Pornography vs. Watching other sins

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AJM95

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Just an honest question:
Why is watching two people have sex is worse than watching two people kill each other? (we’re talking about TV series or movies here)
 
Your correct, the “entertainment” envelope has been pushed to the point where “bad is good” and “good is bad” - it is enlightening that you recognize that both of the examples you highlight are equally bad and therefore, you ( “you” ) will not be watching either, right ?

Secondly, now having stated the obvious, what are you going to do about it? Turn off your cable? Go to Netflix and video stores where you can select exactly what you wish to see?

Third, Porn is addictive - like cocaine. Brain scans of people watching porn match those of brain scans of people “on” cocaine. The body releases endorphines in both situations that lead to our bodies becoming “addicted” to both, which is why - after viewing porn for a period, you will find it increasingly difficult to stop.
 
I think it’s because our bodies are more wired toward sex, and are not wired toward killing other people. Watching people commit sexual actions can become an addiction which often leads to masturbation. Not many people go out to kill someone immediately after watching a violent movie or TV show. Also watching people kill other people on TV is often not real. Pornography, on the other hand, very often shows people actually having sex and commiting those sins.
 
It’s not about sex being worse than violence. If anything, sex is holy and beautiful, and violence is horrible and regrettable.

The issue, however, is that sex is also personal, and intimate. We have no business watching other people having sex in real life, so why watch it in film?

On the other hand, violence may be ugly, but it’s not just a matter between the aggressor and the aggressee, it’s something with which we should all concern ourselves. If you saw a man hitting his wife, you’d have an obligation to try and stop him, or get help from someone else to do so, not avert your eyes. Likewise in art, violence is public in that it calls to mind our duty to keep each other safe. That said, violence can certainly be unnecessary or excessive in art.
 
Just an honest question:
Why is watching two people have sex is worse than watching two people kill each other? (we’re talking about TV series or movies here)
If you read in a book or see in a movie, killing (just or unjust), do you want to do it also because you enjoy the idea of killing?

If you read in a book or see in a movie, sexually exciting actions, do you want to do it also or enjoy the idea of doing it?

Then indulging in this fantasy is a sinful action.
 
It’s possible that it isn’t, depending on the circumstance. Porn is designed to encourage and even prepare a person to sin. It dehumanizes and objectifies one’s self and one’s sexual partner. People who watch violent movies because it excites them and encourages them to act violently are creating an occasion of sin for themselves. However, I don’t think most people who watch a movie with killing in it are doing so for that reason.
 
Ah the classic question of pitting sex versus violence.

Contrary to whatever premises you may have upon formulating your question, violence is not evil. Porn is.

Violence is in of itself a neutral action with a myriad of purposes and reasons to enact. Showing a scene where people are having sex doesn’t have that much liberty.

You commit violence against animals when chopping up pork for dinner. You commit violence against plants when mowing your lawn.

Violence can be used to protect as well as destroy. Our world itself was born through violent means. A good person can have just as much need to resort to violence as an evil one.

As for me personally, if I saw a man raping a girl, I’m more likely to rush in and pound the man into a pulp than keep watching.
 
It is lack of charity towards God or humans that is sinful. When we revel in the thought of an uncharitable act, it is also sinful. If this is expressed, it may also give scandal. There are certainly instances of many sins (including killing when it is sinful) that are sources of sin in thought or word.
 
A combination of the above, I think.

If you look at what the Catechism says about it, pornography essentially violates of the inherent privacy/intimacy of the sexual act (by displaying it to others) and invokes “base pleasure”, i.e. lust. These two characteristics distinguish it from art involving nudity, etc., which isn’t itself pornographic unless used in a pornographic (if that’s the right word) context/presentation.

The first reason wouldn’t apply to violent media by its very nature, but I think a very strong argument could be made that something like the second - their being made to invoke a disordered pleasure - might mean that certain very extreme violent movies with little other content might be wrong to watch. (By which I don’t mean war movies, etc. but the super gory movies where people get graphically dismembered for lots of screen time.) In more normal/moderate presentations, a lot depends on context & the viewer’s attitude, etc.

Also, yes, people (as a general rule) are more likely to be aroused sexually by sexual images than incited to violence by violent images. (Though this is variable by person - and, of course, people who think they will be influenced by violence in media should try to avoid it, just as someone who’s susceptible probably shouldn’t look at non-pornographic material containing nudity or the like.)
 
A combination of the above, I think.

If you look at what the Catechism says about it, pornography essentially violates of the inherent privacy/intimacy of the sexual act (by displaying it to others) and invokes “base pleasure”, i.e. lust. These two characteristics distinguish it from art involving nudity, etc., which isn’t itself pornographic unless used in a pornographic (if that’s the right word) context/presentation.

