t embed in the email versions of the post for some reason. I’ll try to figure that out.
The article is by and large a tame restatement of the basic moral principles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as they relate to sex. These standards are pretty much identical to the basic moral principles of all traditional faiths. Quoting from the article:
The Lord’s standard of morality is not so much a list of do’s and don’ts as it is a principle, which can be expressed as follows: The procreative power is to be exercised in the marriage relationship for two key reasons: (1) to bind and strengthen ties between spouses and (2) to bring souls into the world. These uses have the blessing and endorsement of the Lord.
Despite the fact that the principle is more than “a list of do’s and don’t’s,” the article goes on to clearly stake out the practical implications of this principle in plain English: Don’t have sex outside of marriage, including homosexual sex at any time. Don’t try to get around the “no sex before marriage” on a technicality, i.e. don’t even fool around. Don’t masturbate. Don’t look at porn. Dress modestly. The ongoing controversy illustrates the necessity of these clarifications.
It’s no surprise that these standards would be ridiculed and dismissed by pop culture. If the world at large doesn’t hate you, then you’re doing something wrong.[ref]If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. John 15:18-19[/ref] There’s nothing new or noteworthy about the idea that religious fuddy-duddies and goody-goodies are silly in the eyes of the world. What’s surprising to me, however, is the amount of push-back coming from within the Church. The most problematic paragraph comes from the section about modesty, and reads as follows:
The dress of a woman has a powerful impact upon the minds and passions of men. If it is too low or too high or too tight, it may prompt improper thoughts, even in the mind of a young man who is striving to be pure.
The outrage comes from thinking that goes something like this: if you say that the way women dress controls how men think and feel, you are making women responsible for men’s actions. In fact, this is the very logic used to defend rape culture: women who dress immodestly are “asking for it”. Therefore, the Ensign is now perpetuating rape culture.
Let’s deconstruct this reasoning.
First, to say that “the dress of a woman has a powerful impact upon the minds and passions of men” is not the same as saying “women control men’s thoughts.” In every other human interaction, we’re perfectly capable of understanding that a person can influence you without controlling you.[ref]This is what the word “interaction” means: each person influences and is influenced by each other person they meet.[/ref] If someone cuts you off in traffic, they are going to have a “powerful impact” on your mood. That’s a fact. But your reaction to that provocation is still your decision and therefore your responsibility. That’s another fact. These two facts, (1) that someone can influence you and (2) that ultimately your behavior is still your own responsibility are two facts that people seem to have no problem accepting simultaneously until the discussion turns to modesty. Then suddenly we get this bizarre notion that we can’t say “women have an influence on men” without saying “everything men do as a result is a woman’s fault.” That bizarre notion makes no sense, and doesn’t appear (explicitly or implicitly) in the article.
This article doesn’t claim that women are responsible for men’s thoughts. That’s the accusation, and it is false. Men are still responsible for their own thoughts, but it would be nice if women would dress modestly to help them out. Just as people are responsible for keeping their tempers in control, but it’s generally considered common courtesy not to provoke people unnecessarily. Let me reiterate: if I say “Be nice, because it will help other people not lose their temper,” it doesn’t mean that I’m saying it’s your responsibility whether or not some random stranger loses his or her temper. Even though we interact with each other, we are ultimately responsible for our own behavior, and that’s it. The Ensign shouldn’t need to specifically call this out, because it’s right there in the 2nd Article of Faith: “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins.”[ref]Articles of Faith[/ref]
Lizzy Seeberg, who committed suicide after being harassed for reporting a Notre Dame football player for sexual assault. The connection between football culture and rape seems a lot stronger than the Ensign and rape, but one of these targets is easier to attack than the other.
