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« Marriage: What’s In a Name?
The Logical End of Pro-Choice Euphemisms »

Between the Bookends: Pro-Life on Porn

August 6, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

Last week I had the pleasure to meet pro-life columnist and colleague from the Center for Morality in Public Life, Catherine Palmer. I admire the fresh perspective Catherine brings to the issues and consider her latest article in Ethika Politika to be a provocative addition to the pro-life movement. Here’s Catherine:

Between the Bookends: Pro-Life on Porn
by Catherine Palmer

I’ve been thinking for some time now that pornography is an issue that ought to be addressed within the pro-life community. But I wasn’t sure why. On the surface, it appears that beginning and end of life issues are what we need to be talking about; and, certainly, they are. But if being comprehensively pro-life means supporting life at every stage — from conception to natural death — it seems there’s an awful lot of life between those two bookends that we need to be concerned about. How are we defending the equally massive dignity of people who are 4, or 12, or 31, or 67?

Undoubtedly, one of the greatest predators of the middle-aged person’s dignity is the porn industry. Pornography, though a seemingly “private” issue, actually has tremendous public ramifications. It contributes exceptionally to the overall diminishing of human dignity that we see reflected in our movies, our books, our TV shows, our radio stations, and even our laws. It is poisonous to marriages, toxic to families, and detrimental to society. And it is becoming more rampant and widespread every year.

Senator Sam Brownback has gathered some staggering statistics on the issue. He found that 72 million people visit Internet porn sites each year. One in five children, ages 10 to 17, has received a sexual solicitation online. Nine out of ten children, ages 8 to 16 with Internet access, have visited porn sites, usually while working on homework. The founder of the Center for Online Addiction reports that 65% of people who visit their site do so due to marital problems caused by cyber pornography[1]. And 2.5 billion emails every day are pornographic in nature[2].

If one doubts that porn’s ramifications seep into all aspects of society, perhaps he should consider a study by Dr. Mary Anne Layden, Co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Layden reports that:

70% of hits on Internet sex sites occur between 9 and 5 on business computers. Research also indicates, and my clinical experience supports, that 40% of sex addicts will lose their spouse, 58% will suffer financial losses, and 27% to 40% will lose their job or profession.[3]

If we really think porn has no adverse influence on our lives, we are sorely kidding ourselves.

But Layden’s statistics, in particular, struck me for another reason. Remember, she found that the vast majority of all porn viewing happens between 9 and 5 on business computers. This immediately confirmed what I — and likely most of us — would imagine to be true: namely, that people seek to ogle porn in private.

But why the secrecy? Aren’t 72 million other people looking at it, too? Is there really a need for the shame and embarrassment?

No woman ever stepped off a Planned Parenthood table excited to proclaim to the world that she has just had an abortion. And no pornography user ever comes home to his wife and kids ready to share the news that he spent the last 2 hours looking at airbrushed pictures of naked women.

Why?

Because we have a natural human capacity — call it a conscience — to know the difference between right and wrong. And try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, we know that like procuring an abortion, using pornography is not a behavior to be proud of.

So we begin to try to make ourselves feel better. More specifically, we begin to justify. In the same way that a mother dehumanizes the fetus to justify killing him, the porn user dehumanizes the model to justify lusting after her (or him).

The mere concept of dehumanization ought to be enough to make us shudder, as this has been the radical idea responsible for the tragedies of Nazi Germany, for lynching in the South, and for the Rwandan Genocide.

Whenever a certain group of people is dubbed with a less-than-human status, they are made vulnerable to attack and destruction. This is as true in 2010 for the porn star and the fetus in America as it was in 1935 for the Jew in Germany or in 1955 for the Black in Tennessee. At their core, these issues — all human rights abuses — are intrinsically and intricately linked to the dignity of the human person, and for that reason ought to be the pro-lifer’s business.

If we do not make efforts to purge America of pornography, more than our jobs, our finances, and even our marriages will be at risk; our very dignity will be threatened.

