SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

If you think comparing watching porn to having an affair is batshit crazy (and it is, of course), just be glad you didn’t have to grow up learning that masturbation “is the most severe of all Torah forbidden sins“, including not just murder, but “when one emits sperm to waste it is as if he destroys the earth.” Which is, of course, “punishable by death.”

So give Ross Douthat some credit here; at least he is only comparing masturbation to having an affair. His analogy could have been a whole lot batshit crazier.

Uh, actually, that’s *exactly* what the original Fox person was saying: That looking at porn is “the equivalent of having an actual affair.”

Read it again: note the “They assume” part. She’s discussing the state of mind of a woman unaware of a porn addiction, not making any sort of actual case for their equivalence.

And she has no real reason to: she doesn’t argue the point just like Dan Savage doesn’t argue the point. The issue of equivalence in that context is one of how the women feel, not whether they are equal crimes on some sort of hypothetical objective scale. Plenty of women feel that masturbating to some other person, digital or real, is a form of cheating. And it’s not crazy. It’s just their particular boundaries (which may, for some men, legitimately be a deal breaker).

Ross, on the other hand, was actually responding to your rather extreme claim that it never would have occurred to you that there was “any similarity.” He pointed out, and quite accurately I think, that there are similarities, and indeed something of a continuum (i.e., sleeping with someone regularly, sleeping with a prostitute, watching someone in your hotel perform acts in front of you, and watching the same thing just via a computer).

Just like we can all decide where on a continuum to draw moral distinctions (for instance, in the conception to birth continuum in the abortion debate), we can of course argue that porn is okay, but watching a pro at a hotel is not. But doesn’t justify claiming that there is no similarity at all, which is what you did, or ignoring the fact that this is what Ross was responding to, and NOT the defense of the idea that they are objectively the same things.

I would not have bothered commenting if the claim had been only that some people are upset by their partners’ looking at porn, and that they may have some justification for feeling that way. Couples can presumably negotiate that sort of thing for themselves.

Except that neither Ross nor the original FoxNewsish person said that they were “basically the same.” You’re all hammering away at a grossly oversimplified version of Ross’ point.

The fact is, many many women do consider watching hardcore porn a form of infidelity. Just ask Dan Savage.

It’s not insane to feel that way. Because it is on the same continuum, and people draw their boundaries and expectations for their relationships very differently. A lot of women really ARE hurt to find their husbands masturbating regularly to pictures of other (and otfen specific other) women. It’s not a question of whether they are insane or not to feel that way. They just DO feel that way.

The question is why: what sorts of values, fears, concerns, religious ideas, etc. drive them to feel that way, and is that something they should get over, or see differently?

I’m not exactly in Ross’ court here when it comes to his opinions on porn being bad. But you’re all really oversimplifying and misrepresenting the issue.

The stand of a Christian on the use of pornography should be pretty clear. I don’t know how it gets translated in other versions of the Bible, but in the KJV, Matthew 5:27-28 (sermon on the mount FWIW):
“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

For a Christian, that’s about as clear as it gets. I think this same phrase may be quoted at least on other place in the New Testament, and also appears in the Book of Mormon as well.

From this quote, from the Christian perspective again, we can see two things:

1. Christ explicitly calls out “looking on a woman to lust” as a form of infidelity.
2. If you read the rest of the sermon on the mount, it’s clear that he’s contrasting the higher law he’s giving with the lesser law he had given to Moses. Ie, adultery itself was the lesser (more fundamental and easier to live) law, while the don’t even luck with lust commandment was the higher law. Other examples are where Christ said that the old law was Thou shalt not kill, but said the higher law was to not even get angry or to hate. Etc. Basically, AIUI, you could use the distinctions drawn to say that physical adultery still is more serious (because it’s the lower, easier law that everyone is supposed to be able to follow), but that pornography or other forms of mental infidelity are still considered wrong.

In other words, I think both you and Ross have points–I think that porn (or even fantasizing about another woman, even if she’s fully clothed) is a form of unfaithfulness to one’s spouse, but that it’s also clear that it’s not as serious a breach as actually sleeping with someone else.

To use another (probably flawed analogy), locking up people you think might be terrorists without giving them a way to defend themselves is a form of tyranny. So is stuffing Jews into ovens. While everyone would agree that the latter is worlds more severe than the former, that doesn’t mean that actions like robbing people of their right to habeus corpus aren’t tyrannical, just because their the worst form of tyranny.

~Jonathan Goff
(old friend from your Free-Market.Net days, Christian libertarian, and Rocket Plumber)

Don’t you see? It’s all your fault, Charles. Your ability to get married in California is what’s leading to this storm in the heretofore untroubled waters of heterosexual monogamy.

Luckily, I’m gay and I don’t need to worry about the sophistic implications of heterosexual intercourse.

Despite your overly gentle treatment, you’re right. Douthat is extraordinarily facile in equating (?) seeing a prostitute and having an actual affair. As you point out, he never dares to elucidate the relationship because both similarities and important differences would make themselves clear and the analogy would fall apart. I mean, can’t you see the similarity between draining the gizzard and choking the chicken? Yes, Ross. Yes, I can.

But maybe the way to dispose of Douthat’s glib foolishness (and I say this while thinking that Douthat is a brilliant, brilliant writer who can’t possibly actually believe what he is arguing here) is to extend his analogy.

Suppose that a woman came home to find her husband in bed with a prostitute. Now suppose that she told you (her close friend) that due to this fact, she was leaving him forever. No doubt this would be a justifiable thing for her to do.

Now suppose that a woman in an otherwise wonderful marriage found (while cleaning some normally neglected corner of the garage) her husband’s average size collection of porn. Suppose that she told you, her trusted confidante, that she was leaving her heretofore beloved husband forever because she found the porn stash.

Can anyone doubt that leaving a beloved partner because he has a (not bizarre or extreme) pornography habit is, well, just plain fucking crazy?