Allow me to observe, at this point, that not only does the article not blame women for men’s mental purity, but it never even gets remotely close to discussing rape. That’s… not even in the ballpark. Let’s be really, really, really clear. An Ensign article making the entirely obvious observation that men respond to the way women dress is not “rape culture”. A young girl being brutally raped by football players and then being harassed when she appeals for justice until her family is driven out of town and their house is burned down, that is rape culture. CNN reporters who talk about what a tragedy it is for rapists to be found guilty of rape and deprived of their promising futures, that is rape culture. Everyone talking about the fictitious death of Manti Te’o’s non-existent girlfriend while totally ignoring the actual suicide of “Lizzy Seeberg… not long after being intimidated by Notre Dame football players for reporting a sexual assault by one of their teammates,” that is rape culture. Chris Brown being accepted back into polite society (with a few notable exceptions), that is rape culture. Roman Polanski being embraced by his peers after his crimes? That is rape culture. Woody Allen being defended after the very credible allegations of his crimes? That is rape culture. Ray Rice having a fine and dandy career after video emerges of him dragging his unconscious fiancee out of an elevator (because he knocked her unconscious) that will be rape culture if that’s how the story ends. Even if you think the Ensign article is wrong and misguided, putting it in the same category as these (horrifically numerous) examples of rape culture is like comparing every bad thing that happens to the Holocaust. It trivializes real evil and makes you look like a fool.[ref]The fact that I could enumerate all of those examples of real rape culture off the top of my head shows how serious the problem is.[/ref]
I understand that there are more moderate criticisms as well, such as the fact that modesty standards often seem to be unequally applied to women vs. men. They appear to be unequally applied because they are unequally applied. They are unequally applied because of the fundamental reality that females are on the supply side and men on the demand side of the sex equation. That is common sense which everyone who is not motivated by politics can see, but it is also (in case you’re skeptical) scientific fact. Men and women approach sex differently[ref]There is also tons of individual variation.[/ref] but it is men who are primarily motivated by visual cues and also who want to have sex more frequently and more casually. (Once again, these aren’t just random assertions. There is data.) A gender-blind approach to sexuality would be no more reasonable than a gender-blind approach to professional sports. If the WNBA did not exist, how many women would make the cut to play pro basketball against men? Zero. Pretending gender differences do not exist when they do in fact exist may be politically expedient, but it does not actually serve the interests of equality.[ref]Also: lower the rim already.[/ref] If you’re looking for symmetry, this is where you will find it: women are encouraged to dress modestly (partially for their sake, partially for the sake of men) and men are encouraged[ref]actually: commanded[/ref] to stop watching porn (partially for their sake, partially for the sake of women). There is equality, but not sameness, in the Lord’s standards for sexual morality. Make no mistake: that is the core outrage which this article perpetuates in the minds of its critics. Mormonism espouses a view of humanity in which gender matters, and therefore believes that men and women owe certain obligations to each other in a complementary relationship. The modern world espouses a denialist political ideology in which gender has no deep or lasting significance that we do not create for ourselves.
It is also no great surprise to me that so much of the outrage at the article is coming from professional therapists. The article invites that response when it leads off with a bold statement that God, and therefore the Church, is the ultimate arbiter of sexual morality.
Some years ago my father, an attorney, was trying a lawsuit. For his authority, he cited only one case—a California Supreme Court case issued many years before. His opponent cited a number of lowercourt decisions of more recent vintage. The judge said to my father, “Mr. Callister, don’t you have a more recent case than this?” My father looked at the judge and replied, “Your Honor, may I remind you that when the supreme court speaks on a matter, it only needs to speak once.” The judge nodded with approval. He was reminded that the supreme court trumps all lowercourt decisions, how ever numerous or recent they may be.
