Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing. – Nathan Poe
About 20 years ago I read an article by an Episcopalian priest in which he proposed that fundamentalism should actually be considered a religion in itself, and the various forms of it (Christian, Muslim, Marxist, feminist, etc) merely sects within that religion. It was one of those brilliant observations that immediately becomes part of one’s consciousness, and I’ve looked at fundamentalism exactly like that ever since because it makes total sense. Consider, for example, those who are mystified by fundamentalist Christians forming anti-sex alliances with neofeminists; once one recognizes that they are both merely different varieties of fundamentalism it’s no more confusing than, say, Methodist and Lutheran congregations getting together for some joint charitable enterprise. That being the case, it’s obvious that Poe’s Law, though first formulated with regard to Christian fundamentalists (specifically, creationists), works just as well with any other form of fundamentalism (or any form of extremism, for that matter). Furthermore, the law works just as well when reversed; any sincere statement of fundamentalist beliefs will sometimes be mistaken for a parody.
I recently came across an editorial (from Montgomery County, Maryland) which actually demonstrates both the corollary to Poe’s Law and the relativity of fundamentalism. Not only is it hard to tell from a parody (though context convinces me it isn’t one), it’s also impossible to tell which flavor of fundamentalism has rotted the author’s brain; it reads the same whether she’s an anti-sex Christian, an anti-sex Muslim, an anti-sex neofeminist, a typical control-freak Washington-type or something else:
No parent should be shocked that five high school football players hired prostitutes while on a road trip to North Carolina last week…thanks to smartphones and the nearly complete submersion of the sex trade into the digital swamp, ordering three prostitutes to your hotel room is as easy as ordering a pizza…The bold step of ordering up a prostitute on an iPhone often begins as early as middle school, when legions of boys start downloading porn…Now that the family computer and its Net Nanny aren’t the only way to get online, the access to porn and paid sex is in the palms of our children’s hands, 24-7…Mobile porn has become so prevalent among teens that there is even a nonprofit group, Fight the New Drug, and a micro-industry of treatment camps aimed at teens who have a crippling addiction to it. For teens ogling mobile porn regularly, the next logical step is to act out that fantasy and click on the many ads urging viewers to order up live sex.
As horrified parents, how do we stop this? The 18 chaperons on the trip…did bed checks at 1:30 and 4:30 a.m…[but] the…boys evaded the best efforts of their chaperons by placing their order at 5 a.m…The problem here isn’t only about limiting access. There are deeper lessons to address. The illegal purchase of sex, the fact that most American prostitution is a result of human trafficking and the reality that the plastic, bleached and enhanced world of online sex is a myth that twists ideas of human sexuality and relationships need to be discussed here. Parents cannot toss aside online porn as the equivalent of the curiosity they remember. Porn is everywhere…any child of any age with a Nook, a Kindle or an iPad can go from Word Search or Angry Birds to graphic, violent, degrading sex videos in just two clicks. And for older kids, not only are they awash in unrealistic, desensitizing images, but they are constantly being urged to take it to the next level, to go live. Families who don’t have uncomfortable but honest discussions about sex, porn and prostitution are putting kids at risk for some scary consequences…
Of course, it’s impossible for this author or others like her to have “honest” discussions with their kids or anyone else, because their heads are crammed full of so much disinformation about sex, porn and sex work that they couldn’t recognize the truth if it was stuck to their faces with cyanoacrylate. Just in this short rant we’ve got the myths that sex is corrupting, that adolescents are “innocent” and won’t want sex unless they are “urged” to, that a person can become “addicted” to porn, that law equals morality, that most prostitution involves the new bogeyman “human trafficking”, that porn magically causes cognitive disorders, that the majority of modern porn is “violent and degrading”, and probably a few more that I missed. Unfortunately, this isn’t just a parody; a very large fraction of Americans really believe in this sex-hating Puritan faith of which Christianity, the Republican and Democratic Parties, neofeminism and every other popular belief system are merely denominations.
Some “neofeminists” like the idea of strip clubs and call girls and pornography. That’s the nice thing about being grown up and a female, I can hold two conflicting ideas in our heads at the same time without exploding.
No, no neofeminists can. Certainly true (especially third-wave) feminists can, but you can’t be a neofeminist without being anti-sex any more than you can be a Biblical fundamentalist without believing in the literal truth of the Bible; it’s the defining characteristic of neofeminism.
