Jordan River Forum

Porn is destructive, unnatural Elisha Sauers opens her column "La Crème de porno" (Feb. 9) with this: "To a man, porn is like a juicy Big Mac." I'll ignore this outrageous comment to get to the core issue: "Ain't no shame in it, boys. A man got to eat." Only in the last hundred years has it become fashionable to suggest that the proper place "to eat" is anywhere other than a life-long monogamous heterosexual marriage. Speaking from personal experience, I can say pornography is not a "Big Mac"; it's more like a plateful of rocks: sure, you can eat rocks, and they will satiate your hunger for a bit. Maybe your body will vomit out the rocks, but you can force yourself to keep them down (you can easily quiet your conscious), and pretty soon you'll find you can stomach more and more. But rocks won't really satisfy, and you'll find you're just hungrier. In the end, maybe you'll notice eating rocks has destroyed your teeth and digestive system so much that you can't eat regular food anymore, but wasn't it fun eating rocks? It's not a perfect analogy: Pornography wreaks its havoc not physically, but in the user's mind. Still, it is evil, shameful, dehumanizing for everyone involved and leaves the user ultimately pathetically alone. There is nothing natural or good about pornography anymore than eating rocks; by God's grace I'm no longer destroying myself with a gravel diet. There are few things more selfish than pornography; there are few things more selfless than a healthy marriage. For millennia all over the globe, people have enjoyed the benefits of marriage. Ms. Sauers and her ilk want you to buy into their rock-eating clique; don't let them sell you on a handful of pumice for dinner. Abram Hess
Sophomore Sex should not be used to relieve stress I take issue with the article "Sexed Up, Calmed Down" (Feb. 8). I do not doubt that achieving orgasm is actually a stress reliever. My concern is that using orgasm, or sex for that matter, as a form of stress management is, in my opinion, a bad idea. I submit that it could lead to a mechanical approach to the act when it is supposed to be unitive and procreative not just for fun or for stress management. It seems as though the Kinsey Institute is suggesting that all people should masturbate because it has various benefits and no side effects. I disagree. While the physical side effects may not be apparent, though I believe there to be some, the emotional and psychological effects are present with the use of masturbation over a period of time. The same is true of sex outside of marriage because sex is more than just a series of physical events and hormone releases. I also doubt anyone's "partner" would really be that happy with the notion of being a stress management device. Furthermore, I suggest that one find another way to manage stress besides masturbation or the other IU favorite, heavy drinking. Neither of these activities are truly viable in the long run, and neither can be practiced in the workplace or most other situations one encounters. Instead of getting yourself off, why not take a walk, go work out or do any number of other physical activities that probably take the same amount of time and have other, greater benefits that you can actually share with other people. We are not tools to be used for an end; we are more than that, both individually and corporately. John D. Waddell
Senior