What Is Pornography?
One of the things that often becomes a topic of discussion within my conversations with clients is a question that I ask them when they struggle to put porn behind them.
What is pornography?
I think that we believe this to be a fairly straightforward question with a really simple answer and I don’t think that is really the case.
The late justice of the supreme court, Potter Stewart, in a landmark case regarding obscenity, made it clear that when answering this question, we know what it is. Is response was essentially, “I know it when I see it.”
So, let me talk you through a more technical definition, a typical LDS definition, and then I’ll share with you my personal definition.
The definition that I believe I often find used in technical papers and scientific journals of pornography is, I’m paraphrasing, “media depictions of real people, really having sex or masturbating.” This is how the Oxford dictionary says it. “books, magazines, movies, etc., with no artistic value that describes or show sexual acts or naked people in a way that is intended to be sexually exciting:”
I take that to mean that the people making porn are making it with the real sensation of sexual organs being used to generate the content.
That is a somewhat narrow definition and not one that I think a lot of people who listen to this podcast will agree with, but it is probably the most widely accepted definition from an academic perspective.
This is where we see the difference between performative media that includes nudity or even sex that is part of the story, which we see more regularly within the various streaming services, and pornography that is being produced simply for the purpose of arousal.
This isn’t my definition, but it is a distinction that you might find helpful in the process of learning how to decrease the emotion behind your understanding of pornography and how it is impacting your life and your relationships.
What I would like you to see in this distinction is simply that not all nudity, sex, or sexuality is equal. When I was in my early 20’s there was a sister who was an artist studying at the University of Chicago Illinois who was telling me about some of the nudes that she was drawing, painting, and sketching. It made me very uncomfortable because I had this sense that all nudity was pornographic and that good sisters in the church would never engage in that sort of activity.
That may make you uncomfortable and that may not be valuable for you and your spouse to make the distinctions just yet, but it is important that you take a moment and decide if the ways that you’ve been thinking about nudity, sex, or sexuality are currently helpful to your capacity to create the thriving life you want or have they been holding you back.
The second definition is probably the one that you are most familiar with, possible the one that you will agree the most with, and maybe the one that you were most likely taught either implicitly or explicitly as a member of the church.
For this I’ll share with you Darcy’s thoughts on it.
From Darcy- I know for me when you were struggling with pornography, I viewed pornography as pretty much anything that made me feel the slightest bit uncomfortable. That could be a woman wearing a bikini, a sex scene in a network TV show, or even just a very beautiful woman that I felt threatened by. Now I realize that the three things I mentioned just now are not really what I would consider pornography, but the way my body reacted to those “threats” felt like pornography to me. Looking back, I can see how this idea was not very helpful for either Zach or me. It created a great deal of anxiety for both Zach and me.
I’ve heard people talk about others as “walking pornography”. I’ve also heard church leaders, including one last year at girls camp tell our daughters about the time he saw a young woman in a bikini and that made him uncomfortable.
I think we can call this the all things that are sexual and non-sexual that have to do with too much skin, sex scenes, immodesty at any level, or just she’s pretty and he might look at her theory of pornography.
This was a really difficult way to live. It was difficult to live because when I was around Darcy, I had to make a show of not seeing anything so she could feel safe. It was also difficult to live when I was all by myself because simply the mere noticing of another woman who isn’t Darcy and finding them attractive at any level made me feel that I was a deeply flawed and unrighteous, unworthy person.
I want you to see how impossible a standard this is, and this is part of the work Darcy and I do in our individual coaching with our clients, especially those who want to really thrive beyond pornography, is we deconstruct this in our minds to make a livable standard.
The way I see this standard is, if someone is beautiful or attractive at any level, then I’m not allowed to notice them, acknowledge that beauty, or appreciate their attractiveness. Meanwhile, biology has me seeing beauty in the world around me, acknowledging it, and appreciating it with every pass of my eyeball. That, by the way, is exactly how I found such an attractive woman to marry.
In part, this standard can have a component of jealousy, and in part, it can have a component of trying to manage sexuality out of our sight.
Meanwhile, biology is working directly against these things to bring us together with an attractive partner.