Ah, just looked it up on Wiki. So, I guess that makes me a “Third Wave Feminist” then. Phew, Im really glad I’m not just confused and conflcted. I sit in strip clubs arguing about feminism with my husband and he just laughs in my face and calls me hypocritcal, so now I can tell him “I’m a Third Wave Feminist” and laugh right back at him.
Yeah, the term “neofeminist” is my own coinage for those broken-down second-wave disciples of McKinnon & Dworkin, people like Melissa Farley and Sheila Jeffreys who believe that penetration is violence, nudity is evil, etc.
A fascinating article. I agree that “fundamentalism should actually be considered a religion in itself” & it’s one of those “Eureka” moments where things that were confusing now suddenly fall into place. Plus, I learned what cyanoacrylate is. Thank you.
Your blog is consistently stimulating, provocative & thought-provoking. I look forwrd to reading it every day.
My pleasure, Paul! 🙂
>ordering three prostitutes to your hotel room is as easy as ordering a pizza…The bold step of ordering up a prostitute on an iPhone often begins as early as middle school, when legions of boys start downloading porn…
Easy to say if you’ve absolutely no information on how the sex business works. In my time as a working whore, how many middle school and high school age customers did I have? None. Because I, and the services I worked for, did something pizza delivery business didn’t, we screened clients. We didn’t serve the under-aged. I knew of few services that didn’t screen, and would have quickly discovered a high school or middle school student.
>The 18 chaperons on the trip…did bed checks at 1:30 and 4:30 a.m…[but] the…boys evaded the best efforts of their chaperons by placing their order at 5 a.m…
And of course, 18 chaperones herding 5 boys couldn’t see the prostitutes trooping in at 5 am…
I’m sure boys do look at porn these days. Back when I was a girl, they traded around lad’s mags stolen from their dads or older brothers.
My thoughts are very similar. We’re told absolutely nothing about what supposedly happened…were these supposedly from an agency, or independents? Did they actually come out, or did the boys just try? If they did come out, how the hell could high-school football players afford escorts? Or did the girls walk away upon discovering they’d been tricked into visiting underage boys? The whole story is designed to make the women seem as passive and mindless as the pizzas to which she misogynistically compares them.
passive and mindless as the pizzas to which she misogynistically compares them.
Mayhap that her Freudian slip is showing. She just wishes that she could be eaten like a pizza…
Hi Maggie,
I’m browsing from a new computer since my old one of 6 years vintage went down with something that took power supply, motherboard and video card in one fell swoop. Given the level of failure, I should have smelled plastic burning but didn’t. So that’s why my posting looks “new.”
The system recognized you, so no worries. 🙂
Dad kept his behind the furnace, Penthouse was my favorite.
“Mobile porn has become so prevalent among teens that there is even a nonprofit group, Fight the New Drug, and a micro-industry of treatment camps aimed at teens who have a crippling addiction to it.”
Treatment camps for teen boys interested in sex. You know, that was essentially why Winston Smith got taken away in 1984. Hmm, come to think of it, it was also what got Sam Lowry in trouble in Brazil. Seems to be a pattern in films about totalitarian nightmares.
It seems that most “western” totalitarian regimes are anti-prostitute. I don’t know about tribal totalitarians, eg., Idi Amin or other third world types, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I agree with the gist of your post. However, while it’s true that the article’s author is a typical deluded person on all matters sexual (including porn), she accidentally stumbles onto one sliver of truth – that porn can become a serious addiction. Not in the sense of turning the person amoral or sexist like the author might imagine, but certainly in the sense of causing compulsive behavior and erectile dysfunction.
This idea might still be fledgling, but it’s based on well-established neurological science dealing with dopamine, oxytocine and phenomena like the Coolidge effect. It’s an interesting read.
http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/
All I can say is that porn has not had that effect on me.
I’ve consumed every form of porn that I could get my hands on since I was old enough to spend money.
When I couldn’t buy or borrow it, I created my own. This in fact led me to my present occupation as a writer of SM Porn. In addition, I enjoy studio photography of nude models and I do CGI nudes on my PC.
I have never suffered from erectile dysfunction or suffered from compulsive behaviour, nor has porn prevented me from having a successful professional career prior to becoming an author. I am also an avid reader of science fiction and historical military novels, and I am a good cook.
In between all that, I keep company with as many prostitutes as I can afford.
