ADULT ENTERTAINMENT OR PORNOGRAPHY?

by adam harbinson

Much has been said about Richard Timney, the UK Home Secretary’s husband who doubles as her Parliamentary Assistant, downloading a number of what some call, adult movies. First off, let’s call them what they are, they are pornographic movies, pornography being defined as the use of images such as books, magazines and films to arouse sexual excitement. To describe pornographic literature as ‘adult entertainment’ is to normalise depravity. It’s to say, ‘What’s the problem? Isn’t that what adults do?’ But I strongly resent the suggestion that it is normal adult behaviour to seek sexual stimulation outside a stable, committed and loving relationship. It’s not normal, it’s a perversion.

So then, what is the issue at the centre of the Richard Timney affair? Is it the fact that two pornographic movies were downloaded and paid for out of public funds? Hardly, for it was obviously a simple accounting error that could easily have been missed in the murky waters of claims for MP’s expenses. Or is the problem the fact that the movies were downloaded at all? Closer to the truth perhaps, for while we have no right to poke about in other people’s private lives as moral policemen, we are entitled to be concerned about the profound immorality at the highest echelons of state that places our very culture at risk of destruction.

And yet the extent of the public outcry in the wake of the event is surprising. I mean, if Mr Timney had downloaded and watched The Sound of Music or The Never Ending Story at the public’s expense there wouldn’t have been a word said. We might even have thought, ‘Aw, isn’t that nice?’ So, does our secular world have a conscience after all?

Maybe, but there’s something about this scandal that worries me; pornography is a social disease that is largely unrecognised. Like domestic abuse, another social ailment, it’s rarely talked about in polite company, but it dehumanises both performer and observer. It reduces people who were created in the image of God to commodities; sex toys. It is devoid of love and respect, knows nothing of dignity and intimacy. It’s all about self gratification, it takes and doesn’t give, it demands; ‘What will you do to please me?’ There’s no willingness to sacrifice for the good of the other. It sees sex as a purely physical act with no emotional or spiritual attachment. Life and love are all about relationships and openness, beauty and acceptance; but pornography is secretive, deceitful and addictive, there is nothing positive about it, it does nothing for the individual’s self esteem. It encourages sexually aggressive behaviour towards women, and will ultimately destroy society’s moral values, corroding them from the inside out.

Now, on the contrary, take a moment and allow this wonderful picture of love, of how life should be, of how it can be, allow it to wash over our souls that are so easily contaminated by the shabby and sordid world around us; 

‘Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.’ (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).