I en artikel främst riktad till amerikanska katoliker, skriver Robert P. George i First Things om hur sexskandalerna och de åtföljande uppgörelserna fått många att tappa förtroendet för katolska kyrkan. Men kyrkans röst behövs mer än någonsin:
This is no time for Catholics to be looking inward, gazing at our navels, too embarrassed (or desirous of the approval of cultural elites or fearful of their disapproval) to speak to the moral crisis of the culture. On the contrary, now is the time to bring our Christian witness, the very practical and effective love of Christ, unabashedly to the culture. Bishops need to lead on this, but not by becoming politicians; the primary responsibility to work in the political sphere falls to the laity. But bishops and clergy do their part when they challenge those of us in the laity to fulfill that great responsibility. Their role is to encourage, exhort, and even cajole us to do the right thing. Moreover, they should never hesitate to reprove us when we fail in our obligations to defend human life, marriage, and the common good, as far too many Catholics, including Catholics prominent in public life, have done and, alas, are doing.
Naomi Wolf skriver om porrmyten i New York Magazine. Myten säger att porr är positivt för sexlusten och får män att längta efter mer av den verkliga varan. Men så är inte fallet. Den har blivit ett substitut:
For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn. …
The reason to turn off the porn might become, to thoughtful people, not a moral one but, in a way, a physical- and emotional-health one; you might want to rethink your constant access to porn in the same way that, if you want to be an athlete, you rethink your smoking. The evidence is in: Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity.
After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.
Other cultures know this. I am not advocating a return to the days of hiding female sexuality, but I am noting that the power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time. In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time””to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, “rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times.” These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family.
Så, grabbar, stäng av porren!
Länktips Evangelical Outpost.
Ps. Läs även Albert Mohlers The Seduction of Pornography:
Before God, this man can be confident that he is fulfilling his responsibilities both as a male and as a man. He is directing his sexuality, his sex drive and his physical embodiment toward the one-flesh relationship that is the perfect paradigm of God’s intention in creation.
By contrast, consider another man. This man lives alone, or at least in a context other than holy marriage. Directed inwardly rather than outwardly, his sex drive has become an engine for lust and self-gratification. Pornography is the essence of his sexual interest and arousal. Rather than taking satisfaction in his wife, he looks at dirty pictures in order to be rewarded with sexual arousal that comes without responsibility, expectation or demand. Arrayed before him are a seemingly endless variety of naked women, sexual images of explicit carnality and a cornucopia of perversions intended to seduce the imagination and corrupt the soul.
This man need not be concerned with his physical appearance, his personal hygiene or his moral character in the eyes of a wife. Without this structure and accountability, he is free to take his sexual pleasure without regard for his unshaved face, his slothfulness, his halitosis, his body odor and his physical appearance.
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Andra bloggar om: pornografi, Naomi Wolf, Albert Mohler, ärbarhet