Porn Panic From the Right

Dennis Prager talks about panics from the Left. Here an example of panic from the right, as expressed in two essays, which are very much like countless other essays and commentaries throughout the years.

"Susan" wrote on her blog at the URL https://thesparrowshome.com/pornography-is-destructive/ under the title "Hugh Hefner, Dennis Prager, and the Destructive Nature of Pornography" in October of 2017:

Hugh Hefner died last week. While I don’t revel in his death, the phrase ‘good riddance’ did cross my mind.  Hefner contributed heavily to bringing pornography to the mainstream, making it more easily accessible and normalized. Grieving his death never entered my mind.

If it hadn't been him, it would have been someone. Have you ever taken a real art history course? Or seen early movies, before the "code" days?

What did make me sad was hearing Dennis Prager speak about his father subscribing to Playboy.  He said that he felt no shame over it. After all, his dad had been faithful to his mother for seventy-some years.

I enjoy Dennis Prager.  I admire and agree with probably 90% of what he speaks on. We LOVE Prager University videos, and I’ve used them frequently in our homeschooling study groups.

In full disclosure, I only heard about half of the interview in which he spoke about his father and the Playboys. It’s possible that he reasoned through this faulty sentiment and acknowledged that he could still honor and respect his father while condemning this behavior. I hope he did.

I don't think he's ever condemned Playboy or his father for having a subscription. Rather, Dennis Prager tells the story of stumbling across the appearance by a woman who was being promoted as having appeared in the magazine. It was a signing or something. He saw notice of it, and purposely went into or over to where it was, thinking it was going to be good to see such a woman in person. He tells the story because there was more than one woman there at the table, and he had to ask which one was the model. He was making the point that the playmate or centerfold model didn't stand out from the other woman. Now, to that I say the other woman was likely also a model, but it wasn't her event, so she deferred to the model whose event it was. But that's a tangent...

My assumption is that Mr. Prager, like so many others, believes that because it is natural for men to be attracted to looking at women’s bodies, that it’s okay as long as it’s just looking.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. He does say we have to fight our natures, but he doesn't think that necessarily extends to fighting that we enjoy the sight of women. It means marrying and staying faithful to a wife.

In the Bible, Paul writes extensively about the difference between the flesh and the Spirit.

I read years ago that the phrase ‘the flesh’ can be translated as ‘what comes naturally’.

What comes naturally to us is typically not what God desires for us.  In fact, it’s often the polar opposite of what He desires…it’s often sin.

Dennis is doesn't claim to be a Christian. His focus is on what Christians call the Old Testament, especially the Torah. But it is worth noting that Paul didn't say that everything that is natural is wrong.

Porn is destructive.  It is never – not ever – a victimless activity.

Susan doesn't explain in this post how "porn" is destructive. But notice she has only referenced Playboy so far. If I had to guess, she'd cite how it makes some wives feel, that men shouldn't look at any woman other than their wife, blah blah blah... the usual stuff.

Prager’s father may have been physically faithful to his wife, but I would bet money that if she knew about his habit, she felt less-than.

She knew. And they seemed to have done alright, being married for decades and decades until she died. Not all women are as jealous of photographs as others.

You see, women know what men can’t see:  That no matter how manyes a husband says, “It doesn’t have anything to do with you”–it does.  It does have something to do with her.  Every time he looks at porn for stimulation, he is saying to his wife, “You are not enough for me.”

When you watch a soap opera, when you watch a romantic comedy or princess fantasy, when you look at a jewelry ad, does that mean your husband isn't enough for you?

Any wife whose husband has an addiction to pornography can feel the depth of the Psalmists words, “I am forced to restore what I did not steal.” (Ps. 69:4)

"Porn addiction" isn't a medical term.

Early feminists railed against Hefner and his empire that marginalized and de-humanized women. 

How does showing someone in their natural state dehumanize them?

They have convinced themselves that being just a body somehow empowers them.

Clearly what empowers women is telling them they can't take picture or video of themselves, can't dance the way they choose, can't choose who they make videos with and what those videos depict.

Sadly, the same can be said for good people who explain looking at pornography away as ‘natural’ and ‘harmless’. They have been deceived.

Looking at people in their natural state isn't natural? And what are the harms, exactly?

Whether or not porn is already an issue for you, I can’t say strongly enough:

If you are not actively protecting against it coming into your home–it will come into your home!

Oh no! You know, I have a sneaking suspicion there are times the people in my home are naked. Like when taking a bath. SCARY!!!

Over 10 years ago, my husband and I began using something to not only filter content on our computer, but a tool that actually adds a layer of accountability. The tool that we use is called Covenant Eyes, and I can’t imagine not using it.

Ah, yes, Covenant Eyes. I'm sure her husband likes being treated like a toddler.

Did you know that 70% of teens admit to stumbling across porn accidentally online?

70 percent!

"Accidentally." Did you know it used to be common for teens to get married, and they probably saw their spouses naked?!? Did you know that they grew up in homes where they didn't have walls and closed doors that separated all the individuals, so they probably heard and saw their parents having sex? How did humanity survive?!?

