So…

Not too long ago, I was in a conversation with some guys and the topic of strip clubs came up (they go). When I asked them why, they gave some of the “usual” answers: it’s a stress release, something to do, eye-candy. Then I asked the classic question (since every girl is a virgin to her daddy, right?): “Would yoou want their mom, wife or daughter stripping?” and the answer was “Of course, not!” When I asked them how they could so easily disassociate the two “kinds of women” (being that mom and strippers both have the same body parts—at least technically), they said it was due to the fact that they have *actual relationships* with the women who they know.

In response, I asked, “So, OK. You don’t ‘love’ strippers, but do you respect them?” The answer I got was “Hell no.”

I thought about that as I read an article in Scientific American that had this subtitle: “For most people, pornography use has no negative effects—and it may even deter sexual violence“.One part of the article that focused specifically on if porn harms women said this:

“The most common concern about pornography is that it indirectly hurts women by encouraging sexism, raising sexual expectations and thereby harming relationships. Some people worry that it might even incite violence against women. The data, however, do not support these claims. ‘There’s absolutely no evidence that pornography does anything negative,’ says Milton Diamond, director of the Pacific Center for Sex and Society at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. ‘It’s a moral issue, not a factual issue.’”

Gee. That’s a stark contrast to another article that gave 100 reasons why not watching porn is beneficial.  It also reminded me what the Word says about the world’s “wisdom”. Lets just say that God doesn’t find it to be very impressive (I Corinthians 3:19).

Yet, although we spend a lot of time on here talking about if porn is right or wrong, I don’t think I ever thought about presenting the same question as I did to the “strip club dudes”: When you’re watching porn, do you respect the people on the screen? Because if you are a Christian reading this, we are called to esteem people as being better than we are (Philippians 2:3) and to esteem someone is to “to regard highly or favorably; regard with respect or admiration”; “to consider as of a certain value or of a certain type; regard” and to have a “good opinion” about them. So, even if you could come up with 10 reasons why you think that porn is “OK” *for you*, to use other people who you don’t even know for your own physical release as they use the people they are having sex with in order to give it to you…*how respectful is that?* How can any of us *use people* and claim to respect them?

Just a question…

Would love to hear your answers…