Porn And Politics
The race for governor in Pennsylvania took a salacious twist recently as the incumbent, Tom Corbett and the challenger Tom Wolf, traded accusations concerning pornography.
Coverage ranges from The Washington Times, to Fox News, to Town Hall, to Huffington Post to Philly dot com here and here.
The story, in a nutshell, goes like this:
Gov. Corbett took disciplinary action taken against eight state employees for viewing pornography on office computers while working for his Democratic challenger, Tom Wolf, during Mr. Wolf’s tenure as state revenue secretary in the mid-2000s.
The move came after Mr. Wolf, who has a big lead in polls over the incumbent Republican, accused Mr. Corbett of allowing a “culture” of porn viewing among his employees while he was state attorney general. Two of Mr. Corbett’s top aides have resigned after the allegations came to light, and a third aide is resisting the governor’s calls to step down.
Mr. Corbett has denied that he knew anything about his staff’s porn-viewing propensities while he was attorney general, and has called Mr. Wolf’s accusations a “cheap shot.”
It makes for shocking headlines and it probably helps score points with each candidate’s political base, but in truth it’s a bit disingenuous.
A “culture” of porn viewing, as the one story called it, is precisely the culture in which we all live now. And culturally we are told over and over that there’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, in some circles, people question your manhood if you don’t look at it.
The message that is most prevalent in our society is that porn is natural and even healthy. Sure, doing it at work is grounds for dismissal at some companies. However, the attempt to take the moral high ground smacks of hypocrisy.
Our pornified age is tremendously confused with regard to sexuality in general, and pornography in particular.
Is it okay? Is it not okay? Is it okay for some, but not for others?
Most likely, Corbett and Wolf each look at porn, at least once in a while. And chances are, most of their staffers do also.
It’s extremely rare anymore to find men who don’t. The cultural value of not looking at porn changed a long time ago.
Scoring points in an election year using porn may simply be how politics is played, but as a culture any sort of “outrage” should be understood as false.
Intentional Warriors 
2 Responses to “Porn And Politics”
” It’s extremely rare anymore to find men who don’t. The cultural value of not looking at porn changed a long time ago.”
You are 100% correct, but I will add this. The only men who don’t watch pornography are those of us actively engaged in the battle on a daily basis. We realize it is a problem, now, and are doing something about it. The “regular Joe” living in the world, not actively battling for sexual purity, is a sitting duck for the enemy’s schemes.
Thank you,
Jorge Castimonia.org
Jorge,
Good point. Jorge, i predict that in the future — and not far into the future — these mixed messages will only increase in our culture. On the one hand, men will be actually ridiculed openly if they don’t look at porn, but on the other hand we will still have “scandals” like the one at issue in the Pa. gubernatorial race. Society will try to have it both ways. The confusion men feel, as well as the deep resentment at the conflicting message sent by our culture, will only serve to push men underground — or push them toward violence as they work out their anger.
Again, any criticism that one of the candidates permitted a “culture” of porn is missing the real issue in favor of hitting a politically expedient target.
We are, in practice, a culture of porn already.