A Nod’s as Good as a Kink to an Old Bat
Friday, June 20th, 2008Ross 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.