Feminists and Christians: Not Always as Far Apart as People Think

Naomi Wolf on Why Porn Turns Men Off the Real Thing -- New York Magazine

I'm reading The Beauty Myth for the first time right now. For those who haven't heard of it, it is Naomi Wolf's first book, credited with kicking off the third wave of feminism by opening the eyes of women to the fact that we are under constant manipulation by a market-driven, politicized beauty culture. I have to admit that 17 years after the book was written, things seem to have gotten worse rather than better, but that's a post for another day.

I googled Wolf's name to get a sense of what she is up to now, and came across the above article on pornography. Porn is a hot topic (pardon the pun) in today's world, both in the secular realm and in the Christian subculture. More and more pastors are discussing porn addictions and more and more magazines, news programs, and academic settings are starting to engage the topic of pornography and its identity as art, sex slavery, or harmless fun.

Naomi Wolf says some things in this article that would shock a few Christians, mostly because they are coming from the woman who launched third wave feminism. Frankly, I think that if her name or identity was hidden from readers, this article might pass (with a very few alterations) for an article in Christianity Today.

Reading the following article, I was particularly struck by the resemblance of the following to a passage from one of the twentieth century's most celebrated apologists:

But does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so.
- Naomi Wolf, "The Porn Myth" (click through to the second page)

Compare:
Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act -- that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer [sic] about the state of the sex instinct among us?
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 96. Originally published in 1952.

Although I shudder a little at the comparison of a young woman and a bit of bacon, I also think there is an eerie prophetic resonance between the words of Lewis written 56 years ago and the words of Wolf, writing in the 21st Century cyber-world. Our appetite for food has been debased -- we are the strange country that Lewis proposed -- and our appetite for sex is also being, or I should say, has already been, debased. The words of the young man that Wolf leaves us with at the end of the article are haunting:

“Mystery?” He looked at me blankly. And then, without hesitating, he replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sex has no mystery.”

He was being asked to justify his claim that newly dating couples should have sex right away in order to get the "tension" and "awkwardness" out of the way.

Wolf gives very surprising deference to the religious folks that have already understood that the preservation of the mystery of the sexual union is valuable. A lot of my evangelical Christian sisters and brothers would be shocked beyond belief to hear such a suggestion from a feminist, whom they believe of course to be responsible for most if not all of the postmodern amorality surrounding sex.

But when it comes to porn, the similarities between feminists and Christians become striking. We both shake angry fists at the industry that enslaves, directly or indirectly, millions of women, children, and men every year. The industry that makes violence sexy, and that iconizes the casual sexual union is a common enemy for both Christians and feminists. And as someone who rather insanely likes to self-identify both as an Evangelical Christian and as a feminist, this issue has the capacity to make both parts of my mind equally livid.

I guess my point (aside from getting people to read and think about Wolf's article) is that evangelicals and feminists need to step away from some of the more popular issues that divide us (we all know what those are) and try to unite on this one issue. Aside from being rather earth-shatteringly exciting, such a union could have the power to make something happen. The reality that both groups need to address is that porn is exponentially more popular every year, and that it is becoming very acceptable to the mainstream. It is no longer considered wrong, deviant, or shameful to consume pornography. I have even heard whispers among Christians that, as long as it is viewed only by married people, together, porn is an acceptable way to stimulate sexual passion.

No. And again, NO. For all the reasons that Wolf lists and the many ethical and moral reasons that Christ would list, pornography is never good, never normal, and never acceptable to anyone, especially Christians. It is abusive (save me the "porn stars choose their lot" arguments -- I'd bet that for every woman/child/man who chooses to be in the porn industry, five more are forced to be there; and let's not even get into the relationship between porn and the sex trade), it is unbelievably degrading to the human body and soul, and it promotes deviant sexual relations. (Watch it now -- here comes the crazy evangelical part of me:) Porn is, quite simply, a work of Satan. There: I said it. Satan! It makes a cruel mockery and perversion of what God created to be a good and holy gift: the sensuality expressed in Adam's cry, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Genesis 2:23), the union of woman and man in marriage. That's a pretty strong position, I know, and it's not original either. You can visit any Christian anti-pornography site and get the same message, with even more crazy fonts and bright colours.

The issue just tends to get me riled up because I am deeply concerned about the growing apathy and even acceptance of pornography in the mainstream. As a Christian, my concerns are ranted above, and as a feminist, I bewail the degradation particularly of women, who have come so far in the twentieth century only to continue to be held back by issues such as this. It concerns me both as a Christian and as a feminist that such little value is placed on the human lives involved and on the interference that porn is having on healthy human relationships. We need to be discussing the why we shouldn't's of porn in order to out-shout the why we want to's of the porn consumer. And I think that this discussion would get deafening if it was heard to be taking place, civilly and with solidarity, between Christians and feminists.