I think it’s important to acknowledge here that choosing pornography is not something I advocate for, and if your reasoning is, well, I just find it so attractive that I can’t help but seek it. I think you need to be able to see the difference between seeing something and acknowledging or appreciating it and seeking something for self-gratification, especially at the expense of your values.
With that said, taking a look at this definition is about realizing that if we set up an impossible standard, keeping that standard becomes a self-defeating process that demoralizes anyone who tries to live it because it is both unrealistic and impossible to live in society without seeing beauty.
I once had a client tell me that he just wanted it to be that he was only attracted to his wife and no one else. I told him that if his wife was the only attractive woman out there, every other man on the planet would be at a loss.
We all want to be able to find others attractive, both men and women want this power, because it is good, and useful when we employ it in the service of living our values.
Ok, the final definition is my own definition of what pornography is, and this is more a philosophy than a definition, so bear with me.
When I think about sexual imagery, videos, photos, statues, or even descriptions, as you might find in books called erotica, I bring a test to whether I will choose to engage with them.
The test is simply this, is this media drawing me into choosing to take my sexuality toward it and away from my wife?
Let me give you an example. We were watching a movie the other night that was rated PG. In one of the scenes, the main male character, pre-love interest in the main female character, walks in on the woman in her bra and underwear. Did I notice she was basically dressed in a bikini? Yes. Did I see her and acknowledge that she was an attractive woman? Yes. Was I drawn into trying to take my sexuality toward her and away from my wife? No.
In years past, I would have pretended not to see, but seeing, lingered on the image in my mind to effectively draw up sexual feelings in myself toward this image. Now, I see it, and I don’t let myself get derailed by it. It went by unremarked on by Darcy.- (Darcy remarked on this as we were writing this, “I didn’t even remember that scene nor did it “trigger” me one bit. In years past that would have ended up as a long conversation about what was going on for him and if that was going to lead to porn. It would have been a little thing that would get blown up into this big deal and would have taken all the focus. Instead of enjoying the movie, I would have been worried about that very innocent scene and missed the cute little story. “
I think we do ourselves a disservice by being overly conscientious of how much of another person’s skin we can see before we are lost in the sea of pornography is everywhere.
The nakedness of others is not what is at issue here for most of us. I know it really isn’t for me. If I were an ER doctor and the most beautiful woman in the world were brought into the OR with a gunshot wound, one of the first things that happens is all the person’s clothes are cut off.
That person’s nakedness isn’t sexual or meant to draw in the sexuality of anyone.
What I choose to do with what I see, whether I move toward my values or away from them, determines who I am.
zachspafford.com
Transcript
Episode 176
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[:Zach Spafford: Hey everybody and welcome to Thrive Beyond Pornography. I'm your host Zach Spafford. Tonight I'm flying solo because Darcy has, uh, Darcy has one of our kids. It's urgent care, so it's not too bad, but, um, who knows what's going on with him. We're going to figure that out and, uh, let you know, but I think, I'm sure he's fine.
Alright, he's just been lethargic, just in case you wanted to know. I know I would want to know. Somebody would say that and be like, What's happening? What's going on? He's just lethargic. Maybe he's just Got the flu. We don't know, but she needed to take him into the, into the urgent care. So she's off and I'm here with you guys.
I'm looking forward to having this conversation with you. One of the things that often comes up and becomes a topic of discussion with my, uh, in my conversations with Our clients, uh, and with the clients that Darcy works with, the, with the wives that Darcy works with, is a question that I ask them when they struggle to put porn behind them.
A lot of times, we have these really rigid ideas about things, and it's important to start putting some definitions around those things to kind of help us loosen up what's going on around a particular idea. So the question that I often ask is, What is pornography? And I think we think this is a fairly straightforward question with a really simple answer and, you know, I don't think that's actually the case.
The late Justice of the Supreme Court, uh, Potter Stewart, in a landmark case regarding obscenity made it really clear that when answering this question we, we know what it is. His response was essentially I know it when I see it. So let me talk you through, uh, we're going to talk into three different spaces.
I'm going to talk through a more technical definition. I'm going to talk about a typical Christian or LDS definition, and then I'm going to share with you my own personal definition. So let's start with that technical definition. The definition that I believe It is most often used in technical papers and scientific journals of pornography is, and I'm going to paraphrase this a little bit, media depictions of real people really having sex or masturbating.
