Garden_eden_02

No…not about it being sinful, but rather, why it is sinful.

The basic argument has been that God has made pornography to be off limits for people is because viewing it will turn men into dangerous animals who will do great harm to the world.  Exhibit A – Ted Bundy.

An article I just read in the New York Magazine would argue, and I think quite thoughtfully, that the traditional rational is wrong.

Here, according to the new York Magazine, is the real danger or pornography.

But does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been
liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the
multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite
has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods,
supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed
by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are
not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more
turned on in their daily lives but less so.
……………..

So Dworkin (a anti-porn activist mentioned earlier in the article) was right that pornography is compulsive, but she was
wrong in thinking it would make men more rapacious. A whole generation
of men are less able to connect erotically to women—and ultimately less
libidinous.

The
reason to turn off the porn might become, to thoughtful people, not a
moral one but, in a way, a physical- and emotional-health one; you
might want to rethink your constant access to porn in the same way
that, if you want to be an athlete, you rethink your smoking. The
evidence is in: Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished
capacity.

…………

After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It
is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable.
If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that
is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an
endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves,
that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images
does not free eros but dilutes it.  (Source)

What do you think?  Does God implore his people to stay pure so men don’t turn into savage beasts or is it so we can experience God’s best?  Or is it both?  Something to chew on.  (Image source)

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