What's Wrong With Christian Pop Culture (Part Eleven)

Human sexuality is very complex, and even people with balanced sex lives (however you want to define that) can have very complicated personal histories.

Net Nanny cites 10% of all kids under 10 years of age have been exposed to porn.

Young kids, especially those not yet of school age, are at a very susceptible stage re outside influences, and I’m pretty sure nobody thinks exposing young children to hard core “maximum hydraulic” pornography is a good idea, even if it doesn’t bother them or imprint on their minds.

Conversely, a young child in a healthy, wholesome home environment can see or experience something innocuous -- say they see their grandmother removing her stockings -- at the precise wrong moment in their mental development and can end up imprinted with a sexual ideation that will inform everything else they experience for the rest of their lives.

We just don’t know when these moments come, or exactly how they imprint themselves.

Even if one could block pornographic images online, it won’t stop youngsters from developing unusual ideas and fixations.

At worse, it would only acerbate any problems by adding needless layers of shame and guilt.

Adults molesting children is not a new phenomenon.

It’s reported more now because we are learning to tell children it’s not their fault when an adult abuses them, that they have done nothing wrong and have nothing to fear, nothing to be ashamed of.

Add shame and guilt, and the reporting will drop dramatically.

But the molestations will remain the same…if not climb because the perpetrators feel safe in committing their crimes.

“Frank” closes his post by saying “What could be more timely than filtering porn in an effort to assure the safety of women? (Not to mention the mental health of young men.)”

Porn is not the problem, “Frank.”

If porn in and of itself caused bad behavior, then we would be awash in blood as little old ladies who are Agatha Christie fans go on killing sprees, inspired by her murderous novels.

Correlation is not causation.

The cause of the problems women face in terms of sexual abuse and rape is the result of a culture that sees them as intrinsically less valuable and less important than males.

Period.

Full stop.

It’s present in the advertising that permeates our culture far more widely and far more deeply than porn ever could.

Violent and aggressive porn does not inspire a non-violent or non-aggressive person to commit crimes any more than same-sex porn would inspire a confirmed heterosexual to engage in same-sex behaviors.

The violent and aggressive male -- or rather, the male who harbors violent and aggressive desires -- will seek out the media that pleases him, be it a James Bond movie or hard core “gonzo” porn.

They have already made the choice before they sought the product.

And to those who would point to the Bible verse about lusting in one’s heart, remember Christ taught that in the context of lusting after a real, live person, not a fantasy figure or mental abstraction.  (He also taught to gouge your own eye out if it lead you to sin.)

Is it a sin to fantasize about Marilyn Monroe or Clark Gable, both dead now more than half a century?

Is it a sin to fantasize about Archie Andrews or Betty Cooper, both nothing more than lines of ink on paper?

Is it a sin to fantasize so long as one realizes it is just a fantasy that does not correspond with the real world?

Because if the answer to that question is yes, we’re gonna have a lot to account for after an endless diet of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood and James Bond movies.

What we need to do, as parents and educators and entertainers and members of what we strive to be a morally just society, is to teach our children of all genders and orientations that they are to treat one another the way they wish to be treated, and that they are not to assume any other person is less worthy of equal treatment than any other person.

Human nature being what it is, porn will never ever go away completely.

But we can shape a society where it’s not a problem.

Not even a potential one.

© Buzz Dixon