So that's, and when I say media depictions, that's whatever medium that is visual medium usually. This is how the Oxford Dictionary says it. It's books, magazines, movies, etc. with no artistic value that describes or shows actual acts or naked people in a way that is intended to be sexually exciting. So I take that to mean that people making porn are making it with the real sensation of sexual organs being used to generate the content and for simply the purpose of generating sexually exciting content.
Okay? So that is a somewhat narrow definition. Not. Not, maybe the one that I think a lot of people who listen to this podcast would agree with, and maybe you would agree with it, but it is probably the most widely accepted technical definition from an academic perspective. So this is where we see the difference between performative media that includes nudity or even sex that is part of the story, which we're, you know, maybe we're watching something where there's, uh, a brief bit of nudity where you have sex.
You know, someone who may be naked, maybe, maybe you see a dude's butt. That is not what this definition would call pornography. And you're seeing a lot more of that in the streaming services that you find. And, and that is different than. What you find that is being produced simply for the purpose of arousal and to the point of arousal.
So this isn't my definition, but it is a distinction that you may find helpful, especially if you're in the process of learning how to decrease your emotion behind your understanding of pornography and how it's impacting your life and your relationships. And that's, so I want to kind of take a little side tangent here.
Decreasing your emotion behind what it is that you think about pornography is a valuable tool because that allows you to be more clear about how you can actually deal with it rather than being caught up in the emotion of it. And that's something that you, you know, we work on with our clients quite regularly.
But what I would like you to see in this distinction is simply that all nudity, sex, or sexuality is not equal. So let me repeat that. Not all nudity, sex or sexuality is equal. When I was in my early twenties, there was this sister in our young, uh, single adults ward who was an artist and she was studying at the university of Chicago, Illinois.
drawing. So she would go to [:Was it a, a behind? Was it a full frontal? Whatever it was, right? She was talking about this nudity. And the, the artistic presence that she was bringing to that nudity and how important it was to her to be able to draw and sketch and paint this perspective to further herself as an artist. And. You know, honestly, it made me really uncomfortable because I had this sense, you know, I was young.
Uh, this is right after my mission and a little bit before my mission. So I went to this single adult ward before my mission for a little while with my older brother. And then when I came back for my mission, I went by myself and In, in these conversations that I had with her, you know, I was like, man, this doesn't seem like something that a good sister in the church would ever do or engage in that sort of activity.
Interestingly, she, she was a very stalwart member of the church, a return missionary. She married the elders quorum president of our singles ward and just phenomenal people. She was the daughter of one of the members of the state presidency. Which, none of these things are guarantees of good people, but it, that was just kind of the context that I had around it, and I was like, man, what's going on here?
And it made me uncomfortable, and I think this may make you uncomfortable as you're listening to me talk about this. Uh, and, and it may not be valuable for you to think about it this way, or for your spouse to make these distinctions just yet. But it is important that you take a moment and decide if the ways that you have been thinking about nudity, Sex or sexuality are currently helpful to your capacity to create the thriving life that you want, or have they been holding you back is what you're believing about what you see helping you, or is it creating a great deal of emotion that holds you back from really engaging in meaningful conversation and dialogue around this issue.
So the second definition is probably the one that you may be most familiar with, possibly the one that you will agree with the most, and it might. even be the one that you were most likely taught either implicitly or explicitly as a member of the church. I know that this is basically where, what I was taught.
And for this, for this one, I'm going to actually share you Darcy's thoughts on it. So she and I were writing this together while she was at the, at the, at the urgent care with our son. Uh, and she's not back yet, but we were writing it together in tandem and this is, this was her thought. I know, for me, when you were struggling with pornography, I viewed pornography as pretty much anything that made me feel the slightest bit uncomfortable.
That could be a woman wearing a bikini, a sex scene in a TV network show, or even just a very beautiful woman that I felt threatened by. Now I realize that the three things I mentioned just now are not really what I would consider pornography. By the way, my body reacted to those threats, quote unquote threats, and it felt like pornography to me.
