All about the ’nacle and General Conference are stories and opinions and exhortations re pr0n, both pro and con and undecided. Recently, Letters From A Broad had a lively discussion concerning the feminist take on pr0n, which ranges as wide a gamut as the opinions amongst the various factions of LDSdom. However varied the opinions, all seem to agree that the overriding purpose of pr0n is to arouse.

Nowhere, however, have I seen a discussion of genre romance, erotic fiction, or erotica as agents provocateur of arousal. This is most likely because I’m the new kid on the ’nacle block and have just missed it, but even in the lengthy discussions of sex, masturbation, pr0n, and various and sundry other sub-topics of sex, I’ve not seen it mentioned. ’Tis a puzzlement.

Amongst other things, I write genre romance with an edge. The edge isn’t sex; the edge is previously unexplored themes in genre romance like, oh, the juxtaposition of spirituality and sexuality while still heavy on external conflict. This earns no brownie points with agents and acquisitions editors. (The cry, “But we don’t know where to shelve it!” is still ringing in my head, even after a year.)

I don’t write erotic fiction, which is different from romance in that its sole purpose is to arouse yet has emotional content, but very little plot and more often than not, I’ll choose a story that promises a weighty external conflict. It is also different from erotica in that the sex in erotic fiction serves a purpose within the story but isn’t the story. I do occasionally write straight erotica in small doses, but, quite frankly, disemboweled sex (i.e., without an emotional connection) doesn’t really do anything for me. Kinda like looking at pictures of nekkid peoples doesn’t really turn me on although I’m a visual learner.

While my husband teases me about my pr0n, I don’t really know how to draw any lines between genre romance where the sexual content is anything from kiss-and-fade-to-black to take-a-cold-shower-graphic, erotic fiction, and erotica—because it’s all meant to arouse. It may arouse me more easily simply because I’m 40 and therefore have the libido of a 17-year-old boy, but with regard to romance and some erotic fiction (occasionally dubbed Romantica™), the aim is to arouse through the conduit of emotional connection and love.

Regardless my comments on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight here and elsewhere, it’s an erotic tale. All the subtext is there, naturally, but without having to read in between any lines whatsoever, the scenes between Edward and Bella wherein he doesn’t kiss her, but sniffs at her neck, are hawt. It’s all in the execution. Eugene Woodbury’s upcoming novel, Angel Falling Softly had me catching my breath in a few places, too, though his sex scenes are simply elegant.

It did occur to me that perhaps the written word not otherwise slapped with the label “Penthouse Forum” is seen as literature, which is an art form. I mean, do you read a 350-plus-page novel for the sex? I think not. You read it for the story; it just takes too much work and a rather lot of brainpower to read one of these things and doing it for the sex is counterproductive. There is effort involved, the reader’s effort, the contract between author and reader—

—but it’s arousing and that’s one of its purposes.

So by that definition and within the context of the never-ending exhortations by Teh Brethren to avoid that which arouses the natural man, is it pr0n?

Discuss.

Below are 2 segments of the Diane Sawyer interviews with “Belladonna” an LDS porn star. A warning: there are some clips in these interviews from porn movies that are somewhat sexually graphic and depict violent behaviors.

I’m curious to know what your reactions are to these clips. Do they cause you to feel any differently about the porn industry than before? Though the interview doesn’t really delve deeply into her Mormonism, do you think, as her mother alluded to, that the church might’ve impacted some of B’s choices?

In case you haven’t seen it yet, two posts at FMH today kicked off a series on pornography addiction:

Pornography Series: Introduction

Series: Pictures of Pornography and the LDS People

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.