I thought this was divergent enought to start a new thread.
I am not a Christian, but a friend of mine really wanted me to ask this…
How do you feel about pornography and viewing pornography?
Sick, wrong, addictive, and exploitive of women?
fine, fun, healthy?
Other?
And my friend would really like to know when you answer, whether you consider yourself Christian, go to a church regularly.
Or are you one of those faithless heathens like me.
Religion: agnostic
Pornography: most is harmless fun, some is exploitative, some is downright nasty. I don’t believe it’s addictive in and of itself.
As a Mormon, I like the one with 8 women tackling a bearded fellow out in a plowed field.
I used to have a lot of pornography, but then my pornograph broke and I had nothing to play it on.
I’m agnostic and male. I got no problem with most of it. Men do it because it’s there. Many do, some don’t. Not everyone gets the same thing out of the same thing.
I’m a married, Christian woman and I dig pornography the most, cats.
I have a moderate collection of videos and books and I do a round robin porn exchange with my girlfriends. It’s very arousing to watch alone or with my husband.
J
I’m atheist. Porn isn’t my thing. I don’t like that DH has a lot of it, but that is because I’m insecure. I like erotica though - no real people.
Of course bestiality, kiddy porn etc are absolutely wrong, no exceptions, but other than that I don’t think it should be illegal.
Religion: Halfhearted Catholic
I’m all for it. I like it written better than anything, but I’m not overly picky. Videos, pictures, stories—Bring it on, baby.
I don’t think it’s addictive, or that there’s anything inherently wrong or evil about it. There’s lots of bizarre and extreme stuff out there that isn’t necessarily my cup of tea, but to each his own, eh?
bella
Religion: Other (Sorry, I really don’t have a good answer for that.)
Porn: Great stuff, no problems with it at all. However, kiddie porn is rightfully illegal (and sick and twisted). As for the other stuff like bestiality, not my thing but until horse/dog racing is banned, I don’t think it should be illegal.
Unitarian Universalist that attends regularly.
Porn is OK by me provided it doesn’t involved children.
Christian female here.
Fine, fun and healthy*.
*Of course anything can be unhealthy if abused, but I feel porn can be a healthy aid to a normal sex life, giving it a little ‘spice’.
Religion: Raised Christian, not so much of a churchgoer anymore, but still a believer.
Porn passes the time on a slow afternoon or evening. Porn puts wonderfully naughty ideas in my head. Porn’s amusing, and sometimes downright hysterical. Porn’s a low-comedic parodic genre that at its best displays a sense of humor and wit Hollywood will never embrace. Porn often sometimes approaches social and cultural issues from unique points of view. When it’s good, porn is imaginative and inspirational. When it isn’t, it’s grainy, disturbing, and nauseating.
Christian. Non-regular church-goer.
My attitude has definitely evolved over time. Back when I was a late teen, I would have sided with the wives who feel wronged by their husband’s enjoyment of porn-- I thought that it objectified women, and I hated the idea of “my” man looking at another women with lust intense enough to lead to orgasm. It creeped me out, frankly.
However, I grew up. And in doing so, I learned how to talk openly with the man that I eventually married. Being involved in a long-term, committed sexual relationship didn’t curb my desire to get off by myself sometimes. Why should I expect anything different of my husband?
More importantly, I got familiar with what he liked to look at, and learned that it wasn’t this horribly depraved, misogynistic experience. It was grown, consenting adults with attractive bodies acting out sexy scenarios. Stuff that’s fun to think about, even if I would never want to do it (or them) in real life. It’s escapist entertainment that is, to me, much less philosophically objectionable than the glorified murder, drug use and theft infinitely recycled in mainstream, theater-released movies that sometimes don’t even get a PG-13 rating. I think it’s really odd that people of all stripes would rather have their kid see a movie graphically depicting one human being killing another than a movie depicting two consenting adults have sex.
Porn can be any of those adjectives you listed, depending on who created it and for what audience. There is some very disturbing stuff out there that I believe is exploitive of the women filmed, but I don’t believe that a genre of entertainment can, as a whole, be exploitive to women, as a whole. I am not exploited when some 18-year-old chick agrees (as some spam in my Inbox would purport) to be filmed doing something with a horse. My husband does not treat me with less respect because he has viewed porn. If anything, his respect increases when I’m willing to try stuff out, and enthusiastically, too.
Religion: vaguely Christian
While I don’t have problems with erotic stories or cartoons- hell, I sort of like them- I don’t like stuff that involves real people. While many people enjoy working in the porn industry, there still are a lot of people who are victimized in creating anything that involves film (be it photos or movie), and it makes me sad.
Athiest
Porn is good… 
Athist woman here.
I like porn. I really don’t get what’s not to like…
Guy who believes in God but thinks every particular religion is wrong and that God pretty clearly doesn’t care if we understand him/her/they.
Porn - mostly fine. Clearly a problem for some people: http://www.improvisation.ws/mb/showthread.php?threadid=4475&pagenumber=1 , but some people will get addicted to anything.
Gay male here, so I can guarantee the porn I watch does not exploit women.
Frankly, I don’t see why anybody has a problem with porn. Men, genrally speaking, require visual stimulation in order to get off, and this is supplied by porn when a man is horny and his partner is not available or interested. All men–straight or gay, married or single–jerk off; it’s just a fact of life.
Women should not feel threatened because their men like to wank to pictures of Anna Kournikova or Erika Eleniak. Looking at naked women is perfectly natural, and in no way distracts from a man’s love or desire for his wife.
And the Christian fundamentalists who have the vapors at the mere thought of people having s-e-x, and who are even now trying to ban adult films from hotel pay-per-view channels can go soak their heads. Just because they’re too immature to handle adult sexuality doesn’t mean they should be allowed to choose what other people watch.
I’m independently and atypically religious, I guess; and I’m fine with the IDEA of porn but the implementation leaves a lot to be, if you’ll pardon the expression, desired.
Religion: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormon.
Opinion: It’s poison. You may ingest it if you so desire, but keep it out of my house.
I’m a Catholic male who used to be into porn, but have seen how it distorts your view of women and and sex in general, what it should be and what it is. I grew up on porn and had been viewing porn frequently since age 11.
After my reconversion to Christ, I was able to understand why people are wrong when they think Christians are just prigs and that they believe sex is bad period in and of itself. I used to think this and it is just false.
Porn is deceptive and destructive because it teaches you to see human beings as a means to pleasure, it teaches you to use them (even if only in your head) as a way to make you happy and is unfair to the Beautiful God-created act that sex should be. It should be a total giving of self to your beloved and should be open to life that God wants to bless you with.
Porn is a distortion of what Sex should be and if delved in at an earlier enough age traps you in a sexual maturioty level of perpetual adolecense. Where self gratification is the ultimate goal.
For all you confessed Christians out there, Do you honestly think Christ would enjoy pornography, or the apostle Paul?
And porn is addictive, if you don’t think it is and you are a regular viewer(several times a week) I have a challenge for you: try to stop for one month:)