Today I'm at the 31st Annual Troubled Youth Conference. I'm at a very interesting breakout session about current research on pornography and how it affects our clients. Here's something for you to think about.
"David" by MichaelangeloIs this pornography?
Would you be comfortable with you 4 year old seeing it? How about your 8 year old? 12 year old? 16 year old?
Would you have this statue in your home? What if your coworker had a picture of it in his/her office? Should it be shown at school as part of art history education?
What if your teenage son had it for the screensaver on his computer or cell phone?
It's interesting to me that you're learning about this right now. I'm in the midst of writing a post for my blog on my thoughts on porn, which are no doubt much more negative than most peoples. Feminists fall into two camps basically- those who are fine with porn and those who think it is awful. I bet we can both guess which camp I'm in.
ReplyDeleteI would say that the David isn't pornography. In my mind, pornography consists of images (pictures/video/strippers/etc) specifically utilized to make individuals think about/buy/focus on sex. The David, and other pieces of nudity, may focus on the glorification of the human body (it was the High Renaissance- Descartes had just effectively separated the body from the mind- finally allowing the Catholic Church some philosophical distance from the concept that idealizing the human body takes away from God's divinity) but they are not concentrated on sex or sexuality. We can see that David is a man- his nudity shows his vulnerability- we can see his veins and the imperfection of his body structure (his hands are feet are huge, showing his lack of maturity)- here is someone whose feats are impressive BECAUSE of his humanness.
Pornography has nothing to do with anything other than getting people to think about and buy sex. Its focus is sex as consumption. And...I have to stop here because I'm getting too worked up and angry about it...which is probably why my own damn post is taking so long to write. :)
Very interesting questions! I want to know more about what they said at the conference!
ReplyDeleteAng -- he didn't answer the question as to whether or not David is porn. He just pointed out that it's different based on the person/setting/reason/etc.
ReplyDeleteHe DID say that kids who look at porn are no more likely to become sex offenders than kids who don't. Substance abuse is a much more common contributing factor to sexual offenses.
Some other random stuff I learned:
ReplyDelete-- The U.S. has more sexual violence than countries with similar demographics
-- Vibrators were invented so doctors didn't have to masturbate women to relieve their "hysteria"
-- 20% of the population has some sort of paraphelia (sexual fascination with a non-human object)
-- Child sex abuse has decreased by 50% over the last 20 years, but porn use has increased (what does that tell you?)
-- A really great book about sex for your latency-aged kids: It's Perfectly Normal by Harris & Embry