From: shannon stoney (sstoney@pdq.net)
Date: 08/28/02-05:22:17 PM Z
Sorry, I didn't mean to knock anybody's religion, or in fact, almost
everybody's religion, except that of the Earth worshippers and
witches. Jonathan, it's not your fault. I hope you post a lot more
philosophically oriented posts and I'll try not to draw conclusions
that impugn people's religious beliefs, at least not publicly.
But I do think the issue of guilt about looking at provocative images
is germane to this discussion. It's not just about whether women are
made less equal by photographs of nude women; it's also about why
pornography can even exist as a category. If there were no
prohibitions on looking at naked people, we wouldn't have a category
called "porn" or "erotica" or whatever you want to call it. And
where do these prohibitions come from, if not from religious
training? Well, for most people anyway they do, and for the culture
at large. If you were ever caught as a child looking at "dirty"
magazines, were you upbraided for being a bad feminist? I doubt it,
unless you are very young indeed. You were probably scolded for
having sexual interests and thoughts. And where does the idea that
sexual interests and thoughts are bad come from? Well, sorry, but
they seem to come from the three great religions of the West, and
some of the EAst. If you have a different idea of where they come
from, I'd like to know what it is.
This is the strange thing about contemporary morals and politics:
religious conservatives and some feminists have become the proverbial
"strange bedfellows" in their condemnation of sexually explicit
material.
--shannon
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