Would you let your kids play with a toy if there was a 70% chance they’d injure themselves with it?

If you tell them about lube, they won't get injured from seeing porn.

I know I’m just a small fish in the sea of online presences. But if Dennis Prager were to read my little post, what I’d like to say is this:

Mr. Prager, just as I can admire and respect you while still being disappointed in your statement the other day– it would not diminish the legacy of your father for you to admit that looking at pornography is not something to be proud of.  And in the spirit of clarity I’d be curious to know how you reconcile justifying the use of porn with the high morals which I know you espouse.

He reconciles it by understanding that porn is not prohibited in the Old Testament, is not physically or mentally harmful to watch, and need not deprive a spouse of anything.

Dennis Prager observed his parents' marriage. He knew his dad. Being a Playboy subscriber (and looking at women) did not turn his father into a serial killer or even a bad husband. His father still loved and cared for his mother, and they were married until she passed. I'm sure Dennis has received countless pieces of correspondence pushing porn panic. He considers what the panic pushers say in light of what he knows for a lifetime of experience, and he realizes the claims of porn panic pushers don't reflect reality. I wish he'd say so more directly and often... but he knows who butters his bread.

The above piece referenced Matt Walsh. Here's Matt's piece from September 2016 under the title of "Porn Is the Quickest Way to Cheat on Your Wife and Emasculate Yourself." It's the kind of thing that scores points with the insecure women who pay to watch/read Walsh.

An op-ed was published in the Wall Street Journal this week titled "Take the Pledge: No More Indulging Porn." The byline credits a rabbi and some random woman named Pamela Anderson. At least I assumed at first that it must be some random woman named Pamela Anderson and not that Pamela Anderson, because that Pamela Anderson made an enormously profitable career out of selling sex. She even starred in Playboy's final nude issue just a few months ago. Surely, she can't be the one now asking us to swear off X-rated material.

We've repeatedly seen women cash in their chips after making money through modeling/performing and then turn around and get support from the gullible censorship crown. It's the answer to "What are you going to do when you get older?"

Predictably, her message was not greeted with enthusiasm by many in our culture. It's no shock that we're so hostile to anti-porn messaging, considering that last year people spent 4 billion hours watching folks have sex on just one particular porn site.

Also, because porn panic is full of hysteria.

When it comes down to it, nobody really likes porn.

The statistics say otherwise.

All you have to do is compare porn to any other hobby.

False comparison. Most people don't treat porn like a hobby. There are some. But a more accurate comparison would be to other media content.

Contrast how you feel upon concluding an evening of porn consumption with how you feel after going for a jog or finishing a good book.

This is where millions of people laugh, because Walsh is insisting everybody else must feel the same way he is claiming to have felt.

Does anyone ever walk away from porn feeling like they've done something constructive and edifying with their time?

Yes. But it's OK if entertainment is just a simple diversion.

Does anyone derive actual joy (not pleasure, I'm talking about joy) from porn?

Notice he's moved the goalposts from "likes" to "derive joy from."

Has anyone ever closed their browser, deleted their internet history and said proudly to themselves, "That was time well spent"?

Yes. Also, people who don't live with hysterical women don't have to delete their history.

Porn is an objectively filthy and degrading experience,

Matt can't say this with any coherence unless 1) he's watched all of it, or 2) he considers appearing nude on camera to be automatically filthy and degrading.

I worry that when we argue the topic like the truth is some kind of abstract ideal — like this is high-level philosophy or something — we lose the argument before we've made it. We say "porn is dirty and wrong," and porn defenders say, "prove it," but to set out to prove it is to give safe harbor to the notion that the evil of porn isn't innate.

In other words, he knows he doesn't have a good argument. He's asserting that it's "evil" to be without clothes in a photograph.

This is where all the "sex positive" idiocy comes from. People have dedicated their lives (and their college professorships) to combating the shame naturally attached to promiscuity and pornography.

Notice he threw in "promiscuity." He keeps trying to associate other things to which his readers have a negative reaction.

Matt has children. He has to know there isn't natural shame in nudity, nor in seeing others nude. Parents have to teach children to get dressed and stay dressed. (Maybe his kids were all born after he wrote this?)

No. 2: Porn Is a Lie

Just as much as any other media, including Walsh's columns.

When we look at porn, we become faceless onlookers peering like stalkers through the window of a motel while someone else has sex with a hooker they just hired on the street corner. But it's worse than that because it's less honest.

Let's see... the people having sex consent to have sex and consent to do so on-camera, and viewer consents to watch, but that's somehow less honest than stalking and non-consensual peeping? Is there something Walsh wants to tell us???

He doesn't get to dip in and out of a dozen scenes, consuming portions and glances before breezing along to the next. He doesn't get to close the tab when it's all over and act like nothing happened.

Antiporn crusaders talk about technology as though they, or their ideological predecessors, weren't just as opposed to porn in the form of a monthly magazine. (See above.)

