Prostitution, Pornography,and the Pondering Pig.

I see where Belladonna has posted her thoughts on pornography. In her post, she confronts her own ambivalence about the subject - her personal distaste, her belief that pornography can be addictive for some, but also her deeply held belief in free speech as a key American value.

Her analysis makes sense to this pig, but she comes at it from a different perspective than I do. I'm not a bit ambivalent about pornography.

I feel there are some cosmic issues buried beneath its skin, so to speak. My intuition tells me that pornography breaks, batters and burns the humans posing in front of the camera, creating fountains of shame and feelings of worthlessness -- enough sorrow for a lifetime of repentance --and the pornography consumer is okay with that. It's the price those souls must pay for his pleasure. Their loss will be his gain.

I am not talking about Sin with a capital S here. That's God's department and he is a forgiver. I am talking about human hearts. I am talking about the hearts of eight year olds, eighteen year olds and twenty-eight year olds. I am talking about the guys too, although I have less compassion for them because I am one.

Some young guys may have a different perspective. When I was young I thought Playboy Magazine's Playmate of the Month was a definite advance in human society and when, along about 1971, the Playmates began to show pubic hair, I thought I was living through great times. Now that's freedom of expression! More to ogle on the wall while hanging out down at the print shop. I would just love to talk with those Playmates today and see how they feel about that episode in their lives. (How about that for a blog project?). Maybe I'm completely wrong. Maybe they look back on that time, when millions of guys used their photograph for secret purposes behind locked doors, as a high point of their cute little lives. I just doubt it.

Playmates were and are socially acceptible, normal, heterosexual cheesecake girls. Not scrungy models for pornography, which was that creepy stuff with closeup shots of human organs entangled. In those days I assumed pornography was made for socially inept freaks and was just an odd byway of society. It was an object of curiosity to me but not desire. I didn't know a single guy with a pornography collection. And, come to thing of it, I knew some really socially inept freaks.

San Francisco psychiatrist Melissa Farley has done a lot of counseling to prostitutes. She writes she has never yet ever met a woman who chose prostitution (or pornographic modeling) as a career because she thought it would be fun and rewarding. I believe she said without exception every prositute she worked with had been sexually molested within the family as a child.

So I believe (but I have no conclusive proof) that pornographic models are mostly kids and young adults who have already been battered into numbness in homeless homes, loveless laps, and hopeless couplings. Kids who are already seriously into soul-dulling drugs and who need access to a lot of money to get more of them. Kids who own nothing but sorrow and nothing left to lose.

Like most pigs, I have a heart and a mind as well as a penis. And my piggish mind tells me these two "coupled" industries - prostitution and pornography - are just two more examples of the powerful preying on the weak, the winners enslaving the losers, and the fat cats once again lighting their cigars on the bodies of the hopeless and helpless.

And it just freaks me out and I start getting mad, and I storm around the Pigsty until that frustrated feeling goes away. And then I sit down and try to forget it by reading some foolishness about how John Carter of Mars saves the beautiful Dejah Thoris from certain destruction by the Toad-Monsters of Illyria. Is there a relationship here?

And I keep hearing that little kid crying in the jungle. Or on the streets of Las Vegas. So I think, "I know. I'll give more money to the International Justice Mission or somebody like that. They'll save the kids with their lawyers and undercover investigators and white hats." (I like these guys, this is not satire) They do a great job, but it's no good. I don't get that warm feeling of satisfaction I'm craving (see Christian Hedonism and thanks Phil Plympton) from looking at my stupid Visa statement.

There has to be more. Something we can DO to make the world right again. And don't tell me I should go pray. Because I already did that. And you know what He said? Go read Psalm 10. So I did. I should just quote the whole thing here, but here's a link instead.

Somehow I don't think God's plan is for us to pray for Him to "break the arm of the wicked" and then go mow the lawn. I think that's the whole problem, in fact. Did the Christian Abolitionists pray to God to end slavery and then go to Bermuda on their Christian Luxury Prayer Cruise (thanks, Spoke for that unforgettable image) Did they go watch TV, secure and comfortable in their knowledge they had done all they could have done? No, they started the Underground Railroad!

What's wrong with us? What's gone wrong? I feel like something big has gone wrong, including in me and I'm just starting to see it again.

I hope I'm not making anyone uncomfortable here. If I am, I'll drop everything and make tea and little sandwiches. And then we can do a nice Bible Study and all feel better.

Screech! Little sweat drops fly off the Pondering Pig's forehead like in old-time comics.

I know there's a million holes in this argument. It's okay if you want to point them out. But, please, is there anybody out there who thinks I might be right?