What I Wish I Would Have Known Before Watching P0rn

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1343078253' post='2458239']
voyeur
[/quote]

DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!

[Winchester]

[quote name='Lil Red' timestamp='1343078530' post='2458248']
DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!
[/quote]
[img]http://thepirata.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/misspelled_tattoo_14.jpg[/img]

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1343078389' post='2458243']
warning: some profane language. I saw this on my FB feed today, about a porn actress who announces that she is quitting the business. It's a good reminder of the brokenness these men and women face. Of course Catholics are going to make a natural law/religious argument. Our disgust with pornography, as well as other sins against chastity is wrought out of a benevolent concern for the other. People are meant to be loved, not used.
[/quote]
I don't understand why you posted that video exactly. She said she has respect for the industry and all in it. Clue me in.

[Era Might]

[quote name='franciscanheart' timestamp='1343076487' post='2458211']
I'd much rather see what you have to say about the subject than your criticism of how other people think.
[/quote]
I did say what I have to say. I think Christians are part of the problem. They are as uncritical about media as the rest of society. Christians want to create "Christian media" rather than questioning the media. They question the CONTENT of the media (pornography, violent movies, etc.) but they don't question the media itself. People in a movie theater are in as much a trance as people in their home watching pornography. Electronic media is very different from, say, live theater, or liturgy. Pornography is just another aspect of a society that is flooded with images. The old Christian concept of "custody of the eyes" no longer exists in Western society. We have embarked on a society where everything is commercialized...the eye has to be constantly busy, constantly consuming new advertising, new media, new diversions. The modern flood of imagery has nothing to do with the old Christian culture of iconography. Christians today put a bunch of pixels on a computer screen and call it "online adoration." Personally I think that's blasphemous. But it's part and parcel with the online image worship of pornography. The old Christian iconography was something real, permanent, incarnational. Modern "icons" are pixels on a screen, fleeting, seductive, idolatrous.

I'm critical of Christians because they're supposed to be the salt of the earth. I could be critical of the ungodly, but what for? "[size=4][color=#000000][font='Times New Roman']For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?[/font][/color][color=#000000][font='Times New Roman'] For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word; but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ." (2Corinthians 2:15-17).[/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font='Times New Roman']If Christians have nothing to say except to be petty moralizers, they'll make a lot of noise, but their word falls on deaf ears. The world isn't listening. And neither are Christians themselves (one reason among others why Christianity has become irrelevant in Western society).[/font][/color][/size]

Edited July 23, 2012 by Era Might

[franciscanheart]

So you want to do away with the Internet? You use it. What's the reasoning behind that? Shouldn't you start the movement by no longer using it?

The internet causes billions of images to appear on millions of computer monitors around the planet. From this galaxy of sight and sound will the face of Christ emerge and the voice of Christ be heard?
--Pope John Paul II, Message for World Communications Day, 2002

I'd rather stay plugged into the century I'm in and make a difference with the mediums popular now.

[Winchester]

Do away with the internet? MADNESS

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2WH8mHJnhM[/media]

[Era Might]

[quote name='franciscanheart' timestamp='1343084667' post='2458267']
So you want to do away with the Internet? You use it. What's the reasoning behind that? Shouldn't you start the movement by no longer using it?

The internet causes billions of images to appear on millions of computer monitors around the planet. From this galaxy of sight and sound will the face of Christ emerge and the voice of Christ be heard?
--Pope John Paul II, Message for World Communications Day, 2002

I'd rather stay plugged into the century I'm in and make a difference with the mediums popular now.
[/quote]
You are free to live your life as you choose. My point isn't to condemn people for being entangled in the structures of evil in society. My point is simply that the structures exist whether we want to "Christianize" them or not. You can call a toaster a Christian toaster, but that doesn't change the technical nature of the toaster. That's my only point. You can create "Christian media" but that doesn't change the nature of the media. If you believe that using modern media is going to have a positive impact on society, that's your opinion, but I don't share it. That doesn't mean I won't use modern media, it just means I don't believe in it as a fundamental good. I think it's all tending toward the disintegration of traditional goods in Western civilization, and pornography is just a symptom of that underlying disintegration.

Edited July 23, 2012 by Era Might

[Amppax]

Nevermind.

Edited July 23, 2012 by Amppax

[Winchester]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1343085311' post='2458271']
Nevermind.
[/quote]
Quitter

[Amppax]

DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1343097723' post='2458318']
DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!
[/quote]

copycat

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1343085114' post='2458269']
You are free to live your life as you choose. My point isn't to condemn people for being entangled in the structures of evil in society. My point is simply that the structures exist whether we want to "Christianize" them or not. You can call a toaster a Christian toaster, but that doesn't change the technical nature of the toaster. That's my only point. You can create "Christian media" but that doesn't change the nature of the media. If you believe that using modern media is going to have a positive impact on society, that's your opinion, but I don't share it. That doesn't mean I won't use modern media, it just means I don't believe in it as a fundamental good. I think it's all tending toward the disintegration of traditional goods in Western civilization, and pornography is just a symptom of that underlying disintegration.
[/quote]
You sound a lot like Ed. "I don't mean to imply that you're doing something wrong simply because you are entrapped in the web of sin and death in this evil world. You missed my point [i]completely[/i]."

I should work on my sarcasm.

Tell me, dear scholar, what [i]is[/i] the nature of "the media"? Please also include what is considered "the media" in your response so we're both on the same page.

