Sunday, October 11, 2020

Cognitive Dissonance And Erotic Media

Technology has broadened the availability and scope of erotic media in recent decades, allowing for people to display their bodies with sexual intentions (as the body, naked or clothed, is itself nonsexual) and admire the bodies of certain individuals more easily than before.  Erotic media remains a controversial topic both inside and outside of the church, even though it is clear that the Bible does not oppose all erotic media [1] and that secular attitudes towards it tend to be inconsistent.  One example of a hypocritical attitude in the secular world is the tendency for some to specifically praise women who intentionally expose their bodies for the sexual pleasure of men and shun the men who sexually appreciate them.

Of course, men can and need to be prominently featured in erotic media for the sake of acknowledging women's visuality and men's physical sensuality, but the average person seems to equate "sex work" with women profiting from male attraction to their bodies.  In light of this, people who falsely mistake male attraction to women as degrading, objectifying, or otherwise destructive might regard women who generate income by exposing their bodies with sexual intentions (either in person or online) as embracing their sexualities and men who enjoy their work as disgusting.  The cognitive dissonance is obvious to anyone who looks for it.

It is thoroughly hypocritical to encourage women who enjoy earning an income by displaying their bodies or by participating in the making of erotic videos or pictures (which excludes merely sensual images or videos of swimsuits) and then demonize any men who masturbate to them or sexually fantasize about them--or vice versa in the case of men who earn money from women who are sexually attracted to them.  If it is not inherently immoral for a person to expose their body for the sexual appreciation of the opposite gender in exchange for payment, it is not morally wrong for members of the opposite gender to savor sexual thoughts about them.

Praising women in particular for showing their bodies in a sexual, professional context while condemning the men who would make their work economically possible is an idea borne out of an arbitrary focus on women over men instead of true feminism: the affirmation of total gender equality in a metaphysical, moral, social, and legal sense.  Gender egalitarianism is not about treating men or women as special for having certain occupations, no matter how controversial or culturally important it might be.  There is nothing about the morality or psychology of a person offering sensual images of their own body for money that depends on their gender.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-truth-about-erotic-media-part-2_19.html

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