What is it about a pornographic image that so irks the sensibilities of the Christian right? Is it that porn leads to the inequality of women? Is it concerned with violence and/or discrimination? Perpetuating equality and admonishing violence and discrimination are seemingly unanimous aims, however I wonder if the right hasn’t found a convenient rationale to shadow its otherwise stifling agenda.
The right has fought hard to eradicate the empowerment of women for years, namely by denouncing both sex education and birth control. With regard to porn, however, the right seems justified in assuming the posture of equal rights crusader. Adding fuel to an already strange brew, feminist groups do not seem irked by this position. The two storm the San Fernando Valley hand-in-hand, screaming censorship in concert. Is this the type of armageddon Robertson and Falwell envisioned? Cats and dogs living in harmony, consciously tabling the chase?
Or is this perhaps a more enlightened sect of rightists? Can one be consumed with the disparities of inequality yet all the while pray for the death of modernism? Surely not. While the feminists rail against discriminatory images, the right has discovered a window to better articulate its seedier campaign: namely the abolition of education.
Under the guise of equality the right has every intention of censoring not only the Larry Flynts of the world, but further, any and all information concerning AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, sexual identification, abortion and contraception. Beneath any whisper of progressive thought looms an already established disdain for self-empowerment. Give them an inch and they will take your soul.
Perhaps it can all be summed up with two words which you can arrange in whichever order you prefer: objective morality, or moral objectivity. Maybe “the right” is actually concerned with doing what is right, rather than attempting to advance some seedy agenda.
And the censorship of information is hardly a high-and-mighty platform for the left. I’ll bet the government schools never tell their students that 80% of AIDS cases are homosexual men or drug users. That would be discriminatory.
Where to start….
1) Are you saying pornography does empower women?
A1: If so, How? Also, please inform me how porn helps women succeed in “a man’s world”?
A2: Additionally, if you are postulating that sex ed empowers women but at the same time you agree that porn does not empower women, then I fail to see the logical connection between porn and sex ed you are trying to make as the overarching argument for this article.
2) “Denouncing sexual education and birth control”?
A1: The right is all for education. They want to educate on abstinence until marriage, a method that if practiced properly, is 100% at preventing AIDS, STDs, unwanted teen pregnancy, single parent/ dead beat parent homes, (non-medical)abortion, and the emotional devastation of many teen girls that in many cases accompanies irresponsible teen sex. I can think of no better method to empower women and promote sexual equality than a calculated and informed practice of abstinence.
A2: Further, the right is not against AIDS, abortion, and STD education, but educating on all these problems is futile and pointless unless you inform people of the best way to prevent them, abstinence. These problems are better presented as the consequences of not practicing abstinence until marriage. It is a reckless or negligent disservice to a whole generation of students to teach about these topics, but not emphasize the only solution that works 100% of the time, abstinence.
Why until marriage you ask? This is worthy of a whole post in itself, but marriage is a commitment. It is an agreement between two people that you will not leave each other hanging with a child, that you will not use each other for cheap sex and then walk away. If you marry someone you likely have discussed your plan for having or not having children, you know the other persons sexual history and whether or not they are infected.
A3: In re birth control: Say we follow the approach advocated in this article and “empower women” by educating them on AIDS, STDS, Abortion, etc…. I fail to see how birth control solves any of these problems except abortion. Birth control doesn’t protect you from gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, AIDS, and other diseases that make you itch, burn, and ooze. It can also fail to prevent pregnancies. My child is an example. And I know of several other couples who have as well. Yet, I concede it is 95% effective (I think that’s what I hear). I guess we are the lucky 5%.
Also, “the right” (generally) is not opposed to the use of birth control. Some are. But most think that birth control should not be presented in the schools as the champion of sexual freedom. Now, I am not saying that BC is bad or useless. But to promote this as the ticket to good times is doing a whole generation of
A4: Also, how does abortion empower women? I guess it does give the woman the power to choose to end the life of her and her mates baby. How many thousands of female babies have had their bodies dismembered and cerebrum punctured by an abortion doctor under the guise of “right to chose”. What is so empowering about abortion?
The right is all for abortion education, but if we are going to educate let’s fully educate. Don’t just teach that it “empowers women”. Also teach how it empowers women, the actual abortion procedure. By the way (besides medical) what are the upsides of abortion? Is it that you can have sex without having to face the responsibility of the result of sex, raising another human being?
In conclusion, boil away the ideology on the left and right. Apply common sense, ask the tough questions, weigh the pros against the cons and make the determination yourself. I am convinced you will agree that teaching about problems, without teaching the best solution to those problems does not empower anyone, and rather is an injustice.
Matt, you make a series of good points. I’d like to add to your skepticism that abortion empowers women. I think, rather, that abortion is probably the ultimate conquest of men *over* women. By convincing women that abortion is amoral and a legitimate choice, men have effectively severed women from the ultimate feminine function, clearing the way to see her solely as a sexual object. It’s remarkable really; men get to have their fun and the women bear the emotional and financial scars for the rest of their lives. The men don’t even have to pay child support. It’s a brilliant victory for chauvinists the world over. And to think… we have them believing it was their idea!