From: Jeff Buck (jeffbuck@swcp.com)
Date: 08/28/02-05:43:38 PM Z
Does having a sober regard for what we owe to the Judeo-Christian
background make someone a "religious conservative"? Or "religious" at
all? Do you think it is an acceptable understanding of the J/C background
to write it off as a source of sexual foibles? -jb
At 06:22 PM 8/28/2002 -0500, shannon stoney wrote:
>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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