Pormonism (or, Porn meets Mormonism)

Exponent II magazine recently dedicated an entire volume to the topic of porn addiction. The volume is available for free online, and has a number of different articles on the topic. A good blog discussion is also available at Exponent blog.

I’m glad that the magazine and blog are addressing the topic of porn. It’s an important issue for a lot of people, and it’s one that is often swept under the carpet. This kind of sustained discussion can be a good thing.

I’m less happy with the ultimate product, though. It seems to me that, while it has some real good material, it also has some significant omissions, blind spots, and problems.

My biggest complaint is the way the authors accept the orthodox LDS view that that porn is typically destructive. I don’t agree with that baseline assumption. A good deal of the underlying phenomenon that is normal and natural. It is normal to be turned on by nude bodies of attractive people. This is not really crazy or perverted.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t real problems with porn.

For one thing, popular pornographic images promote totally unrealistic and damaging ideals of the body, particularly the female body. All women are expected to have 44DD super-perky boobs and 28 inch waists (and all men are expected to have 12-inch cocks). This phenomenon, especially combined with other messages in society, and tells people (particularly women) “you’re too fat,” “your boobs aren’t big enough,” and so on. And it leads to problems like anorexia, depression, and the like.

For another thing, there is a significant chunk of the porn market that is really disturbing. Child porn; rape-fantasy porn; violent porn; really disturbing stuff. No way any of that is in the least bit acceptable.

And for a third, many porn actresses who leave the industry give accounts of abuse, drug or alcohol problems, psychological problems, and being trapped in the industry. You can read all sorts of awful, true stories. I’m absolutely against porn that relies on abusing women.

And finally, porn addiction does exist. It’s real, and can be really harmful in people’s lives. I know of one person, for instance, who could not hold a job because of his addiction. He was fired on his first day of work at one job, because he was found masturbating in the break room. I feel sorry for people who are truly porn addicts — they need professional help, and I wish them luck in their recovery.

That said –

Mormons tend to blow porn WAY out of proportion. A member who looks at a Playboy once at age sixteen is branded as a porn addict forever. Any glance at an image is treated like leprosy. Men are made to feel extreme guilty about their natural physical responses to sexual images.

This guilt leads to all sorts of problems. It also creates unrealistic expectations among members. The Mormon porn-guilt complex almost certainly causes way more damage than any actual porn addiction among church members, and it trivializes the real problems of addiction.

For instance, Mormon women are culturally encouraged to view any porn use as awful, destructive, a betrayal. It’s like an affair. I’ve heard Mormon women say just that – porn use is “cheating on me with the computer.” This trivializes the real problems of cheating, to say the least.

This is a volatile combination. Mormon men WILL end up seeing something, somewhere, given the realities of TV, the Internet, etc. They are very likely to be shocked, and probably likely to look at images and be aroused. Meanwhile, Mormon women are ingrained to see that as an awful betrayal. And Mormon men are likely to be guilty, evasive, self-condemning, about it all.

The current dominant LDS approach of guilt (male) and overreaction (female) is also harmful because it fosters a reaction of deception, dishonesty, and closed communication. This is probably far more harmful to relationships than porn itself.

Relationships thrive on honesty, openness, communication. It would be a thousand times better to stop harping on the awful evils of porn (and thus encourage deception), and instead focus on building good relationships with our spouse or partner.

The bottom line is, the extreme emphasis on porn in Mormon culture creates unrealistic expectations about porn, women, men, images.

And that’s my big complaint with the Exponent issue. It does a good job at expressing women’s voices, which is admirable. But it doesn’t address the elephant in the room — the unrealistic expectations about porn, men, women, and relationships, which are created by structural problems in Mormon doctrine and culture.