Why Religious People Are Ashamed of Porn

Why Religious People Are Ashamed of Porn February 20, 2014

One of the more exciting statistics used to denigrate religion is the fact that its followers seem to experience higher levels of guilt and shame regarding their sexual actions. Consider a headline from 2011, fairly bursting with its own conclusions:“Atheists have ‘better sex lives than followers of religion who are plagued with guilt.’” This is brilliant stuff, destined for gleeful, bi-annual repetitions by the press, for there are few things more marvelous than sexuality, and few things that so effectively trumpet the cosmic idiocy of religion than a scientific “proof” that a belief in God and his precepts screws up this selfsame marvelousness.

As a religious person quite happily “plagued with guilt,” I would like to point out a crucial misunderstanding these otherwise resplendent articles suffer from, using a recent article as my guide: “Religious People More Likely To Feel They’re Addicted To Porn, New Study Shows.” The article is being displayed by The Huffington Post, a website for children whose headlines put both the “yell” and the “low” in “yellow journalism.” The study it cites is quite correct. Religious people do tend to agree with the statements ”I believe I am addicted to Internet pornography” and “I feel ashamed after viewing pornography online” at a higher rate than their godless, baby-eating peers. The interpretation of this study is where things get wibbly-wobbly. For the interpretation and, indeed, the gleeful aesthetic of this and all such publications spins itself so: Religious impulse and its doctrines manufacture shame where it doesn’t belong. Pornography is a morally neutral phenomenon — even a positive, healthy, and natural good – and it is only some trumped-up notion of sexual impurity that has us feeling awful about televised humping. This interpretation permeates the comboxes dutifully dripping from the rear-ends of all such articles. Have a summary from aHuffington Post “Super User,” a title awarded — from what I can gather — for the continuous ability to distill the vague, insinuating douchiness of particular articles into withering points:

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