Cut to the chase and pornography

Some thoughts after having today literature and education lecture. We did not exactly discuss sex of course, but the word Pornography from the note stands out so much to me and really catch my thought...

On one hand it is understandable for one saying that viewing pornography is to fulfill his/her physical impulses. This sounds scientific and reasonable given one may argue this is part of human inborn desire. And he/she may even defend by asking why one has to relinquish this possibility of fulfilling the sexual desire while technology/society/individual morality allows or tolerates.

Furthermore, consider some people point out that, like some girls watch Korean dramas so as to let their imagination goes wild, projecting themselves as the protagonist who is wooed, proposed by and married to a handsome, sweet and rich gentleman. Isnt this just another form of fancy? Just that girls are fancying romance and boys are fancying sex. Really, I read this argument on the paper some months ago and has found it quite convincing, even now.

We desire to be loved and care and desire to have sex, and these are so normal and so human, and that is why I often find difficulty to explain, as a girl, why I feel pornography is so unsettling and not entirely convincing to me. Why on one hand I understand the urges are so natural and normal but at the same time find ones resorting to pornography a bit dirty and emotionally wrong? Yes I would not say viewing pornography is morally wrong because in this way, it will seem that I am arguing from a religious prospective. To be honest, I lack sufficient relevant knowledge and a logical framework to argue this issue from any rational perspective. All I say here is simply from a very subjective and emotional point of view.

Well, it is like one can actually ease his/her urges by oneself, by the lady in the video, or even by anyone else. Then what is the difference/ the clear cut between doing it with someone you love and with the stranger on screen? What is the fundamental value and purpose of sex? Is sex just a mere physical urge and need to be satisfied anyhow? In the course, we often discuss the concept of fuzzy boundaries, and of transgressing boundaries. These push me to think, as in the case of sexual desire: where is the line?

Following Professors logic, things can be of binary opposition, and there is a clear cut between them from the very very beginning. Black and white. But as we loosen the boundary, for example, fancying someone in a dirty way in your mind is now ok, then how about watching someone on the mtr in a dirty way ? How about reading naked photos online? How about watching AV? How about visiting prostitutes? How about having a lousy sex life? How about having multiple partners? If one sees having two partners is acceptable, how about three? four? Once the line is transgressed, we are forced onto this slippery slope (which is a logical device in Chinese 滑波理論). The black and white colours mix and grey is left. And you can never undo the mixing and go back to black and white. Of course as one can logically defend that the little transgression does not necessarily lead to such a huge discrepancy between the so called good and bad. Someone who fancies dirty dream does not necessarily go to prostitutes. This is true, and again I am no way a kind of person with very strict logical thinking. Yet what I try to say is, when you think one is ok and it is always hard to tell why the next stage is not ok. Someone may do that but I cant exactly.

All the above thoughts are not entirely new ideas coming to me from the lecture. In fact I have been thinking these questions, as a female, long. But of course Evelyn's lecture somehow inspires me to put these thoughts in a more organised manner.

Again I have to state and even admit that I am not entirely anti-pornography. They have their own value, though I cannot name any apart from some embarrassing ones. I know people need them, and viewing pornography or not should have no entailment of their personality, for sure.

Just emotionally troubling, though. um... worth thinking.