That's not what I said. I said I can't grant that you MIGHT be right.
Regardless of your firm belief that I am wrong, you cannot entertain the theoretical possibility that you are not omnipotent and may in fact be errant, and so I could be right?
You cannot do so as a theoretical in order for us to come together and form a community together? It will always be a relationship where you tell me how wrong I am and that nothing I can do or think is right and so should be treated legally as wrong?
Despite my firm conviction that you are way off the mark as to what this world is about I am able to grant that theoretical so as to justify working with you, as well as not having a govt dedicated to your elimination.
That people reserve sex for marriage, that they don't indulge in any artificial stimulation or other extramarital sexual interests but reserve themselves wholeheartedly for their mate, who is treated with love and respect as The One and Only, is unhealthy for human beings?
Yes. The idea that sex is bad unless restricted to a narrow arbitrary situation that does not comply with most people's human sexual desires is not healthy. It leads to disatisfaction with onesself and one's partner and is more often going to lead to disruptive behavior of some kind.
I might add that it has recently been shown that masturbation has health benefits for men. So defiance of some Xian ideals has real world advantages.
while a woman really might have a lot healthier sense of security and healthier self-esteem if she could count on a man's finding all his sexual pleasure with HER just as she is without the threat of his thinking of someone else or wishing she looked or acted different.
She might have an even healthier sense of security and self-esteem if she divorced sexual pleasure from ideas of commited relationships. Hoping to find all one's sexual desires filled from one external source who also takes care of your longterm emotional needs is counter to nature.
At the very least masturbation and fantasy can help a couple stay happy sexually with each other by compensating for the lack of actual diversity. That is where erotica can play a role.
I can't grant you the possibility that you MIGHT be right.
Even in the Xian religion there is only one omnipotent being and I am most certain it is not you. The arrogance you are expressing with that sentiment appears to have reached the point of heresy. Once you admit you are not omnipotent, you must admit you can be wrong. Once you admit you can be wrong, you must admit there is a chance that I could be right... though you doubt it with all your heart and soul.
I ask merely that you grant me the right to HAVE my view and to express it. Occupying a nation together does not require granting the possibility that anyone is right about anything, much less that they ARE right, it only requires that we *tolerate* with some degree of civility each other's views that we nevertheless regard as absolutely totally completely incontrovertibly unmitigatedly and even pigheadedly wrong as judged by our own
I could almost grant you this, but I think tolerance includes the belief that it is okay that I feel my beliefs are right. That is to say that it is not wrong for me to have my beliefs, even if my beliefs are wrong.
If one believes that it is not only that my beliefs are wrong, but that it is wrong for me to even have them, I don't see any amount of tolerance coming from that position. How can we legislate together when we have no common acknowledgement that we will accept as possible within our nation, the other person's beliefs?
If in fact it contributes to increased murder and rape of women in the culture
There is only counterevidence to that "belief" of yours, so there goes that.
or puts pressures on marriages of the sort I have been focusing on
It can but only if a person allows it to by not having a healthy and open relationship (as in honest communication) with one's spouse as well as with onesself. Porn cannot damage something that does not already have some as yet unseen problems.
feeds some men's dehumanizing images of women, as bodies and not persons,
It absolutely certainly can feed some men's dehumanizing images of women. There is just no question of this. The problem being that not all porn can do this and not all men have fantasies, much less live in a reality of dehumanizing women. So yes a select group of sexually explicit images can be used by a select group of men to do something you don't like. Big clue, those same men can use lots of other things to feed those same images without the sexual imagery.
what's neutral about it?
The fact that sexual imagery can be of many different varieties and used in a variety of different ways by people with diverse tastes. It is neutral in aspect until viewed by a subjective individual.
All the same could have been said about Xianity or the Bible. You would likely defend the Bible as having been an inspiration to many. Yep, its neutral.
And if I'm right about these things, there is nothing subjective about my view, it's quite objective.
But you are wrong, so you are not right. Why not read up on the subject rather than continually speculating.
There isn't the slightest pornographic image in the Bible. It describes many sexual situations but there is nothing pornographic -- erotically stimulating -- about any of them.
It is certainly sexually explicit with descriptions of some very violent sexuality. EZEKIEL 23:20 is a very potent passage from the "greatest story ever told".
Girls having sex with men who have dicks like donkeys and cum like horses (or was that the other way around?)? Yeah, the KJ version may have decided to hide the exact wording using some less colorful language, but the meaning is there in spades. It even involves underage sex and rape on the orders of God to fulfill HIS desires.
If put into film directly (literally) as written it would also be pretty steamy and well illegal today. How much running around and sleeping with various people and seductions occur? How about just fantasizing about King David's healthfully described sexual appetites.
Song of Solomon is supposed to be stimulating and is admitted as such by many, so I don't even know where you get off claiming it is never stimulating.
BUT overall porn is massively male-dominated and male-oriented and the women play roles suited to the male fantasies.
Okay, and what exactly is wrong with that? If the majority of buyers are something and so the market reflects that majority... is that bad?
It depends on whether it is good or bad or neutral. I have been arguing all along here that it is bad for relationships, bad for women, bad for marriages etc.
But it isn't bad for all relationships, women, marriages. My guess is it is only bad for bad relationships, insecure women, and bad marriages.
It has actually can help all three which is why it has been popular throughout history and cultures and is growing in popularity now.
Understanding??? Understanding??? Grow???
Yes. Or are you uncertain what the definition of those words are? The question I raise is if a thing (X) leads to a person liking something they had not realized they might like, is that bad or growth?
I would just like to keep the point simple and focused: Male oriented porn often promotes a dehumanizing and demeaning image of women which may have many degrees of exploitative and violent expressions, and is a form of infidelity as experienced by many women.
Well its much simpler than that: porn is a form of erotic entertainment catering to a variety of tastes, so some sections will not appeal to everyone, and insecure women will be unable to differentiate between a man's fantasizing with real infidelity.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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