Looking back, I can see how this idea was not very helpful for either Zach or I. It created a great deal of anxiety for both Zach and me. So, you know, I, I've heard people talk about Others, you know, as walking pornography, I don't know if you've ever heard that term, it's an interesting term, you know, Somebody's like, man, that girl's walking pornography, I've heard that term.
I've also heard church leaders, including one last year at girls camp, tell our daughters and the young women in our ward about a time that he saw a young woman in a bikini and that made him uncomfortable, to which, you know, I'm like, okay. That's a problematic meaning frame that you're offering children.
Uh, and I, I think, and, and, You know, you may have had this same, uh, experience, you may have had similar experiences or you may have never had these experiences, but you may understand or at least recognize what it is that I'm talking about here and it's, it's really important to, to kind of suss this out and, and understand, I'm not asking people to change their definition.
I'm not saying that you're wrong in your definition necessarily. Although, if you're going to show up at Young Women's Camp and you're going to tell girls that you saw a girl in a bikini and that gave you feelings and that girls need to manage your feelings by not wearing bikinis, you are wrong. I'm going to tell you that one straight up, right?
is a really all encompassing [:It's a really It's a really broad version of what is pornography. So this is, this, this was really difficult to live with. It was difficult to live with because when I was around Darcy, I had to make a show of not seeing anything so she could feel safe, so I could manage her feelings, is what was really happening.
It was also difficult to live when I was all by myself because simply the mere noticing of another woman who isn't Darcy and finding them attractive at any level made me feel that I was deeply flawed.
I want you to see how impossible a standard this is. And this is part of the work that Darcy and I do in our individual coaching with our clients, especially those who want to really thrive beyond pornography, is that we deconstruct this in our minds to create a more livable standard. The way I see this standard is, if someone is beautiful or attractive at any level, then I'm not allowed to notice them.
acknowledge that beauty or appreciate their attractiveness, right? That that's the standard that I think that we are setting up here. Meanwhile, we have biology working and biology has me seeing beauty in the world around me. I can acknowledge it and I am acknowledging it whether I like to or not. I'm acknowledging the beauty around me in the world, whether that's sexual.
or non sexual in nature. That's literally the component of biology that is at work at all times. And I'm appreciating it. With every single pass of my eyeball. That, by the way, is exactly how I found such an attractive wife to marry. I was like, wow, she's beautiful. I want to have a conversation with her.
That was the very first part component of the way that I found Darcy. I'll, I'll be honest that you might think I'm shallow because of it, but I don't think I'm shallow. I believe that is, uh, basically part of the biology. In part, this standard can have a component of jealousy in it, and in part, it can have a component of trying to manage sexuality out of our sight.
So we're taking, we're saying to our sexuality, Okay, well, now that we're married or now that we're whatever, we have to take this sexuality out of our sight. And I'm, I'm not saying that That there isn't value in managing ourselves to that point, what I'm saying is, if we think that we're going to be able to see people and not think they're attractive, then we're working against biology, right?
Biology is working directly against these ideas. to bring us together with an attractive partner. That's, that's the way it works. I think it's important to acknowledge here that choosing pornography is not something I advocate for. And if your reasoning is, well, I just find it so attractive that I can't help but seek it.
I think you need to be able to see the difference between seeing something and acknowledging or appreciating it and seeking something for self gratification, especially at the expense of your values. So with that said, taking a look at this definition is about realizing that if we set up an impossible standard.
Which I think this is. Keeping that standard becomes a self defeating process that demoralizes anyone who tries to live it because it's both unrealistic and impossible to live in a society without seeing beauty. You know, I once had a client who, he told me he just wanted it to be, you know, he just wanted to like be able to wave a magic wand and make it so that he was only attracted to his wife and no one else.
And I told him, you know, if, if your wife is the only attractive woman out there, every other man on the planet is going to be at a loss. We're all going to be like, man, we, we didn't get the attractive wife and that, that is not a standard or a process that we can actually put into place. I, uh, we, we all want to be able to find others attractive.
Both men and women, by the way, want this power because it's good. And it's useful when we employ it in the service of living our values. Okay, so the final definition is my own definition of what pornography is. And it is a, you know, more a philosophy than maybe a definition. So bear with me as I talk through this.
