Pornography

Research Paper # 66020

Religion and Theology > Christianity

Pornography

This paper examines the attitudes of the Catholic Church in regards to pornographic materials.

3,840 words () | 7 sources | MLA | 2005 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, from the Catholic viewpoint, pornography offends against the divine plan for the body and for the intimacy of sexual union by fixating on certain normal bodily functions in an immodest and obsessive way. The author points out that the natural state of sexuality revealed in Creation renders a theology of the body, which places sexual behavior within the confines of marriage, sanctifying the sexual experience; pornography degrades human sexuality, denying the three original experiences of man and the holy Sacrament of Matrimony. The paper stresses that the placement of sexuality outside the marital bond rejects its intimate reality, making sex a public not private act, disjoining the two in the objectification of the body and the psychological debasement of the spirit.

From the Paper:

"Original nakedness describes how the man and woman are to relate to each other. The experience of nakedness is bound with the idea of shame and knowledge. Nakedness means something more than sight, demonstrating the supposed relationship of male and female. Lack of shame renders interior freedom a necessity of their experience, the complete ability to choose without the restricting knowledge of their bodies and sex. The two become a communion through the experience of being naked not through its knowledge, for in being naked and unashamed they freely give the self to the other an act which affirms the other person. This affirmation of the individual indicates the self for the sake of the self, an absolute end in itself as willed by the Creator through Love. In accepting the gift of the other the two enter into communion but still retain their subjectivity. To preserve the gift of subjectivity in marriage the couple is called to be chaste. Chastity as defined as the full integration of sexuality into the person, is most distinctly expressed in the marital act where respect for the spouse and the relationship are most evident."