Porn agonistes

9/15/08 5:03PM EST

In the current issue of The Atlantic, Ross Douthat suggests that "the notion that pornography, and especially hard-core pornography, has something to do with marital infidelity has been floating around the edges of the American conversation for a while now." And while I'm not really sure that's true, he does lay out the argument affirming the notion:

Start with the near-universal assumption that what Spitzer did in his hotel room constituted adultery, and then ponder whether Silda Spitzer would have had cause to feel betrayed if the FBI probe had revealed that her husband had paid merely to watch a prostitute perform sexual acts while he folded himself into a hotel armchair to masturbate. My suspicion is that an awful lot of people would say yes—not because there isn’t some distinction between the two acts, but because the distinction isn’t morally significant enough to prevent both from belonging to the zone, broadly defined, of cheating on your wife.

You can see where I’m going with this. If it’s cheating on your wife to watch while another woman performs sexually in front of you, then why isn’t it cheating to watch while the same sort of spectacle unfolds on your laptop or TV? Isn’t the man who uses hard-core pornography already betraying his wife, whether or not the habit leads to anything worse? (The same goes, of course, for a wife betraying her husband—the arguments in this essay should be assumed to apply as well to the small minority of women who use porn.)

I think he's pretty clearly making a false comparison here--paying a prostitute to perform sexual acts in front of you is still prostitution (a real human-to-human transaction even in the absence of exchanged bodily fluids) while watching porn is a fully virtual experience--an aid, of sorts, to indulging a fantasy. The former is an infidelity and a crime, the other is (maybe) a thought crime.

So sleeping with a prostitute may be like masturbating in front of a prostitute because both involve sexual acts with a prostitute, and masturbating in front of a prostitute may be like masturbating to porn because both involve masturbating, but that doesn't mean sleeping with a prostitute is anything at all like masturbating to porn. Which is all to say, if you'll pardon the expression, that Ross is trying to slice back the salami here, when the three activities he cites don't really exist on the same salami spectrum. So really, there's no salami to be sliced.

And yes, I wrote this post to improve traffic.

Comments

Assumptions:
(1) the situation posed by Douthat is an infidelity and
(2) is also a crime;
(3) viewing porn is never more than indulging a fantasy;
(4) there is inherently something about "human to human transaction even in the absence of exchanged bodily fluids" that makes one situation adultery and one not adultery.

I'm not sure whether each assumption is supportable, or at least, supportable without further argument, but:
Douthat began his article by citing well-publicized instances where porn was not just amusemnt for an idle hour; where public divorces had shown that husbands had spent thousands of dollars, hours, and cameras pointed at themselves consumed by the contemplation of sex. It seems that kind of porn-love / sex-obsession is quantitatively different than that to which you are referencing and begs the question: What is meant by "adultery"? It would seem that any extreme obsession with sexual activity outside of the marriage might qualify, "human to human" or not.

Posted by: ladybug on September 16, 2008 11:30 AM

"Start with the near-universal assumption that what Spitzer did in his hotel room constituted adultery..."

Does anyone disagree? Isn't having sex with another woman the -definition of adultery?

The reason paying a prostitute to masturbate in front of you might constitute adultery is because of the various definitions of 'having sex' in the previous sentence.

However, when one masturbates to videotape, one is not by any reasonable definition 'having sex' with the actors.

Posted by: gus on September 17, 2008 04:39 PM

So, is thinking about porn I watched yesterday still adultery? Not that I watched porn yesterday, but you know what I mean. What is the statute of limitations for fantasizing about adultery as actual adultery?

Posted by: KevDog on September 17, 2008 04:41 PM

So, is thinking about porn I watched yesterday still adultery? Not that I watched porn yesterday, but you know what I mean.

I like that someone posting on an internet message board under the name "KevDog" feels the need to deny that he was watching porn yesterday.

Posted by: John on September 17, 2008 04:46 PM

Does this mean when my wife and I watch it together we're actually "swinging"? I can't believe Ross spent so many words on such a stupid premise.

Posted by: DTG on September 17, 2008 04:54 PM

it seems to me that the real root of adultery is betraying your spouse in some way. in all of these instances, masturbation is treated as some terrible vice that the husband hides from the wife (or vice versa). masturbation to porn can be openly discussed in a relationship.

i think the line that separates acceptable behavior in a healthy relationship and unacceptable behavior is if one person is doing an activity to the detriment of the relationship or the family. many of the examples posted in the original article are instances of extreme amounts of pornography (and not to mention soliciting sex from strangers). to draw a parallel: there is a difference between having a beer with dinner and being an alcoholic. one is an acceptable behavior, the other is an offense worthy of divorce.

but in the end (as with most marital problems), this one could probably be solved just by being open with your partner and discussing what is acceptable and what isn't.

Posted by: john b on September 17, 2008 04:57 PM

I like that someone posting on an internet message board under the name "KevDog" feels the need to deny that he was watching porn yesterday.

Gold star.

Posted by: V. on September 17, 2008 04:59 PM

A better question for Ross: how many Savannahs can dance on the head of a pin?

If you jerk off alone while watching a video of you and your wife that you uploaded to Xtube (with her knowledge), is THAT adultery? Or is it only adultery if you fantasize about being your wife?

The Right is losing me, and I'm 36. I can only imagine the younger set will have even less time for these debates.

Good.

Posted by: Graeme on September 17, 2008 05:13 PM

Hey, that means that I had a three-way last night. Alright!

Posted by: Ross on September 17, 2008 05:21 PM

And salivating while watching the Food Channel is like getting diabetes from overeating.

Douthat really is a schmuck. And a hack.

Posted by: anon on September 17, 2008 05:40 PM

Honestly, the more I read Douthat, the more I think he's either completely deluded (say, about the nature of his beloved party) or just completely retarded (um, porn = adultery). I mean seriously, what's with these conservative wankers -- has the conservative movement robbed them of the fundamental ability to even remotely understand the world around them?

Posted by: jason on September 17, 2008 05:58 PM

If I masturbate to written words, am I cheating on my husband with the author, or with the characters in the stories?
Just Wondering.

Posted by: julie on September 17, 2008 06:27 PM

What if a man uses porn because his wife does not want sex? But he doesn't want to have sex with another woman as he still very dearly loves his wife?

What if she spends more time with her poodle than she does with her husband? Is that adultery?

Posted by: Matt on September 17, 2008 08:14 PM

Douthat's porn riff resembles a growing number of logical pole vaults committed lately by normally temperate conservatives. I think they realize their time is almost up, and they need to fully vent before spending the next 20 years talking to themselves.

Posted by: allbetsareoff on September 18, 2008 01:49 AM

So, if I understand this logic, all Gamers playing first person shooter games, such as Doom, are muderers?!

Posted by: Sean on September 18, 2008 11:24 AM

Congratulations! You're now the top Google hit for "salami prostitute."

Posted by: Nick on September 18, 2008 05:26 PM

biber hapı

Posted by: biber hapı on August 26, 2009 04:07 AM