Porn is Not: About Sex

This is first part of a three part series on what pornography is about, or rather, what pornography is not about. This is part of an ongoing research thread on the theological aspects of pornography, which I hope to develop into a book treatment in the not too distant future.

At first glance, this post might look like a continuation of a post written some years back, in which I argued that porn is not about sex.

This theme was elaborated upon in my interview this week with the crew at the “Living Fullness” Podcast, Fr Sean Byrnes and Stina Constantine. You may remember my mention of Stina in a previous post concerning a visit I made to Wagga Wagga before moving there to take up my current position.

In my interview, we focused on an article I published in the Australiasian Catholic Review on “Pornography and Christology”. In that article, I laid out the metaphysical, and later theological basis for a claim that before pornography is about sex, it really is about the messianic.

Regular readers of the blog may know that this is not the first time I have been interviewed on this article, and may have heard my interview on “The Naked Gospel” on the article. Even if this is not the first time, I am still struck by how each interview still uncovers new dimensions to the work that even I was not aware of.

In my interview with “Living Fullness”, what really came out were the relational impacts of pornography use, which stemmed from the metaphysics that prioritised what may be over what actually is right in front of us. Because this forms the metaphysical air that we breathe, all of us are vulnerable to turning our relationships with flesh and blood persons into abstract value sets. While one may argue that value sets form the standards that we seek in our relations with others, what really struck me from my chat with “Living Fullness” is the way in which value set may actually obscure our relationships with others.

You can listen to the interview in full by clicking here. My thanks to Fr Sean and Stina for their invitation and for their hard work during the editing phase and making me sound sensible.

In addition, please take the time to visit Stina Constantine’s website about her work in sharing her recent migrant journey, which has been beautifully elaborated upon by Eternity News.

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