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1. I agree. But you know what really gets me? When people misuse the expression “honored in the breach.” When Hamlet says that, in his opinion, the custom of drinking parties is, in his opinon, honored more in the breach than in the observance, he means that the custom itself brings dishonorable, so it is more honorable to let the custom lapse than to observe it. But people say “honored in the breach” and mean that somehow the custom is honored by not observing it, which doesn’t make any sense at all.

   — Noah Millman · Jun 20, 03:08 PM · #

2. Noah, that’s not fair. You have to wait for a commenter’s non sequitur before hijacking my thread. It’s in the TAS bylaws.

   — Alan Jacobs · Jun 20, 03:27 PM · #

3. Seems to me a more productive way to run this discussion would be to figure out the principles behind the general consensus that adultery is immoral. Then instead of having a very abstract discussion about how porn consumption is or isn’t like adultery, we can simply ask to what extent it runs afoul of the same principles.

   And I totally agree re the commenters on Ross’s and Megan’s blogs. I just don’t get why people feel justified in insulting total strangers like that.

   — kenB · Jun 20, 03:30 PM · #

4. Isn’t one possible response to the genie: “I want to think about having sex with that person, but I have no desire to do it in the flesh”? Isn’t that a reasonable distinction to make, and one upon which a lot of civilization rests?

   — Jim · Jun 20, 05:29 PM · #

5. What about couples that watch porn together as part of their foreplay? Are they swingers? Cheating on one another at the same time? I think the base assumption involved in this kind of moral calculus (or maybe it’s trigonometry…), that the continuum has a downward slope, wherein the man or woman who watches porn or fantasizes about a coworker would, given the ability to get away with it for certain, commit an actual act of adultery: it’s all a matter of opportunity and testicular (ovarian?) fortitude.

   This seems to be taken as axiomatic without real cause to do so. Sure, it’s internally valid as a logical construction, but does it actually translate into practice? I don’t know one way or the other, but neither does anyone else. Wouldn’t, say, being enamored with a coworker, with it’s concomitant emotional betrayal, be far more significant than, say, watching some babe fornicate with some dude on one’s laptop?

   The problem with moral continuums — and I agree they do exist — is that an unwarranted leap is then made to ascribe precisely the same probity to each point it contains. It’s as if Ross is saying stealing a quarter off his desk is morally equivalent to staging a home invasion… after all, they’re all on a continuum of violating his property rights!

   — James F. Elliott · Jun 20, 05:33 PM · #

6. I’m with Jim. I don’t feel bad about thinking about cheating; but the idea of actually cheating, and of then being a cheater, makes me sick to my stomach.

   — bcg · Jun 20, 05:35 PM · #

7. Gee, if only Jesus didn’t say so many mean and nasty things like “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” more people would be Christians!

   Biblically, the only way to say pornography is not a form of adultery is to somehow maintain that viewers of pornography don’t lust after the people they see. One could maintain that one watches pornography as an abstract spectator rather than as a vicarious participant. I still think it would amount to self-deception.

   But most people either don’t want to hear the hard words of Jesus, don’t want to hear any words of Jesus, or don’t hear anything other than themselves. Outrage emerges because the insistence that morality should have a source beyond the individual (or society) is simply an outrageous statement in 2008.

   — AndrewN · Jun 20, 05:38 PM · #

8. But James F., Ross says several times that they’re not equivalent. Look for yourself. That’s even implied in his use of the word “continuum” — if two things are precisely the same, then there’s no continuum that links them, because they’re identical. “Continuum” requires difference.

   — Alan Jacobs · Jun 20, 05:50 PM · #

9. I love the term “circumstantial innocence.” Anyone who’s realistic about themselves realizes that the most effective way to avoid being tempted into a particular sin is to avoid situations where that’s likely or even possible.

   I don’t know, though, that the “continuum” framework is the best way to think about the relationship between, say, watching porn and adultery. They do seem related – at least in the sense that one is pursuing sexual pleasure separate from your husband or wife – but most wives, I would guess, would be much less upset at learning that their hubby had a porn issue as opposed to an affair with another woman. The wrong involved in adultery is, on one level at least, pretty obvious (the violation of one’s commitments), but the wrong in porn is a bit more nebulous. I wonder if the difference between the two relates to the idea that watching porn could be thought to be a formation toward adultery? What I mean is that in watching porn (or other kids of sexually explicit and illicit stuff), might it not be the case that people help form themselves in ways that make them more likely, then, to engage in that illicit stuff? So the wife who learns her husband likes to look at porn might feel hurt not just because he’s seeking sexual pleasure elsewhere, but also because he’s helping make himself into the sort of man who might then commit an act of outright adultery. So not exactly a continuum, but certainly related.