So it is with God our Father—He needs to speak only once on the issue of morality, and that one declaration trumps all the opinions of the lower courts, whether uttered by psychologists, counselors, politicians, friends, parents, or would be moralists of the day. [emphasis added]
In fact, the reaffirmation that the Church has the final word on these matters may be the only truly novel claim made in the article. Everything else is a restatement of traditional beliefs. This one is hardly surprising, but it is fairly novel. So it’s natural that psychologists and counselors would lash out in response. It’s a turf war: who gets to define moral standards for sexuality? The Church? Or the APA?[ref]It reminds me of the especially harsh reviews of Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water which almost never mentioned the fact that Shyamalan put a very unlikeable movie critic in the movie as a character and then killed him.[/ref]
Let’s take a look at the claims made by one counselor in particular, as a representative of the apparent conflict between General Authorities and counselors. Natasha Helfer Parker, in her article Morality? We can do much better than this… has a bullet-list of issues with the Ensign article. She starts by claiming that the article leaves no room for personal revelation. This is obviously not true, as personal revelation is always necessary in addition to official pronouncements and even scripture. That is a fundamental and constant principle of Mormonism. It does not need to be restated in every article. However, in this particular case, I’m wondering precisely what revelation she has in mind. Is she suggesting that if you pray and ask, God might just tell you to go ahead and have sex outside of marriage? There are often shades of gray and complications with applying moral principles, but the “no sex outside of marriage” one is about as universal and clear as it gets.[ref]And you thought Joseph Smith had to be persistent to get permission to give Martin Harris the 116 pages…[/ref]
She next takes the article to task for calling masturbation “self-abuse” because “this is not an appropriate clinical term.” She may not have noticed, however, the Ensign is not a clinical journal. The inability of experts to understand that specialized terminology must give way to common vernacular in non-specialized contexts is faintly amusing. It reminds me of the time that an outraged medical doctor told my father (a professor of English) that it was unfair for PhDs to be referred to as “doctor” because medical doctors had to study harder and did so much more good. My dad smiled, and reminded him that hundreds of years ago when college professors were already using the term “doctor,” the medical professionals of that day were known as “leeches”. Perhaps if he wanted a unique title, he could try and resuscitate that one?[ref]Pro-tip, don’t badger an English professor about the meaning of words.[/ref]
Most of the rest of the bullet points rely on the same tired strawman approach of insisting on seeing a viewpoint you don’t like in its most crude and absolutist form. But the most sinister criticism she levels is the one that comes at the end of the bullet list, although it’s a sentiment that pervades the entire piece, and that is this: “The way that sexual standards are presented in this type of talk is unrealistic and sets people up for failure.”
Lowering standards cheapens Christ’s sacrifice. He did not drink the bitter cup for fun. If there was an easier way to save us, He would have taken it.
Well now, we wouldn’t want to set people up for failure, now would we? Contrast this sentiment with Paul’s simple statement that: ” all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”[ref]Romans 3:23[/ref]
If not all have sinned, than the Atonement is not necessary. If the Atonement is not necessary, then Christ is superfluous. If Christ is superfluous, then the Gospel is a joke. What good news? We have no need of a savior. We just lower moral standards to the lowest common denominator (or maybe pray for an exemption) and then everyone gets to heaven on their own merits. This well-intentioned call for lowered-standards is sadly anti-Christian. The entire message of Christianity–not just Mormonism, but all Christianity–is that none of us can live up to God’s impossible standards. She faults this Ensign article, but it was Jesus himself who said “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”[ref]Matthew 5:48[/ref] Maybe we ought to just hand Parker a copy of the New Testament and a red pen and let her tell us what Jesus should have said.
I will say at least this much for Parker: the fact that she couldn’t even get to the end of one article without cutting out the beating heart of Christian faith provides a very clear example of just how important it is that the business of articulating eternal standards stay in the hands of the General Authorities.
I’m impressed with the evidence and the citations that FightTheNewDrug.org provides in their exposé of pornography. In this section, called Porn’s Dirty Little Secret, they document the connection between pornography and violence and sex trafficking. It’s an uphill battle because, perversely, a large section of the feminist movement itself sees porn as empowering for women. This is another example of how feminists in America risk taking their own privilege for granted. Porn might be a choice for a woman who is in a position of power because of her race, class, and age but that’s an exceptional case. Not the rule.
I think some of the most persuasive arguments from the site are those that explicitly try to take down the myth that there’s good porn and bad porn by showing how blurry the line between violent aggression and corporate porn can be.
