Gay pornography has fundamentally and irrevocably altered the language of homosexuality: how we understand ourselves, our sexuality, and other men. Gay pornography has instantiated an obsessive aesthetic for whiteness, youth, and ideal musculature into the cultural psyche of gay men accompanied by a burgeoning desire for contact and intimacy in a society that routinely alienates us from others (and, consequently, when gay men do meet or talk the frustration tends to necessitate some form of sexual contact). At the heart of gay pornography is a move which disconnects gay men from other real living men and repositions us in an isolated world of images, fantasy, and unrequited desire. What gay pornography does, as with any idolatrous practice, is to hinder the consumer from comprehending the goodness of the human soul and instead seeing only a means to an end: a means to consummating desire. Gay pornography destroys the beauty of the male body as made in the image and glory of God, a living sacrament capable of grace and goodness, and substitutes it by sleight of hand with pure spectacle: a dead image of that which God fashioned by His own creative power. Gay pornography simulates reality and therefore provokes real responses to what it presents within its frames: it offers what it can never provide, invariably leaving the consumer bereft of any real and meaningful contact or intimacy. The real evil of gay pornography is that its referent, the male body - the thing to which it refers - is itself a proper good, something sanctified by God: gay pornography draws from this good, the male human body, and positions it in such a way that it [the male body] becomes characterized not by its goodness but by its desirability: its ability to provoke an erotic, sexual response in you and me. Suddenly the male body in gay pornography is no longer viewed as God's work provoking awe and wonder but as something sexual, erotic, provoking a heady mix of lust and anxiety: gay pornography perverts our understanding of and ability to engage meaningfully with other men. Gay pornography inscribes lust, anxiety, and fear onto the male body, transforming the male body into a distorted mirror which divests the body's goodness and grace and reflects our own lusts, fears, anxieties, and unrequited desire.
I offer this piece as somebody who struggles with gay pornography and expects to suffer grievously in Purgatory for the many sins I have committed by it. What I ask, if you're reading this, is that you pray to both Our Lady and holy Michael Archangel for me: that by the constant and powerful intercession of Mary and Michael, and by God's grace in Christ who became man and sanctified our human flesh, I might begin to see anew the beauty and goodness of the male body as truly made in God's image and placing obligations on me: that I love, respect, and care for the bodies of other men as ends in themselves rather than as a means to my own selfish ends. Amen.
Edit: I want to note that these are my own, personal experiences of gay pornography both intellectually and religiously: this is not an attempt to moralize or condemn people that view gay pornography or anything of the sort. I am simply trying to articulate how I have personally come to understand pornography...and I welcome and respect if this does not accord with your own experiences of or understanding.
Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae...
Sancte Michael Archangele...
Ora pro nobis, Sancta Dei Genitrix
Yes, yes and yes. Thank you for having the courage to write this post. I am also a twenty-something who has struggled with this for many years and even prior to returning to the Church realized that something was fundamentally disturbing about gay pornography.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to share several observations gleaned from much use of this material.
(1) Pornography use stems from an absence of some kind and it becomes more and more difficult to fill this absence. I have thus noted an increase in the amount of fetishism used in pornography and the offering of more and more extreme situations. Going beyond filming two men having sex, I often see group sex or risky behavior such as condom-less sex.
(2) Pornography, as you said, really highlights the struggle that gay men often face in relating to other men and society at large. Take, for example, how much pornography is based on athletic and military themes. I think that pornography is a way for gay men to somehow control or subject institutions that otherwise provoke anxiety.
(3) Gay sex, ultimately, is sterile. As a gay man, I have no reluctance in admiring the beauty and complementarity of heterosexual sex. I don't want to be trite, but my anatomy simply was not designed to accomodate the physical mechanics involved in gay sex.
I think the upshot of it all is that there are many men who are yearning for intimacy and true friendship and are just not quite sure how to get there. I think that we, who know the experience of being same sex attracted, and yet also know the power and reality of Christ and uniquely called by the Spirit to be prophetic witnesses about the joy and love that can only be found in the kingdom. Again, I write this as someone who will struggle for purity of heart for the rest of life and know that the only thing that deters from pornography is the authentic joy that comes from glimpsing the beauty of Christ.
Once again, thank you for your blog and I stand in solidarity with you especially at the breaking of the bread with the rest of Christ's struggling, praying and believing Church.
Thank you. Will pray to St. Michael, as always, but in a particular way for you.
ReplyDeleteThank you for such an important post. I live in Indonesia. there are many catholics struggle with same sex attraction, including me, but there are few resources for us. thus may i ask you permission to translate this post into Indonesian and re-publish it? I will provide a link to the original article. Thank you
ReplyDeleteYes of course Alexander.
ReplyDelete