I did know a man with ED once. He was married (later divorced) to a woman who was overweight, foul mouthed, and had bad bodily hygiene. I strongly suspect that porn had nothing to do with his ED.
No, porn CANNOT be an addiction, ever. It can be a compulsion, but so can anything else and that is not the same thing. Here’s Dr. Marty Klein on that “neurology” nonsense, which is the newest way fundies are trying to use “science” to support their beliefs (if you’re in a hurry scroll down to “new junk science”).
Igniss, you may wish to browse through this site for a contrary view:
http://sexademic.wordpress.com/
I have read all of the articles linked and I have to say I am not convinced. The site and theory I provided have nothing to do with monogamy, discouraging sex, promoting fat-acceptance or any criticism of promiscuity or prostitution. I am surprised that you would view it in such a fashion, given that it opposes some well-established liberal dogmas, including that porn is somehow degrading or evil.
The point about addiction vs. compulsion seems a bit irrelevant to me – surely if we view the matter form that angle, nothing is absolutely addictive to the point that the person has a 0% chance of stopping it, not even heroin. I will criticize an obese person for not having the discipline to stop eating in the same way that I would a smoker for not having the discipline to not light it up, or a heroin user for not having the discipline to stop injecting. All of those produce stimuli, and like your article mentions, so does seeing a pretty landscape or doing anything enjoyable.
Thus, I say that compulsion in any sense is to be criticized for lack of discipline, but surely there must be a line in which the stimulus which provokes this compulsive behavior crosses natural levels that a person before the advent of modern technology might have been expected to experience. I would call compulsive behaviors caused by that kind of stimulation addictions, and perhaps I would be more understanding, although I wouldn’t criticize them less. They’re all responsible for what they do, and the choice of one term or the other does NOT mean apologism. The difference between those two words is a moot point for me.
Even the first article on the YourBrainOnPorn thingy does state the following:
“I can’t emphasize this enough – Internet porn addiction is not a “sex addiction” – it’s an Internet addiction. Although masturbation is often involved, this is an addiction to novel pixels on a screen.
…
Internet porn is especially enticing to the reward circuitry because novelty is always just a click away. It could be a novel “mate,” unusual scene, strange sexual act, or—you fill in the blank. With multiple tabs open and clicking for hours, you can experience more novel sex partners every ten minutes than our hunter-gatherer ancestors experienced in a lifetime.
What’s a brain to do when it has unlimited access to a superstimulating reward it never evolved to handle? Some brains eventually adapt, which can lead to addiction.”
Anyways, I don’t think you should lump this theory down under “sex addiction fear-mongering”, because I definitely share your disgust for that one.
The difference between obsession and addiction is an extremely important one; addiction is caused by a chemical dependency, a physiological adjustment in the body’s function caused by habitual use of the drug (and only drugs, mind you, not porn or internet usage or listening to Bach) which causes negative reactions when the dug is removed. There is no correlative physiological reaction when porn or internet or music is removed, therefore there is NO addiction. Period. And all the rhetoric in the world cannot make it otherwise.
And, of course, not all drugs. Caffeine, yes. {raises hand} Marijuana, no. Heroine, yes. LSD, no. Nicotine, yes. MDMA, no.
And porn, no. A person might look at it, like it, and so look at a lot more, but that’s liking something, not an addiction.
i think the hysteria about porn is the same about masturbation causing blindness 100 years ago.most people watch porn but they are fine like most people masturbate but they still have their eyesight.
I do wear reading glasses, but if that’s because of masturbation, it sure took a whole lot of it, over decades.
Change of subject, but in reference to your title–
Po’ Folks [sic] was a chain of southern-cooking restaurants in the 1980s. They were my favorite restaurant to eat out at, when I lived in Atlanta.
I remember the chain well; it was one of my favorites, too! I especially liked their chicken fried steak dinner.
Maggie,
this is how it is done.
Women are the biggest hypocrites.
Abortion “my body my choice”
Prostitution “her body but her choice is evil and my choice is she should not be allowed to be a prostitute”
And is there a dead baby on the other side of an hour of prostitution like there is after an hour of abortion.
Women…it seems…are totally incapable of noticing their own hypocrisy. No wonder the pro-lifers who oppose prostitution to not want to address the question of their hypocrisy…it is obvious hypocrisy….even to a woman.