Walsh went on to say the porn viewer was no better than the peeping Tom, but never explains exactly what's wrong with three people consenting for the third person to watch. He's just counting on his readers who have negative reactions to "prostitution" (as if many of them aren't essentially having sex for money) and trying conflate the consensual with the non-consensual.

No. 3: Porn Is Adultery

Nope. Also, not applicable to unmarried people.

It's not hard to imagine that porn has a detrimental effect on relationships, but if you need more, here's a study showing how porn consumption leads to infidelity and divorce.

The study does no such thing. What some data will show is when couple is having problems, including sexual rejection, it is more likely they will divorce, find other lovers, and/or watch porn. Just because people haven't officially divorced doesn't mean their marriage is intact or happy. A man gets kicked out of his own bed, his wife is going to eventually file for divorce, and he watches porn as a balm, so technically the porn viewing preceded the legal divorce. That's the kind of thing that is going on. Walsh is counting on his readers not knowing how studies and statistics work.

"Hey, they're just images! It's just for fun! It's not cheating!"

I've never quite understood how anyone could make that argument and then deny their spouse the right to that same logic when she insists that her affair with a coworker was "just sex." You see, once you take the reductionist approach to porn — boiling it down to what it materially is, calling it just an image as if watching it is as morally significant as watching two geometric shapes bump together — you end up doing the same thing to sex itself. Sex, looked at literally, is a sensation. It's one body part inside of another. It's a romp between the sheets. It's a feeling.

Maybe YOU do, Matt, but not people who think clearly about this.

A fun time. A hook up. If porn is no big deal, neither is sex.

"If watching an action movie is no big deal, neither is engaging in a speeding, erratic car chase."

He then went on to try to get the reader to associate consenting adults making erotica media with illegal child material.

Same can be said for men who look at rape fantasy porn, or bestiality porn, or sadomasochistic porn, or actually any kind of porn.

Did Matt get caught by his wife? Also, rape fantasy porn and BDSM porn is far more popular with women than men.

Just as the married man who looks at whatever sort of porn may not be an adulterer according to the divorce courts, but in his heart and in his mind he has cheated a thousand times.

Most people wouldn't want their spouse having an intimate dinner with a couple. Therefore, if my wife watches a movie or show with such a scene, in her heart and mind, she's cheated. Right?

No. 4: Porn Robs Us of Our Manhood

Sounds like marriage.

After all, the one thing we need most from our wives is their respect, and nothing will drain the respect out of a marriage quite like a porn habit.

Moved the goalposts from "watching" to it being a "habit." Most wives don't truly respect their husband regardless. But there are wives who know their husband watches porn and they respect him. There's probably one or two women at least who read this column of Matt's and started to disrespect their husband, in which case it is Matt who fostered the disrespect, and not the porn.

It's necessary that the people on camera have no respect for themselves or for each other and that the man watching has, at least in the moment, no respect for the people on camera or for himself or for his wife.

This is merely another assertion by Walsh that has no objective basis in fact.

Meanwhile, the wife, left alone while her husband releases his sexual energies elsewhere, will struggle to have respect for anyone involved in the transaction, especially her husband.

Are there wives whose husbands pass up the opportunity to have sex with them to watch porn instead?

Yes. And that's a sign of problem, not THE problem.

There are also wives who:

• Watch WITH their husband, and have a great marriage and sex life
  
• Reject their husband and so he turns to porn
• Are relieved and thankful that their husband is watching porn instead of bothering them
  

If Walsh has written as much about wives who reject their husband, both directly and indirectly (by gaining 100 pounds, for example), I'd sure like to see that.

But married or not, porn will hinder a man's ability to discover and express his masculinity. Porn feeds on all of the worst compulsions in men and requires us to ignore or completely eradicate all of our noblest instincts.

Yet millions of men watch porn AND act on their noblest instincts, and discover and express their masculinity.

Men are supposed to be protective, not exploitative.

Watching porn doesn't stop men from being protective.

Active and energetic, not passive. Honest, not deceitful. But porn calls us to be the latter in each case.

He's just pulling this stuff out of his ass, which is probably a porn genre in itself.

I believe that the emasculating effects of porn run far deeper than we can imagine or I can sufficiently describe.

Of course, because you haven't described it.

What I can say is that emasculated men are, by definition, focused inward. They pursue that which brings them pleasure, at any expense to everyone around them.

Nobody around men who view porn is losing anything, in most cases.

He then goes on to talk about kids being curious, which is a complete diversion from the overall topic of the column. Unless his point was that men are powerless victims when it comes to porn. Again, I have to wonder if he got caught.

But to begin that process, we must be honest with ourselves.

If you had been honest, you would have said "My church and/or my wife don't like porn, so I tried really hard to explain what the problem with it is, but the only things I could think of involved other things my church/wife doesn't like, so I made a bunch of assertions in way that I hoped most of my readers wouldn't think through carefully enough to realize there wasn't much substance."

Porn panic is largely a Right-wing hysteria, with some misandrists on the Left joining in as well.