We know that pornography is a sin, but the word pornography has not always been seen as easy to define. The United States Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart in the court case Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) struggled to give a good definition, famously saying, “I know it when I see it.” Yet it is worthwhile to have as clear a sense as possible of what the word means, and also what actions constitute sin. This is essential for us to be able to avoid it in the first place.
Pornography is ultimately a means to lust, the disordered desire for sexual pleasure apart from its procreative and unitive ends (CCC 2351). Lust both fuels the existence of pornography and is fueled within the person by pornography.
Let us examine the definition of pornography in a few ways.
First, etymologically, pornography can be broken down into porne (or porneia) and graphe. Porne refers to prostitutes, but porneia also is associated with sexual immorality more broadly. Graphe can be translated into writing or depicting. So, etymologically, it is the depiction of prostitution or sexual immorality. This is fitting, because pornography is essentially prostitution mediated by the internet, movies, magazines, etc.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines pornography similarly. It states the following:
Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials (2354).
The definition of pornography according to the Catechism can be simplified as “the deliberate display of real or simulated sexual acts to third parties.” Sources such as Fr. John Hardon’s Catholic Dictionary and Matt Fradd elaborate that pornography is “intended to stimulate arousal or has that effect.”
What the Catechism Does Not Say
An examination of the objective definition of pornography reveals some interesting and countercultural points, especially in what it does not say. Several elements that are culturally associated with pornography are omitted from this definition given to us by the Church. For example, the definition does not say that the displayed sexual acts count as pornography only if the people are naked. Second, there is no distinction made about the medium. We may be tempted to believe that only movies or videos from websites that are explicitly labeled as pornographic are problematic. However, plenty of mainstream movies contain scenes that consist of “real or simulated sexual acts.” Therefore, even if the scenes do not take place in movies considered pornographic, the scenes are nonetheless themselves pornographic. Further, the definition does not limit the medium to only that which is visual or even that which is real. While the Catechism’s chosen word, “display” may seem to imply only the visual (videos and pictures), the core meaning is the depiction of sexual acts, and sexual acts can be depicted through means that are animated. They can also be depicted through audio only. They can even be depicted in ways that are intended to arouse through writing, which is what happens in erotic literature.
Even Erotic Literature?
While a whole separate article could be written about whether erotic literature really counts as pornography, and plenty of articles have been written on this topic, I will give a few short reasons why I would assert that it does count as pornography. First, when we looked at the etymology earlier in the article, graphe can refer to writing. Second, writing explicit descriptions of sexual acts is undoubtedly a deliberate display, and the whole industry of erotic literature exists to be source of romantic and sexual enjoyment. These sexual feelings are sought out and received by the reader from a source other than one’s spouse. Further, erotic literature does what the Catechism says, all pornography does. “It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world.” For these reasons, I contend erotic literature counts as pornography.
The Heart of the Matter
When all of the above is taken into account, our working definition of pornography can be “the deliberate display or depiction of real or simulated sexual acts to third parties which are intended to arouse the viewer or has that effect”. There are some omissions in the Church’s definition of pornography that a person who wants to know what how much he can “get away with” could fool himself into capitalizing on. The primary element here is the reference to depicting sexual acts. One could argue that a picture of a naked woman, or of a woman in a swimsuit, is not a display of a sexual act, and it is therefore is not pornography.
By the definition in the Catechism, this is technically true. This is one reason why it is possible to have nude art that is not pornographic, such as that present in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. However, this is where we have to be brutally honest and dig to the core of the teaching, and also to the core of what God commands of us.
As stated earlier, pornography was created from the lust of the hearts of sinful fallen humanity. In itself, it fuels lust. However, in the two-thousand-year history of the Church, pornographic movies and internet videos have only just arrived on the scene. Jesus himself, over two thousand years ago, in a world without the advanced visual technology we have, stated that “everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28). Humans have engaged in lust for far longer than we have had access to the pornographic material of today.
This is the heart of the matter, and it leaves no room for one who wants to get away with as much as he can. This is why, when my Covenant Eyes colleague Sam Black was asked on stage at an event, “What is considered porn?”, he gave this answer:
What causes your heart to look with lustful intent? What causes your heart to treat another as a sexual object? What do you store in your memory for masturbation fantasies? Not just the object, or image, or video itself, but also consider the lust that comes from seeking to use these things for sexual gratification. Do you not know that you are defiled by what comes out of your heart? That is porn. That is porn to you (17).
Do Not Just Avoid Pornography—Pursue Holiness
Let us do a quick review. Pornography is the deliberate display or depiction of sexual acts to third parties which are intended to arouse the viewer or has that effect. This is all-inclusive of pornographic videos, sex scenes in movies, pictures of sexual acts, erotic literature, and other means of depicting such acts. Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure, which is sought for itself apart from its procreative and unitive purposes. While a picture of a woman naked or in a bathing suit might not fit our definition of pornography since no sexual act is depicted, when looked at for the sake of sexual enjoyment they become a means of lust, and therefore serves the same purpose as pornography. This means that a follower of Christ cannot settle merely to ask the question, “does this count as pornography?” but he must ask himself the primary question: “is this virtuous or is this sinful?” Answering this question involves knowing the teaching of the church. It also involves a person taking himself into account, including his temptations, struggles, previous choices, and even fetishes. The human person is hardwired for sexual pleasure, and any explicit depiction of sex with real people is almost inevitably going to evoke arousal in its viewers. The same could be said for anyone viewing pictures of swimsuit models online or in magazines. Further, when anyone being depicted in such a way might be seen but not known, that person’s dignity is violated. That is why Pope St. John Paul II said that pornography shows not too much, but rather too little.
At the heart of the question “What can I get away with looking at?”, and at the heart of “Well, this does not even count as pornography,” is the very lust that Jesus condemns. At the heart of getting away with as much as one can is still the desire to use another, even if only a little bit.
Lust, at its core, is wrong because it entails the use of another person or persons for sexual pleasure. Pope St. John Paul II, before he was the pope, in his book Love and Responsibility, said that “the person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude toward a human person is love.” People are never meant to be used; they are meant only to be loved. For a Catholic—and all people, for that matter—the question can never be How much lust can I get away with? Rather, the question that must guide our lives is How much love can I give to God and to others? How we live our lives will be the answer to that question, and that is all we have to give back to God, whose love for us is infinite.