From the Montgomery County, Maryland editorial:
Be very careful wading in the digital swamp. If you step on an adder, it might latch and hold you, rendering you unable to multiply. Your morality will flip-flop, and you’ll be on the bus with floating values. You may think you’re seeing an exclusive OR, but really you’re just found a common bit. From there it’s a slippery slope into the sordid depths of master-slave pulse triggering.
But there is hope of salvation, even in your degenerate state. As is written in the Sermon on the Monitor, even adders can multiply with a log table.
Just make sure that the woman you proposition is indeed a whore, and not Lizzie Borden (the original hacker), lest you wind up with EBCDIC.
ASCII unrighteously and ye shall receive EBCDIC.
LOL! Beautiful! 😀
I have no idea who this “Barking Spider” person is, but he wrote this, unless it was somebody else:
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icons put your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted ’cause the index doesn’t hash,
Then your situation’s hopeless, and your system’s gonna crash!
If the label on your cable on the gable at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel to another protocol,
That’s repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall.
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
‘Cause as sure as I’m a poet, the sucker’s gonna hang!
When the copy of your floppy’s getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary RISC,
Then you have to flash your memory and you’ll want to RAM your ROM,
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom!
Awesome ❤
Thought I’d try to track down the source of this story.
Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/five-dematha-players-removed-from-program-after-incident-involving-prostitutes/2012/09/06/b99dfdca-f868-11e1-8b93-c4f4ab1c8d13_story.html
As usual, Maggie, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Here, I believe you have created an effective mental model to help explain why groups that seem diametrically opposed would come together on a subject.
When I think of fundamentalists I assume they are a minority of the larger more centric majority. However, when it comes to sex work & porn I think the majority are quickly persuaded toward Puritan prudish sexual taboos. This is especially true when it comes to association with young adults in the US. Why this is troubling is how easily it is then used to infringe on more fundamental liberties such as what is being done with prop 35, for example.
I wish I could claim credit for it, but as I said it was the suggestion of that Episcopalian priest whose name I just cannot remember.
Not John Shelby Spong?
It sounds like him… if not, I think you’d be interested in his writing.
I’m about 90% certain it’s him, because I kept thinking it was the same man who wrote Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, and that was Spong’s.
Does that religion include the fundamentalists in the LGBT community or us fundamentalist sex-positives? (insert blatant display of humor) 😉
Here is another story from the Washington Post that broke about the same time as the DeMatha prostitute scandal:
Underage prostitution ring’s leader sentenced to 40 years in prison
What Maggie will be particularly interested in is this quote:
This young woman was in a bad situation, and I’m glad she got out of it, but the truth that the author Justin Jouvenal is not willing to admit is that men usually will have to spend money to persuade women to become their girlfriends and wives. That is normal. It’s just that the direct way of paying for sex is not socially acceptable.
Justin Jouvenal is not willing to admit is that men usually will have to spend money to persuade women to become their girlfriends and wives. That is normal. It’s just that the direct way of paying for sex is not socially acceptable.
A co-worker of mine recently had a birthday coming up and she was talking about her husband, concluding by saying “he better get me something or there will be trouble”. The implication is rather obvious.
I used to draw a parallel between extremists and the layout of European parliaments, where there are left and right wing factions in a semicircle. I imagined the extremists from both the right and left wings going further and further round the circle, until they met up, when their ideologies were identical.
But, having read your description of the priest’s concept of all fundamentalists as a separate “religion”, I think I prefer it.
That editorial reminds me of a line attributed to New York Yankees Manager Casey Stengel (although the attribution looks shaky, so it may be an urban legend). The story is that a reporter asked Stengel whether he allowed his players to have sex the night before a game. His response: “It isn’t sex that wrecks these guys, it’s staying up all night looking for it.”
I followed up on some of your links in this column and discovered that I am a sex addict. I am not the ordinary kind, however. I am addicted to The Honest Courtesan. The writing is so good and the scientific backing and references are as good as most of what I read in professional journals. I am just lost to your evil machinations.
{cackles like Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz}
I’ll get you, my pretty! AND your… um… actually, I’d as soon leave the dog behind; I’m not into bestiality.
[SH! Blossom, stay out of this!]
“Blossom, stay out of this”-LOL!
😉
Don’t forget the sinister yet strangely compelling cthonic tentacles. 😉
Also when reading this :
“… really believe in this sex-hating Puritan faith …”
I grokked this :
“… really believe in this sex-hating Puritan filth …”