A Nod’s as Good as a Kink to an Old Bat
(posted by Jim Henley)
Ross Douthat’s logic is ingenious when he explains how watching pornography is “on a moral continuum with adultery,” but I don’t think he goes far enough. For just as “a lot of people would say” there is “similarity between having sex with a prostitute while you’re married and paying to watch a prostitute perform sexual acts for your voyeuristic gratification,” there is also similarity between “having sex with a prostitute” and having sex with your spouse. Hey, it’s sex, right? The prostitute’s gender may well be your spouse’s gender (odds go down - ahem, sorry - you’re a Republican politician), which is one level of similarity. You, the prostitute and your spouse are all God’s children. And when we move beyond prostitution to intimate extramarital relations, we probably find between you and your concubine kinds of intimacy and tenderness that strongly resemble the feelings you have or used to have for your spouse. The conclusion is inescapable: just as watching hardcore pornography is “the equivalent of having an actual affair,” having an actual affair is the equivalent of monogamy.
June 21st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
[crossposted comment to Distributed Republic]
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.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I have nothing of value to add…that post was just all kinds of funny.
You can really write, Jim.
June 24th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
[...] Steve H.: I have nothing of value to add…that post was just all kinds of funny. You can really write, Jim…. [...]
July 6th, 2008 at 12:11 am
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