Porn and Christians

[TheRocketSurgeon]

I think you are conflating porn and sex, when in reality they are very different. Porn is not a replacement for actual sex, nor should it be, but rather it's a form of entertainment. The goal of watching porn is more often than not, self pleasure, whereas the goal of sex is about pleasuring your partner (and being pleasured in return).

I know you say that watching other people doesn't get you in the mood, but in the call you also said that you'd never watched porn before, so I find this doubtful. There's an instinctual level that comes into play when watching sex, and I think if you watched the more artful kinds of porn (rather than anything "hardcore") you'd find yourself being turned on by it.

Quick question as a follow up: have you ever looked through a series of nude photographs (of just women)? If so, did you get turned on by those?

I suppose I can see the delineation you are making there.  I equate porn with the hardcore stuff.  Though I guess an R rated movie with a racy sex scene can equally be described as porn and would fall under that "entertainment" as you say.  So I guess the hardcore porn or purpose of watching two people just having sex to be entertained is not appealing to me.   In the context of a movie with a story and a clear emotional attachment, yes that certainly can get me in the mood, but it's more because of the passion and connectedness of the actors in the scene and not the physical act itself.  Sure I've seen porn but never by my own conscious decision.  Im in IT, so the number of infected computers I've seen with porn on it is innumerable but there is big difference in seeing it and making a decision to watch it, so I should have clarified. 

I've seen nude photographs of women sure.  I've been to museums where the human body is proudly displayed as art and I've not been turned on by it.  For me it's the connection and passion.

I haven't completely caught up on the thread, so this may have been addressed already... but I wanted to say that while I have libertine views about other  people's chosen methods of sexuality, I am fairly "traditional" in that respect. On the other hand, I've done almost everything it's possible for a straight guy to enjoy, since I'm not averse to a "try it to see if you like it" philosophy. 

While I won't say that I'm not turned on by porn, I tend not to enjoy it for its own sake; watching strangers having sex (knowing it is for money and is often exploitive, I'm especially turned off  if I see elements in it that make my brain call BS) does very little for me. To me, it is about intimacy and connection, and there's very little of that in porn. I have found some erotic literature that does it for me, since that more commonly has story and a sense of interpersonal connection.

I think that what you said about artistic nudes is a good point. We see sexual arousal in things more easily if we consider them taboo, something which has that element of danger/excitement to it, which might account for the higher rates of religious types engaging in those activities. I have a friend who used to run a swingers' club, and I joked about hippies with him, one time, and he quickly corrected me: his main customers, by far, were the ultra-conservative types. He joked in return that his club's parking lot on a Saturday night had so many Republican bumper stickers that it looked like a GOP/CPAC convention.