But when I think about sexual imagery, photos Statues, so I served my mission in Italy, naked statues everywhere. You're like, that's an interesting image to put out. Uh, you know, naked Roman statues everywhere. Uh, we have this place, uh, in Naples called Capodimonte, which is literally translated top of the mountain.
And You would go, it was a beautiful garden, much like you would think Central Park is. I've never been to Central Park, but much like I would think Central Park is. It's just a big, large park in the middle of Naples and lining the entire park, giant naked statues, men, women, everything. Uh, so when I think about sexual imagery, photos, Statues, videos, or even descriptions, uh, you know, the kind you might find in books that are basically called erotica.
I bring a test [:It was not rated R. It was not rated PG 13. This movie was rated PG. I think the name of the movie was Leap Year. Cute movie. Little, it was a rom com. I admit, I watched a rom com on purpose. Uh, you can come and take my man card from me if you want. So in one of the scenes, the main character Pre love interest in the, sorry, the main, the main male character, during a scene that is pre love interest, so before he is falling in love with the main female character, he walks in on the, on this woman in her bra and underwear, and I, I noticed.
So, right, obviously I noticed, I was watching the movie. So my, my, my thoughts here are, did I notice that she was basically dressed in a bikini? Yeah, totally, I totally noticed that, 100%. Did I see her and acknowledge that she was an attractive woman? Yes, obviously she was an attractive woman, otherwise they would not have made the movie.
Let's be, let's be honest and real about this. And that's just the way that it works. I'm not, I'm observing the system. I am not advocating for it, right? So I noticed she was attractive. I acknowledged she was attractive. Was I trying, uh, Was I drawn into trying to take my sexuality toward her and away from Darcy?
The answer to that was no. In, in past years I would have pretended not to see. I would have been like, Oh, I didn't even see her there. Looking at my phone or whatever. I would have made an excuse if Darcy had brought it up, and I'm gonna tell you her Her part of this story in a minute But I would have pretended not to see but in seeing I would have lingered on that image in my mind to effectively draw up Sexual feelings in myself towards that image partly because it was forbidden.
It was like this. Oh, I can't see this but oh, that's hot right now I see it and I just I don't let myself get derailed by it and it literally went unremarked on by Darcy She didn't say anything about it. So this is her This is Darcy's, uh, take on this after telling her about this story. She's like, I didn't even remember that scene, nor did it quote unquote trigger me one bit.
In years past, that would've ended up as a long conversation about what was going on for Zack, right? She would've been like, what's going on for you? Like, are you seeing this? Tell me about this. And, is this gonna lead to porn? Right? That was one of my favorite questions that I always hated to answer for her.
Because she would ask that question, is this going to lead to porn? And it would have been, this is, so this is continuing Darcy's comments, it would have been a little, a little thing that would get blown up into this big deal and would have taken all the focus from the movie. So instead of enjoying the movie, I would have been worried about the very innocent scene and missed the cute little story.
I think we do ourselves a disservice by being overly conscientious or super strict about how much skin we see and, and whether or not we're seeing skin or whether or not this person is too attractive, like going back to that definition, second definition where it's like when we do all that, um, that maneuvering to make sure that we never see or never engage with anything that might remotely be And again, I'm not saying go out of your way to find sexuality outside of your world.
I'm not saying that at all. What we do in that process is we like get really like freaked out about anything that might in any way be threatening to our sexual relationship or to our, our comfort around sexuality. And that can be problematic because that can lead into having, Difficulty in our bedroom relationship around our sexuality and it can lead to not being able to fully Become free in our sexuality with our partner.
The nakedness of others is not what is really at issue here for most of us I know it it really isn't what's at issue for me You know if I were an ER doctor the most beautiful woman in the world were brought into the OR With a gunshot wound, one of the very first things that happens when you are brought into the OR with a gunshot wound.
t time you see me, because I [:That person's nakedness isn't sexual, and it's not meant to draw any sexuality of anyone. And what I want you to see, this is really the crux of this entire thing. What is pornography isn't even really the question. It's what do I choose to do with what I see and am I moving towards my values or am I moving away from them?
And that is what determines who I am. Alright my friends. I love you guys. Sign up for free consult. I want to see you. Make a move. Do something, make a change, go to Zach Spafford. com slash work with Zach. And I will see you guys next week. Bye.
