In the new Atlantic, Ross Douthat argues that porn is a moral slippery slope, and is part of the adultery continuum:
Yes, adultery is inevitable, but it's never been universal in the way that pornography has the potential to become--at least if we approach the use of hard-core porn as a normal outlet from the rigors of monogamy, and invest ourselves in a cultural paradigm that understands this as something all men do and all women need to live with. In the name of providing a low-risk alternative for males who would otherwise be tempted by "real" prostitutes and "real" affairs, we're ultimately universalizing, in a milder but not all that much milder form, the sort of degradation and betrayal that only a minority of men have traditionally been involved in.
Furthermore, Douthat argues that the dangers of porn are increasing as porn becomes a creation of amateurs:
After years of booming profits, the "mainstream" porn studios are increasingly losing ground to start-ups and freelancers--people making sex videos on their beds and sofas and shag carpeting and uploading them on the cheap. It turns out that, increasingly, Americans don't want porn as a "kind of science fiction," as Kipnis put it--they want realistic porn, porn that resembles the sex they might be having, and porn that at every moment holds out the promise that they can join in.
You might expect me to be a little sympathetic to this idea. After all, I've hypothesized that porn might rely on mirror neurons (a hypothesis that now has a smidgen of proof):
How does porn work? Why do humans (especially men) get so excited by seeing someone else have sex? At first glance, the answer seems obvious: watching porn triggers an idea (we start thinking about sex), which then triggers a change in our behavior (we become sexually aroused). This is how most of us think about thinking: sensations cause thoughts which cause physical responses. Porn is a quintessential example of how such a thought process might work.But this straightforward answer is entirely wrong. Porn does not cause us to think about sex. Rather, porn causes to think we are having sex. From the perspective of the brain, the act of arousal is not preceded by a separate idea, which we absorb via the television screen. The act itself is the idea. Thanks to our mirror neurons, which imitate the actions of others and help us simulate their feelings, when we are watching porn we are convinced that we are not just watching porn. We think we are inside the screen, doing the deed.
In other words, porn might (emphasis on the "might," since there really isn't any hard proof) take advantage of our penchant for combining observation with mimesis, so that we can't help but imitate, at least internally, the movements of others. You smile, and I smile on the inside. You have sex and, thanks to my high-speed internet connection, I get to pretend that I'm having sex too. In this sense, watching porn really is part of the adulterous continuum. The thrill of porn, after all, is that it tricks a circuit of cells into thinking that we're not just in front of a computer or TV screen. In this sense, Jesus was right: "I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
But here's the fatal flaw in this argument: it can be applied to everything. When you play a violent video game, and get bonus points for killing and pillaging, guess what some deluded neurons think you're really doing? That's right: they think you're actually the character on screen, committing all those felonies. And when you watch a violent movie, and your mirror neurons secretly imitate the actions on screen, is that part of a "violence continuum"? You can see where I'm going here. Once we start confusing the virtual with the actual, we find ourselves in Plato's Republic, where everything that brings "disharmony to the soul" is banned. Watching The Terminator is kinda like committing murder.
In other words, all this talk of continuums is bunk. After all, somewhere between 10 and 40 percent of male dreams feature some sort of sexual activity. Does that mean I'm committing adultery in my sleep? In the end, morality is about the decisions we make that affect other people. The thoughts I think to myself are not relevant.
Brain & Behavior
Comments (36)
Another view.
Posted by: Coturnix | September 18, 2008 11:13 AM