The first reason wouldn’t apply to violent media by its very nature, but I think a very strong argument could be made that something like the second - their being made to invoke a disordered pleasure - might mean that certain very extreme violent movies with little other content might be wrong to watch. (By which I don’t mean ‘ordinary’ movies with violence - war movies, or adventure, or fantasy movies, etc. - but the super gory movies where people get graphically dismembered for lots of screen time, where there’s little story and the movie pretty much exists just to show extremely graphic violence.) In more normal/moderate presentations, a lot depends on context & the viewer’s attitude, etc.

Also, yes, people (as a general rule) are more likely to be aroused sexually by sexual images than incited to violence by violent images. (Though this is variable by person - and, of course, people who think they will be influenced by violence in media should try to avoid it, just as someone who’s susceptible probably shouldn’t look at non-pornographic material containing nudity or the like.)
 
A combination of the above, I think.

If you look at what the Catechism says about it, pornography essentially violates of the inherent privacy/intimacy of the sexual act (by displaying it to others) and invokes “base pleasure”, i.e. lust. These two characteristics distinguish it from art involving nudity, etc., which isn’t itself pornographic unless used in a pornographic (if that’s the right word) context/presentation.

The first reason wouldn’t apply to violent media by its very nature, but I think a very strong argument could be made that something like the second - their being made to invoke a disordered pleasure - might mean that certain *very *extreme violent movies with little other content might be wrong to watch. (By which I don’t mean ‘ordinary’ movies with violence - war movies, or fantasy movies with big battles like the Lord of the Rings, or monster movies, etc. - but the super gory movies where people get graphically dismembered for lots of screen time, where there’s little story and the movie pretty much *exists *just to show extremely graphic violence.) In more normal/moderate presentations, a lot depends on context & the viewer’s attitude, etc.

Also, yes, people (as a general rule) are more likely to be aroused sexually by sexual images than incited to violence by violent images. (Though this is variable by person - and, of course, people who think they will be influenced by violence in media should try to avoid it, just as someone who’s susceptible probably shouldn’t look at non-pornographic material containing nudity or the like.)
 
I’ve been thinking about it.
The sin is not “watching a sinful action”, because if the people you watched having sex were married and didn’t know they were being filmed (i.e. they weren’t sinning), that film would still be pornography.
Like one of the people who posted said, violence is not a private action while sex is.
Thank you for your answers.
Also, to the one who said sex is often real in pornography while murder isn’t real in film, keep in mind that, if sex isn’t real, it still counts as pornography according to the CCC (it says something about sexual acts, real or simulated).
 
I think everybody is missing the one KEY thing…

Sex is not bad, A naked person is not bad, looking at a naked person is not bad (JESUS was naked on the cross),

but… drum roll please… LUST! Pornography is sinful for many reasons, but primarily because we LUST at the women in these videos. The fact of the matter is not that we are “watching people sin”, after all, thats virtually inevitable, however, it’s when we sin by lusting(not simply looking) at it what really matters.
 
I think everybody is missing the one KEY thing…

Sex is not bad, A naked person is not bad, looking at a naked person is not bad (JESUS was naked on the cross),

but… drum roll please… LUST! Pornography is sinful for many reasons, but primarily because we LUST at the women in these videos. The fact of the matter is not that we are “watching people sin”, after all, thats virtually inevitable, however, it’s when we sin by lusting(not simply looking) at it what really matters.
I’ll play Devil’s advocate here. Can you lust at somebody who is not real? That is, a cartoon character? Would that be more or less sinful?
 
I’ll play Devil’s advocate here. Can you lust at somebody who is not real? That is, a cartoon character? Would that be more or less sinful?
Lust is not just a sin against another but a sin against yourself. You degrade yourself as a sexually hormonal beast. We’re humans, we’re called to rise above that. Reeeaally high above that.
 
Just an honest question:
Why is watching two people have sex is worse than watching two people kill each other? (we’re talking about TV series or movies here)
Because when you’re watching people having sex you are being tempted to do that yourself, whether that is via masterbation or feelings of lust. All are sins.

If you watch someone committing murder, you don’t really get the urge to kill someone, do you? :eek:
 
If you watch someone committing murder, you don’t really get the urge to kill someone, do you? :eek:
Unless it’s ultimately self-defense and the ‘victim’ is the irredeemably horrible villain with the troll god personality. :cool:

Then again, the only person I’d want to kill is that same villain so it’s kind of a moot point. XD
 
I’ll play Devil’s advocate here. Can you lust at somebody who is not real? That is, a cartoon character? Would that be more or less sinful?
This goes with what I said even more. WE sin by lusting, it doesn’t matter who/what we watch. Whether that be real or not. As I mentioned, we’re not sinning because we watch two people sin(i.e having sex), but it’s the lusting that makes it sinful. Cartoon/Human, whatever.
 
Hey my friend,

To answer honestly to your question,
watching people killing others never encourage you to kill too.
But watching people having sex can encourage you have sex, or make masturbation, or think abut worst things…

It’s my point of view.

Anyway, in all the case, you have to choose what you watch on TV.

Good bless you.
 
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