Part of the lie porn producers want customers to buy into is that porn is legitimate entertainment made by glamorous people who are doing it because it’s what they want; it’s OK for the user to enjoy it because the people they’re watching seem to be enjoying it. What they don’t say is that some of those people look like they’re having a good time because behind the scenes they have a gun pointed at their head. And if they stop smiling, it will go off.
Obviously, human trafficking is an underground business, making firm statistics hard to come by. But the facts in cases that come to light are chilling. For example, in 2011, two Miami men were found guilty of spending five years luring women into a human trafficking trap. They would advertise modeling roles, then when women came to try out, they would drug them, kidnap them, rape them, videotape the violence, and sell it to pornography stores and businesses across the country.
That same year a couple in Missouri was charged with forcing a mentally handicapped girl to produce porn for them by beating, whipping, suffocating, electrocuting, drowning, mutilating, and choking her until she agreed. One of the photos they forced her to make ended up on the front cover of a porn publication owned by Hustler Magazine Group.
I haven’t even finished reading everything, but the information is solid, the arguments are good, and even the presentation is really powerful. (You can download sections of the website as nicely formatted .pdf’s, for example.)
I know it’s a ridiculously uphill battle, especially in the geek culture that I’m a part of, and that’s why I’m happy to see such a great new resource.
Scene from the new film “Don Jon,” which addresses porn and porn addiction.
Given the pervasiveness of porn in our culture, I figured I’d be one of a lone voice of marginalized weirdos for stating that it’s bad and people should knock it off. And yet, on the heels of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s “Don Jon”, GQ has an article called 10 Reasons Why You Should Quit Watching Porn. There aren’t a lot of new scientific details in the article, and all the reasons come down to mostly “it’s bad for your sex life.” Perhaps not the noblest of reasons, but perfectly valid and quite pragmatic. It’s nice to see this issue dragged into the spotlight of mainstream attention.
This is a fascinating perspective on the infamous Chris Brown. It turns out that Chris, at age 8, had already watched enough porn that he was “hot to trot” and (according to his own account) had sex for the first time. The girl in question was 14 or 15 which, as Olivia Cole (the author) points out, makes the encounter a rape. Cole then says she knows other men who have recounted similar stories, and then drops this pretty profound question:
We know some of the behavioral signals that occur when girls have been raped. Depression, promiscuity, unexplained anger, anxiety. These are words we use when we describe the ways victims behave. It’s interesting that I have seen these same symptoms in young boys—alongside me in class when I was a child, in boyfriends as I got older, in men beside me on the bus in Chicago—yet no one looks at male anger and male promiscuity as symptoms of anything. These are just classic male behaviors. “Boys will be boys,” and boys sleep around. Boys have bad tempers. Right?
Wrong.
What if we have been normalizing male rape victims’ symptoms for centuries?
What if, indeed. The one thing Cole doesn’t mention, that I think is important, is the role of pornography in this story. Would a young, 8-year old boy have been looking for sex without already having imbibed a dangerous amount of porn? Probably not. So I don’t think this is a problem that has been going on “for centuries.” It could be a new problem, however, and one that will only get worse as more and more young men have their minds and souls warped by early exposure to readily accessible porn.
The NYT also had nice / neutral things to say about folks like Hugh Hefner and Hugo Chavez when they died. Hefner “founded Playboy magazine in 1953 and became inseparable from his brand” and Chavez “died after a long battle with cancer.”
3. Christians have been more opposed to divorce than I think the general public is aware. This is simply because conflict draws attention. When Christians oppose divorce and try to strengthen marriage they are, for the most part, not really arguing with anyone. There is no broad, popular movement that celebrates divorce or infidelity or walking out on your family. As a result, Christian opposition to these things tends to fly under the radar and go unnoticed. But it is there. In fact, that’s what made me think of this post. Thrice, which is my favorite band, has not one but two tracks on their fairwell album 
