Why is nudity/pornography seen as more common today?

[Verdanty]

I’ve just been browsing a thread on here about too much nudity on television. While I admit it’s not for me, are we not overreacting to a point?

For instance, while people in the western world today are more libertine and open about their sexual exploits than many other points in history (I cannot say more than, because some of the exploits of 18th century France and 15th century Italy make Jersey shore look like a re-run of Archbishop Sheen’s “Life is worth living”)

Saying that, the Classical world in which Christianity emerged, alongside neo-classicalism and the baroque, the reneissance…People were often far more open about nudity and the human form than we are today. I’m not talking about hellenic art (although that can be raised as a factor as well). People lived in far closer proximity, sometimes people would even have sex while other people were in the one room they owned because when else were they going to do it?

It’s an alien mindset to me, but I don’t really know if these arguments that there’s far more pornography today than previously hold much water. Even in the age of Hollywood Christian censorship, there were still wide circulation of smutty novels, dirty magazines etc. It has always been with us, it has always been known of and at some eras such as Late Antiquity it was even far, far more overt and in your face than it is today (Roman penis lamposts for instance, I won’t like directly to them here but I’m sure the discerning can look them up).

What do you think? Am I way off base here?

 

[Vico]

I’ve just been browsing a thread on here about too much nudity on television. While I admit it’s not for me, are we not overreacting to a point?

For instance, while people in the western world today are more libertine and open about their sexual exploits than many other points in history (I cannot say more than, because some of the exploits of 18th century France and 15th century Italy make Jersey shore look like a re-run of Archbishop Sheen’s “Life is worth living”)

Saying that, the Classical world in which Christianity emerged, alongside neo-classicalism and the baroque, the reneissance…People were often far more open about nudity and the human form than we are today. I’m not talking about hellenic art (although that can be raised as a factor as well). People lived in far closer proximity, sometimes people would even have sex while other people were in the one room they owned because when else were they going to do it?

It’s an alien mindset to me, but I don’t really know if these arguments that there’s far more pornography today than previously hold much water. Even in the age of Hollywood Christian censorship, there were still wide circulation of smutty novels, dirty magazines etc. It has always been with us, it has always been known of and at some eras such as Late Antiquity it was even far, far more overt and in your face than it is today (Roman penis lamposts for instance, I won’t like directly to them here but I’m sure the discerning can look them up).

What do you think? Am I way off base here?

Nudity and Pornography are different, but “nudity on television” is actually the displaying of foreplay or conjugal acts, rather than simply partial nudity, although there are decency laws that oppose display of every body part. An example of public sculptural depictions of sexual acts exists in the temples of Khajuraho in India (8th - 10th cen. CE) which also includes bestiality.

Catechism
2354 Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. …

 

[pianistclare]

You can thank the late Hugh Hefner for changing those norms which protected us from seeing everyone nekkid.

 

[MaryT777]

You are spot on AND I’ll add all the millions that paid for his Playboy magazine. I remember on one thread a guy said it was a “rite of passage” to get your first Playboy. (Or worse yet, someone noted on another forum, finding Dad’s and sneaking it at night)

Heavy sigh.

 

[joeybaggz]

Vico makes a good point about the difference between nudity and pornography. Sometimes nudity in a TV movie or Big Screen movie is proper to the story being told. It is not pornographic as 2354 of the CCC defines pornography. For instance, Game of Thrones shows much nudity in the brothels of the time period. And the sex is consistent with the story being told. I’m not saying it is good, but it is not gratuitous.It is there to make a point congruent with the story.

Pornography however, at least on the internet or non television programming, is to be condemned.

This is a topic that is going to be taken by various readers in light of their moral, religious, and ethical platforms. One thing I will say is that I don’t think any of it is of value for teens, at least without some adult/parental guidance.