I’m sorry I don’t have anything more profound to say than “thanks,” but I feel enriched.

but I’m curious what you think “the primary reason” pornography is bad is.

It’s gracious of you to ask. After considering this for a few days, I think there are two main reasons I can’t respond effectively. First, we use such imprecise language that we’d have to spend a long time making distinctions and defining terms before we could make any progress. Consider, for example, that when we say “pornography” some people think of violent abuse of women to gratify someone’s sadomasochism while someone else is thinking of any media that includes nudity. These things are wrong for different reasons, in my opinion (or if they share reasons, the intersection is small). Lots of other examples arise quickly, such as is found in the word “lust” which we don’t spend any time nailing down even though the meaning is not clear. We can’t even agree on basic stuff like whether the identification of something as pornography is fundamentally objective or subjective.

The second problem is that as a consequentialist, I think things turn out to be wrong for different reasons depending on the person and the situation. This doesn’t, of itself, prevent us from talking about why pornography is bad, but it makes the investigation involved.

For me, I think the main reason pornography is bad is that it makes me want to have sex more than I would otherwise and my wife already wants to have sex less often than I do. To fan the flames of this incongruity is immoral since it negatively impacts my relationship with my wife. But, when I say “pornography” above I have in mind something tame on the pornographic spectrum. If I were attracted to other kinds of pornography, I would likely have additional answers.

Utlimately, I think this is one of the primary problems with all of the rhetoric about pornography in the church, with this example from Oaks being just one minor example. That’s why I don’t think he should have used the word pornography at all.

When I am referring to extremes in my comment, I am specifically talking about modesty such as covering your entire body, compared to barely covering it. I wasn’t referring to alcohol, chastity, etc.. And no, I don’t see what is moral as what can be found at the midpoint between extremes. I see it as what God says it is…..that’s really it.

To me, things are as complicated as you want to make them. You could think this issue into the ground and still not come up with anything that satisfies you. But…to each his (or her) own.

So I hear you offering two rationales for the Church’s current position on modesty: the first is an appeal to authority (which I dealt with in the preceding paragraph), and the second is an appeal to the ideal of a “golden mean,” more or less, yeah? The idea is that what’s moral can be found at the midpoint between extremes. But in general, I don’t think this model fits Mormon standards at all. We propose that appropriate behavior on issues of alcohol, chastity, obedience, what we should sacrifice for the Church, etc., is basically an “extreme.”

I think everything is more complicated than it seems to be.

Is it possible you are making the issue of modesty more complicated than it needs to be? If the Lord has set standards for modesty (and you actually believe it is the Lord’s church and His standards for modesty) shouldn’t EVERYONE adjust their standards to His whether they are covering up too much or not covering up enough? There are extremes on both ends, but I don’t think the Lord works in extremes. We are supposed to adjust our lives to His standard of modesty, not the other way around. It seems pretty simple and straightforward to me and I sincerely struggle to understand what confuses you about this issue.

All: I’m not trying to justify any particular behavior–I genuinely haven’t decided what exactly I think about modesty. Personally, I’m most comfortable wearing long sleeves and pants in virtually any weather; I don’t know whether that’s good or bad. My comments are just trying to better grasp what modesty is about.

The Church is attempting to go global right this minute, so thinking on a global scale isn’t irrelevant. Let’s imagine a community where women traditionally cover everything but their eyes in public. Some of them are baptized. Should we tell these women they shouldn’t ever show their noses in public, for the reason that this will incite lust in the men? If men in their culture don’t see women’s noses outside of sexual contexts, noses very well might incite lust.

I don’t personally know how to answer this question, but I think the answer is anything but obvious.

#57 – Kiskilili: I really liked that comment. Especially that there are so many scriptural references to modesty, and I can’t think of one that refers to revealing too much skin (correct me anyone, if you know of one). It’s all about the fine apparel.

It seems to me that Elder Oaks is most easily interpreted that we diverge only quantitatively from some extreme muslim positions. That seems to be his take on it.

I also think that defining modest as what covers garments is a rather unreliable definition, considering the way that garments have changed over the years…