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the early deveLopment of orthodox
Christianity. Among the early Cath–
olic church fathers, St. Augustine of
Hippo was perhaps the most re–
sponsible for foisting on the church
such an oppressive approach - but
not until he had sown his own wild
oats in an orgy of prorniscuity. His
teaching of "No sex pLease, we're
Christians" (except of course for
procreation in marriage - and even
that 's nasty) was expounded by suc–
ceeding influential leaders in the
church and soon became doctrine.
lt
stuck through the Middle Ages and
lingers on today. In effect the
church had "excommunicated" sex
from anything to do with love, and
it became a dirty word.
Peregrine Worsthorne points out
that
it
is this type of extremism that
provoked counter-extremism from
thesensualists. He added: "The cav–
alier dismissive attitude of the
church to all the blessings that sex
can procure for roan and the cav–
alier dismissive attitude of the sen–
sualists to all the curses that [the
wrong use of] sex can procure for
man were rooted in the superficial
· attitude to the subject - the church
was prepared to risk seeing it
twisted a nd tortured into the
stunt ed shapes of a puritanical
nightmare. And [now] the sensual–
ists are prepared to risk seeing
it
travestied into the leering face of
uncontrolled concupiscence." Wors–
thorne claims that today tbe real
threat to sex is from the pornogra–
phers: "lt is the pornographers who
treat it with contempt."
Where the churcb fathers taught
that love should be sexless, the mes–
sage of pornography is that sex
should be loveless.
David Boadella, discussing the ef–
fect of the commercial exploitation
of sex, points out that it is no more
than a "mass condilioning [which]
amounts lo a progressive prostitu–
tion of cul ture and involves a bid–
den control over people's feelings
that is more insidious than the old
repressive system."
"Tberapeutic" Pomography
Today society is reacting strongly
against prudery. This is a movement
which, even if not initiated by
avant–
garde
libertines, has certainly been
used to advantage and accelerated
16
by them. The process has also been
helped along by the "generation
gap." A further catalyst has been
the contribution of various in–
tellectuals who belong to the small
band of academic ignoramuses in
the universities and certain other
areas. One result is that pornogra–
phy has spread like a cultural
bubonic plague.
But is there really a case against
pornography, or is
it
truly a sign of
advancement toward a freer and
better society? Are the sex magnates
like Hefner doing society a favor as
they line their own pockets? Sorne
intellectual pornophiles feel they
can make
out
a case that pomogra–
phy is actually therapeutic - thus
we have "pomotherapy." Danish
pornocrat Leo Madsen used this jus–
tification in planning what must
have been the .ultimate porno-spec–
tacle - a special line featuring
cripples so that the disabled could
identify with the fantasies!
It
has been said that there is no
more certain and revealing guide to
the sexual preoccupation of an age
or race tha n the amount of pornog–
raphy it consumes.
The
Case
Against Pomography
Those who believe that pornogra–
phy has no ill effect on people are
immediately faced with certain
problems. We know that the great
works of art and Jiterature often
have very profound elfects on
people.
It
is therefore possible to
conclude that pornography can also
have a profound effect, and most
people intuitively realize that that
effect can often be harmful.
You are being asked to believe
that the multimillion doll ar pornog–
raphy onslaught is unrelated to in–
creasing morbid sexua l interest ,
depersonalization of sex and a rise
in sex crime.
The whole principie of advertis–
ing is based on the no tion that
people are motivated lo act on vi–
sual stimuli. Since the essence of
pomography is visual stimuli, it
may a lso cause people to act, and
often in very antisocial ways.
A normal person probably won ' t
commit sorne horrible sex crime if
he looks at pornography. There are
doubtless other individuals who will
commit sex crimes regardless of
whether they look at pornography
or not. (This sort of person, how–
ever, is almost always an avid
reader of pomography.) But there
are others, "marginal individuals,"
who will commit sex crimes if they
are exposed to pornography, but
who otherwise wouldn't. There is
consequently a strong correlation
between sex olfenses and pornogra–
phy: those who comrnit such crimes
are practically always voracious
consumers of the stuff.
Yet someone is bound to ask,
"What about the report of the
American Commission on Obscen–
ity and Pornography"? This report
concluded that pornography has no
adverse effect on behavior. A mi–
nority of this commission, bowever,
strongly objected to the majority's
conclusion. According to one social
psychologist asked to evaluate the
findings , the evidence used was
"often inaccurately and selectively
reported to the commission mem–
bers and many areas were ne–
glected."
Professor Eysenck says of this re–
port in bis volume of essays,
Psy–
chology Is A bout People:
"It
provides a wonderful example of
one-sided reporting, biased selection
of evidence and failure to base con–
clusions on the evidence."
The "Danish experiment" has
often been quoted by the pornogra–
phy lobby as an example of the
harmlessness, indeed the benefits, of
pornography. The argument is that
by abolishing the laws against ob–
scenity the Danes achieved a reduc–
tion in sex crime rates.
Let us look at the facts. Danish
obscenity law changed in two stages
in 1967 and 1969. A Working Party
of the Arts Counci1 in Britain pub–
lished a
Report on Obscenity
in 1969
which pointed out that "since hard–
core pornography became IegaUy
available in Denmark at prices that
even the poorest delinquen! can af–
ford , the incidence of sexual crime
has dropped as a result (or coinci–
dence) by the as tonishing figure of
25%."
This fitted well with their own
preconceived ideas. Today th e au–
thors are probably blushing over
their na·iveté because they ignored
several key factors. Firstly, the sex
crime statistics in Denmark had
The
PLAIN TRUTH Aprii -May 1976