Playboy

[dairygirl4u2c]

i ask cause it seems on the one hand, a lot of christians say things like tasteful nudity is okay, and can be art etc. nudge paintings, statutes. even real pictures. yet, playboy is often said to be tasteful. and, it's still sorta looked down on. it's in between land in conventional wisdom.
but beyond mere conventional wisdom... actually proactively considering it, is it wrong? how is it different? etc?

[Callidius]

3 words: ITS TOTALLY IMMORAL

[KnightofChrist]

Voted wrong. Never ok.

[Callidius]

From what I hear "playboy" is pornography, I have a thread on it so you can discuss there

[Innocent]

It is possible for pornography* to be of very high aesthetic quality, in the sense of being created with great artistic care. Playboy magazine is such a sort of pronography, created by highly skilled professionals.

[b]However,[/b] I remain convinced that in spite of whatever artistic merit it may have, it is still immoral for the following reasons:

It appears to be self evident that (if you have arguments that indicate the contrary, please state them.) the nature of the depiction of nudity in magazines like Playboy is such that it..

1. Is Not to provide a depiction of sensuality and sentimentality as subordinated to love as virtue, but to be desired as ends in themselves, and thus a form of selfishness is encouraged, and one which, due to its primordial intensity inherent in the sexual urge, once given free rein, is very difficult and in fact nearly impossible to bring back under the rule of right reason.

2. Is Not, evidently, to promote monogamous, indissoluble marriage as the only infrastructure where sexuality can be a genuine expression of betrothed love, but to promote the egoistic enjoyment of sexual values for their own sake, an attitude which cannot be reconciled to the understanding that the purpose of sexuality is fulfilled perfectly only within marriage.

3. Is To overcome shame, (which can be considered a natural defense mechanism against objectification of a person by another person) not by the absorption of shame in love, as happens in marriage, but by a complete denial of the good present in shame, which leads to shamelessness, thus eroding a defense mechanism against the use of persons as objects in the social consciousness.

4. Is To create (whether explicitly intended or not) an understanding of the hierarchy of values inherent in the human person where the sexual values possessed by a person are placed above the personal values. (and this is only if the personal values are not entirely obliterated, or at best reduced to vestigial proportions, as often happens, in which case, the personal values are not considered at all, and the sole value of a person, thus becomes focused on the sexual value they possess.)

5. Is such that it incorporates by the nature of the exclusive focus on egoistic arousal, a blindness to the procreative purpose of sex. This very easily leads to fertility being seen as an inconvenience, and even an evil. Thus the association between sex and willingness to accept the responsibility of parenthood is weakened and can even be totally ruptured in the minds of the reader.

6. Is to create an infrastructure where the sexual values of persons can be removed from the personal values of those persons and enjoyed in isolation from the affirmation of the personal values of those persons. Thus the final cause of sexuality is percieved as enjoyment instead of responsible love. This perception is hostile to the maturity of a person and keeps the person in a consumerist mentality with regard to sex.

7. Is to depreciate continence, at least with regard to the interior acts of the will, which, while not a virtue in itself, is at least a precursor to chastity.

8. Makes it difficult for a person to grasp the idea of love as commitment of the will to a single person of the opposite sex, since such magazines provide access to the sexual values of a very large number of persons, by which the reader uses many persons as objects, without treating them as persons.

9. Substitutes in the place of right reason (whether intentionally or not) the associated pleasure (physical & psychological) of an experience as the standard for determining its rightness.

10. Often creates a situation where persons who regularly read the magazine and other similar publications attempt rationalise their activity by holding to a concept very similar to, if not identical to, Kantian moral autonomy which is a replacement for the proper attitude of the creature before the Creator. Playboy has potential to make its readers into Kantians. (Which alone should be sufficient reason to stay far away from Playboy. )


For these reasons, it seems to me that the conclusion that Playboy magazine is morally evil is inevitable. The intent of the magazine is clearly to arouse the sexual urge in an inappropriate situation, and does not encourage the virtue of love, and ignores the responsibility of parenthood associated with sexuality, placing exclusive focus on the psychological enjoyment of sensuality and sentimentality.

Thus, even if it is very tastefully done, it represents sexuality wrongly, and cannot be supported at all.


With regard to the general question of art and pornography, I have been very confused about this too, and, to the very limited extent of my knowledge, it seems that it is no easy matter to discern in particular cases whether the line dividing artistic nudity and pornography has been crossed since even classical paintings are [b]sometimes[/b] pornographic, and even sometimes vouyeristic and exploitative, a fact which has been recognised even by secular art critics who are not speaking from a religious perspective. (E.g., this [url="http://www.artisticanatomyblog.com/?p=857"]article on Victorian paintings[/url] [[b]WARNING[/b]: the page with this article has one enlargeable thumbnail leading to a nude painting]) There have been cases where artists have created works of art to appeal to the sensuality of their patrons who commissioned their artworks. (E.g. These two writings on an art exhibition: [url="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/apr/05/diana-and-actaeon-exhibition"]1[/url], [[b]WARNING[/b]: this page has a nude painting in the very beginning] [url="http://www.comptonverney.org.uk/?page=exhibitions/Fatal_Attraction_Gallery_Guide.pdf"]2[/url], [NO PROBLEM HERE: this is an exhibition guide - all text, no pictures])


* I use here the following definition of pornography: "Pornography is a marked tendency to accentuate the sexual element when representing the human body or human love in a work of art, with the object of inducing the reader or viewer to believe that the sexual values are the only real values of the person and that love is nothing more than the experience, individual or shared of those values alone. This tendency is harmful because it destroys the integral image of that fragment of human reality which is love between man and woman. For the truth about human love consists in always reproducing the interpersonal relationship however large sexual values may loom in that relationship. " (p 192, Love & Responsibility - Karol Wojtyla, Ignatius Press 1993, )

Edited May 24, 2009 by Innocent