Erotica or Pornography?

Brian HaddonThe recent discussion in the Human Rights Council concerning non-consensual sex and child marriage in particular, estimated that within the next 10 years more that 100 million girls are likely to be married before the age of 18. Much progress needs to be made in countries where such practice is common. In countries in which child marriage is rare we need to address other practices which permit, encourage or condone non-consensual sex. Pornography is such a practice.In the 1960’s there was much talk about Ban the Bomb and War. There was also much talk about Free Love. Since then the common assumption is that this “permissive” age led to today’s acceptance of pornography, increased Sexually Transmitted Disease and high teenage pregnancy. A lot of people do not know that Eroticism and Pornography are very different.

Men and women have erogenous zones. They like to be touched; it gives them pleasure and is pre-requisite to consensual sex. Since human beings developed imagination feelings can be roused without being touched. These physiological and psychological processes are normal. Culture affects these matters according to the attitude of those who lead.

In my book, Let the Debates Begin, I suggest that early tribal leaders, like the animals they were, concerned themselves with survival. Sex, Food, Hunting and Warfare were the necessary issues to be controlled by competitive means. Leadership gave rights alongside responsibilities. Later, as knowledge began to be accumulated, religion was invented to protect those who pursued knowledge from the violence which was, and is, still part of the human process.

It was further suggested that politics is supposed to be the way of dealing with the conflicting dynamics of knowledge and animal instincts. The book suggests that political and religious leaders succumbed to preservation of their own power over and above leading people to a better society. A society where knowledge would increasingly determine events rather than the baser processes. Political and Religious leaders learned that they could manipulate people’s emotions by denying them access to unprejudiced knowledge. This denial is still regularly debated by those who have sufficient knowledge to identify it.

It should be noted that many religious books, especially the Old Testament of the Bible give prominence to the control of sexual processes whilst seeming to condone sexual abduction, forced marriage and the killing of innocent men, women and children as well as the annexation of other people’s land.

Erotic art forms of all kind do rouse sexual emotions. As these emotions are natural there would seem to be no real problem with erotica. It does not seek to harm or corrupt.

Pornography seeks to rouse all kind of emotions, especially those sexual and violent. It pursues this end without regard to whether it will cause harm or corrupt people. It does not differentiate between adult consent to the sex that it portrays or violent invasive sex. It does not care about the anti social effect that it’s violence may encourage. It’s values and activities are obscene in that it does not care if it crosses the line marking normal standards of decency; in fact it seems to deliberately do so in it’s pursuit of the extreme.

From the beginnings of religion and politics, it has been known that knowledge is power. By seeking to monopolise knowledge those leaders corrupted other people’s development. In the matter of pornography the need for control was vigorously broadcast by Mary Whitehouse, in her reaction to the “permissive society” of the 1960’s. One of the more sensible things that she said was that there should be research into the effects of pornography. The religious leaders from whom she sought support, continued to include all erotic material in discussing pornography.

Academics know that good research will set out to prove the negative and will only seriously look at an assertion which has been tested in this way. The negative may not have been proven but the balance of probability gives credence. When pornography began to grow it was reasonably suggested that it might have damaging effects to society, particularly the young. Those promoting pornography argued that there was no evidence that pornography had any bad effects. At this stage the political legislators could have differentiated between erotica and pornography and insisted that those issuing pornographic material should have to prove that the material did not tend to damage those who experienced it.

The pornographers cleverly posed the question of control as a human rights issue; a curtailment of free speech. Because erotica was included in the process the academics and supporters of the arts were up in arms against any curtailment of “free speech”. Lady Chatterley’s Lover was described as pornographic in court. The judgement against the prosecution was correct as the book was erotic, not pornographic in as much as it described consensual sex. However the expensive loss made any prosecution of pornographers prohibitive. Regrettably the judgement proved to be a green light not for erotica but the whole sordid world of pornography.

Pornography should be thought of in terms of violence as well as sex. Violence is obscene like non-consensual sex. In it’s relationship with erotica pornography should be defined as obscene erotica. As obscene, it should be controlled by some process or another as should all obscene activities. By definition they have gone further than decency should allow. Erotica may stimulate sexual emotions but the healthy sex act is a private sensitive affair. Sex in public is not erotic it is pornography. Participants in pornography are debased by it. They are being humiliated and treated without respect as commodities to be sold to insensitive people, men in the main, who seek gratuitous stimulation without any responsibility.

Erotica is a celebration of the joys of private consensual sex. Erotica is perverted by commercial considerations into pornography, which is licensed by politicians. Religious leaders argue against people enjoying sex in it’s own right and seek to shackle it in any way they can by calling all sexual activities pornographic unless it conforms to their own interpretations.

The description of sexual acts in words, film, art in all it’s forms is erotica and should be permitted except when it is describing non-consensual sex. This is pornographic and should not be allowed to be displayed. The display of gratuitous violence is also pornographic and should not be allowed.

August 2, 2007 · Filed Under Culture, Society

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