Do you not believe media (defined: the main means of mass communication regarded collectively) has impacted our world in any positive way? There has been no good to come of it?

If you could, with a single thought, change the way the world works, would you remove media? Would you send us all back to a time where there were no electronics, no existence of the written word? Where in time would you place us?

Tell me, too: why will you use media all the while proclaiming its inherent evils? If you are concerned about disintegration among the Western nations, why then do you condone its use by your own?

"Modern media is tending toward the disintegration of the Western world, but since I can't stop it, I might as well jump on board."

I don't believe modern media is the end of the world as we know it -- unless by that you mean that the world will be viewed in a whole new context. I acknowledge the fact that the world is changing rapidly, and that my children's children will interact in a very different way than I do today. But then, I don't think it's all bad. Many people in my life do not understand my consumption of media, but they also don't experience the relationships I have built through it.

I don't think the world could ever run solely upon modern media. I don't think it ever WILL. I believe there will always be people who live without it -- either by choice or circumstance. I also believe that humans have been wired by their Creator in such a way that they will always require certain things -- without which, they will perish.

[Amppax]

[quote name='Lil Red' timestamp='1343097971' post='2458319']
copycat
[/quote]

Well that was kinda the point.

[Ice_nine]

Era, I usually like what you have to say, but you seem to have over-intellectualized here. Of course there are negative consequences concerning the constant deluge of images and carp, but to say pornography is a "symptom" of that seems to be a bit of a stretch. You stated porn has always existed yes? So pornography (as a subset of sexual sin) is bound to find its way into any social-technological system, but everything else considered human will carve out a niche in these systems as well.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying modern pornography is not the main problem but a symptom of the current sociotechnological (that's not a word is it?) infrastructure? I agree that it presents new problems surrounding the distribution and consumption of pornography (it's on-demand, it's more prolific, consumption can be a more private and hidden affair than in the past) but I still don't get how it's a "symptom" of anything other than concupiscence and sin.


I think the constant influx of technology and media has tons of negative consequences, countless authors have written about the harm that can come by an unbridled pursuit of progress for progress' sake, I think being "plugged in" all the time can dehumanize us and/or distort reality in various ways. In other words I'm somewhat of a chicken little when this topic comes up, but I still doesn't get your argument.

[MissyP89]

(Interjection: I hurt for that girl. <3)

[Ice_nine]

[quote name='MissyP89' timestamp='1343107367' post='2458371']
(Interjection: I hurt for that girl. <3)
[/quote]

Me too. And I can't tell for sure but she seems high on something. I'm just glad that for whatever reason, she's leaving.



A tangent for what it's worth:

I remember a study in which violent video games should increase in aggressive behavior, not meaning that people who played GTA would run around the streets killing hookers and stealing cars, but that such behavior was manifested in subtler ways (most likely verbally, I can't member)


So people will say "most people can watch porn/slasher films/play violent games and not go out killing/raping/ruining relationships" and that is TRUE. And assuming that subtler behavioral responses to such media were eradicated in most of the general population we still have a problem. Because whereas consumption of such media can be a private affair, the production and distribution cannot ever be. Our INSATIABLE demand for said things are providing excellent fodder for psychopaths who, even if only make 1% of the population, can end up really flooping us all.

I don't think censorship is the answer. But I think we need to understand that no man is an island unto himself and that we are woven into an interconnected social framework to a point where our actions as consumers effect more than ourselves (unless of course we produce everything we consume. Not likely).

[Era Might]

[quote name='franciscanheart' timestamp='1343099512' post='2458329']
You sound a lot like Ed. "I don't mean to imply that you're doing something wrong simply because you are entrapped in the web of sin and death in this evil world. You missed my point [i]completely[/i]."

I should work on my sarcasm.

Tell me, dear scholar, what [i]is[/i] the nature of "the media"?[/quote]
LOL. I'm no scholar, just a man with an opinion. We disagree about the world. That's fine.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Ice_nine' timestamp='1343104866' post='2458357']
If I understand you correctly, you're saying modern pornography is not the main problem but a symptom of the current sociotechnological (that's not a word is it?) infrastructure? I agree that it presents new problems surrounding the distribution and consumption of pornography (it's on-demand, it's more prolific, consumption can be a more private and hidden affair than in the past) but I still don't get how it's a "symptom" of anything other than concupiscence and sin.
[/quote]
To use an analogy, I think that to say that pornography today is just about concupiscence and sin is like saying that reading is about books and newspapers. Books and newspapers are what we read, but they don't explain why we read. Reading is a social technology that is made possible by the invention of the alphabet. Of course, reading is more than just a technology...the technology has shaped and defined our social perceptions, of which books and newspapers are one expression. In the same way, electronic media (which is the media we usually refer to when we talk about "pornography" today) has shaped our social perceptions, and pornography is just one expression of that.

You may be right that I'm overintellectualizing the problem. But if it's also just about concupiscence and sin, as you say, then we also don't need to overemotionalize it, turn it into a medical condition, turn it into a sociological crusade. If it's just about concupiscence and sin then the only remedy is to tell people to put on a hair shirt and stop living scandalously. I think that would be a better message than the emotionalism we usually put out there.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Era Might

[Era Might]

Duplicate

Edited July 24, 2012 by Era Might

[Brother Adam]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1343133579' post='2458391']
LOL. I'm no scholar, just a man with an opinion. We disagree about the world. That's fine.
[/quote]

Didn't you know, you aren't allowed to disagree with her. She's a regulator.