What Is Porn?
You’ve maybe never thought about what defines pornography, and maybe it seems like a basic question. However, in the 1960s there was a lawsuit regarding a film and whether it was pornography and should be banned from theaters. Very smart people spent a very long time trying to determine what defines something as pornography. After much deliberation, what they could come up with is,
“I know it when I see it.”
Since then, the smart people have come up with this description:
“Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.”
This seems clear-cut, but can raise a lot of questions if we dig into the weeds. How do we measure intent, what if someone’s just trying to be artistic? A lot of things on Youtube are very erotically stimulating; couldn’t that be considered pornography?
The reason for this long-standing debate comes down to money. Sex sells, so some people would like to include as much of it as possible. However not too much, because something PG-13 or R-rated has a much wider audience than something X-rated.
When it comes to your recovery, we want to offer a much simpler definition,
“Anything that stimulates you sexually that is not your spouse.”
The goal of sexual integrity is a rock-your-world sexual relationship with your spouse. Amazing, earth-shattering sex. The more distracted you are by other sexual stimuli, the less possible that becomes.
In the beginning stages of recovery, some people have a difficult time letting go of yellow circle activities (see lesson Triggers 101). Maybe they have a few acquaintances on Facebook that they keep around because they enjoy the photos they post. Maybe they watch stand-up comedy on Youtube that has a lot of sexual references. This is also known as edging. People get tiny pings of sexual reminders throughout their day, acting as little endorphin boosts. People also play the “how close can I get to porn without looking at porn” game.
The more of these little pings that you cut out of your life, the more success you’ll experience with sexual integrity.
What are some yellow circle (edging) activities you need to cut out of your life?