Dehumanization anywhere is a peril to human dignity everywhere. As feminist Catharine MacKinnon put it:

When pornography is […] normal, a whole population of men is primed to dehumanize women and to enjoy inflicting assault sexually […] Pornography is the perfect preparation — motivator and instruction manual in one — for […] sexual atrocities.

I’m afraid sexual atrocities — momentous as they are on their own — are not all we have to worry about if pornography continues to batter the people between the bookends.

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Posted in Dignity | Tagged Porn | 8 Comments

8 Responses

  1. on August 6, 2010 at 6:54 PM Mary

    surely one of the saddest things a parent can ever experience is the choice of a loved one to be a porn star:

    http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20408252,00.html

    “Her father is understandably devastated, she confesses.

    “I hear through relatives that he’s upset but I haven’t talked to him directly for him to tell me his feelings,” she admits, saying that when she did break the news, he reacted with stunned silence.

    “I hope it’s not hurting him. It wasn’t done to hurt him,” she says. “But I think it will take time and talking through the issues. Eventually, I hope he will be proud of me.”


  2. on August 6, 2010 at 11:52 PM L.

    I’m not a big Catharine MacKinnon fan, to be honest — the whole anti-porn crusade really conflicts with my great love of the First Amendment.

    I think consenting adults should be allowed to produce, distribute and consume obscene materials. But I also think, like alcohol, it should be a controlled substance, not for sale around schools or near minors. (I personally find porn extremely distasteful and don’t want it in my home.)

    The alcohol comparison is apt, I think. Alcohol is indisputably addictive and ruins lives and families, but I would argue in favor of controlling its distribution, and not for its total prohibition. Similarly, very few porn viewers are going to become sex addicts.


  3. on August 7, 2010 at 12:00 AM Paula

    The problem with that logic L, is that human beings are harmed in the actual making of porn. Having been in the sex industry for many years, I know whereof I speak.

    Women are in agony in this business. They feel trapped into a corner, they feel despair, some of them feel nothing at all anymore. They slowly kill themselves with heroin and alcohol every night; casual and sometimes brutal sex with strangers because it is expected of them.

    Yes, they are adults who are responsible for their behaviour, but studies have shown that between 66 and 90 percent of women in the sex industry were raped and sexually abused as children. They were primed for abuse by people who use the phrase “these are my rights” to ignore, use or degrade them.

    Women deserve better, and so do men. This world is a horror right now. If you only knew.


  4. on August 7, 2010 at 12:48 AM L.

    Paula — sounds awful, and while I have never worked in the sex industry myself, I know others who have, and many have similar stories. We live quite close to Roppongi, which is one of the sex centers of Tokyo.

    While I would never support an outright ban on the actual products, I would certainly support measures to clean up the porn industry, so that the only ones in it are truly there by choice.

    And let’s just say….I would be very surprised and disappointed if any of my own kids chose to enter that world someday, even though it is quite literally the world right outside their door.


  5. on August 7, 2010 at 1:35 AM Gregory Underwood

    Porn will never be right no matter how you see it. It has caused a lot of people turn into addicts which makes them unproductive. A lot or relationships have gone through chaotic circumstances due to porn addiction. I really feel sorry for these affected couples.


  6. on August 7, 2010 at 2:27 AM L.

    You can replace “porn” with “alcohol” in the above comment, and it would apply to members of my own extended family — and I still wouldn’t argue for total prohibition of either.


  7. on August 7, 2010 at 9:33 AM Mary

    again to compare porn to alcohol just doesn’t work

    there are at least SOME uses for alcohol.

    Porn is the absolute degradation of a human being and the desecration of something very sacred. It serves no purpose other than to make exorbitant amounts of money for the people that sell it.

    At least you are being consistent in your (il)logic. 😦


  8. on August 7, 2010 at 9:43 AM Mary

    “Paula

    The problem with that logic L, is that human beings are harmed in the actual making of porn. Having been in the sex industry for many years, I know whereof I speak.”

    @Paula,
    I’m very thankful you were able to get out.
    Of course the other big issue surrounding this is the human trafficking issue as well.
    What a terrible tragedy.



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