Is Pornography Adultery?

Last January we published Jason Byasee’s ” Not Your Father’s Pornography .” This week, another FT contributor, Ross Douthat, has a piece at the Atlantic (where he is a senior editor) asking whether using pornography is adultery . The piece catalogs the rise not only in the ubiquity and accessibility of pornography, but also in its nature—the progression from pin-ups to video-taped sex—and in its acceptability. The core of his argument lies in these three paragraphs:

Yes, adultery is inevitable, but it’s never been universal in the way that pornography has the potential to become—at least if we approach the use of hard-core porn as a normal outlet from the rigors of monogamy, and invest ourselves in a cultural paradigm that understands this as something all men do and all women need to live with. In the name of providing a low-risk alternative for males who would otherwise be tempted by “real” prostitutes and “real” affairs, we’re ultimately universalizing, in a milder but not all that much milder form, the sort of degradation and betrayal that only a minority of men have traditionally been involved in.

Go back to Philip Weiss’s pal and listen to him talk: Porn captures these women before they get smart . . . It’s painful to say, but that’s your boys’ night out. This is the language of a man who has accepted, not as a temporary lapse but as a permanent and necessary aspect of his married life, a paid sexual relationship with women other than his wife. And it’s the language of a man who has internalized a view of marriage as a sexual prison, rendered bearable only by frequent online furloughs with women more easily exploited than his spouse.

Calling porn a form of adultery isn’t about pretending that we can make it disappear. The temptation will always be there, and of course people will give in to it. I’ve looked at porn; if you’re male and breathing, chances are so have you. Rather, it’s about what sort of people we aspire to be: how we define our ideals, how we draw the lines in our relationships, and how we feel about ourselves if we cross them. And it’s about providing a way for everyone involved, men and women alike—whether they’re using porn or merely tolerating it—to think about what, precisely, they’re involving themselves in, and whether they should reconsider.

Another startling quotation came from Dan Savage, a sex columnist that many in my generation admire, who said that men who claim not to look at porn are “liars or castrates” and that women who are troubled by being supplanted by pornography should “GET OVER IT.”

Douthat’s piece is interesting because he articulates in purely rational terms that pornography is not just a lesser evil to be tolerated, but a vice that demeans our humanity. That is a message many would consider ludicrous, but one we need to be reminded of.