   And as for Ross’s commentators, there’s surely a psychology dissertation waiting to be written trying to figure what pathologies you have to inhabit to visit and comment on someone’s web site when you obviously feel nothing but contempt and derision for him. If they’re all so gol-darned worked up by what Ross is saying (or isn’t), why click over all the time? Bizarre, bizarre…

   — Michael Simpson · Jun 20, 05:57 PM · #

10. Count me with Jim. “Looking at porn” is actually a thing in itself, not a substitute for “having sex with the people in the porn”. The genie is making assumptions that are true for a fraction of viewers, and if you want to put those viewers on a continuum with adulterers, go right ahead. Since that continuum is on a commonality of desire, I’m not sure how useful it is, other than to say that men are dogs to the extent that they are dogs in the way we all know they are dogs.

    — Wrongshore · Jun 20, 06:08 PM · #

11. I’m be more interested in the proposition that given a patriarchal culture, looking at porn is on a continuum with rape.

    — Wrongshore · Jun 20, 06:11 PM · #

12. I think what Michael S. says about character formation is especially interesting. Some of the rest of you are causing me to imagine an interesting scenario:

    Gorgeous woman: Have your way with me, you big hunk o’ burnin’ love.
    Man: Get out of here, lady! I don’t want to have sex with you, I want to fantasize about having sex with you! Don’t you know that they’re two different things?”

    Presumably, on this account, there’s no reason to think that a person who continually fantasizes about winning the lottery would actually be excited if he won it. . . .

    — Alan Jacobs · Jun 20, 06:22 PM · #

13. Alan,

    As a liberal who comments fairly regularly both here and at Ross’ place, I feel like I have some knowledge in this area. I can attest that usually, when I’m posting at Ross’ (or when I’m posting at my place contra something he’s said, such as this post from yesterday, where I prove that having sex with your wife is on a continuum with having an affair) it’s to point out some area in which I think he is being ridiculous, whereas I usually am posting here to say that I appreciate the thing being said, or it made me think, even if I disagree with it.

    Why the difference? Well, there are a couple of reasons, but I think the fundamental one is the distinct difference in quality of thought in the postings that go up at TAS vs. the things that Ross will throw out there. For instance, the posts at TAS are, as a rule, a little longer than Ross’, which means more thought has probably gone into them. Secondly, I almost never see anyone at TAS write a phrase like Ross wrote yesterday, ‘My point here, to be clear, is not that…’ The posts that go up at TAS are generally well-thought out, well-argued, and rarely need followup posts to clarify what they meant.

    I agree that many of Ross’ commenters were being intentionally obtuse, misreading his ‘continuum’ argument to argue against something he never said, that having an affair and watching porn are the same thing. At the same time, though, as I tried to show in my post that I linked to above, the continuum argument is an absurd way to tackle moral problems, because every solution to a moral quandary lives on a continuum with every other, so how do you know where to draw the line?

    Anyhow, this has already gotten ridiculously long, I’m sorry about that, but Ross’ shoddy thinking on this issue, and his utter refusal to think about whether or not any other points of view have real merit, really get me grouchy.

    ~David Samuels

    — David Samuels · Jun 20, 06:30 PM · #

14. Without being bizzarely hostile, may I just say that the genie scenario and the ad absurdum version in the last comment are ridiculous and unfair to men, to women, and to sex? It’s not a useful thought experiment; it’s a distillation of male sexual privilege in the garb of a prep-school debate.

    Men are terrified of sex. If you actually talk to women who are sexually adventurous and assertive, you’ll find that the comment scenario (“I don’t want to have sex with you, I want to fantasize about having sex with you”) is not all that absurd. Men preserve a fantasy of limitless potence and irresistibility, but crumble in the face of actual women who like sex.

    The Genie fantasy and the gorgeous woman fantasy are more about fantasies than they are about ethics. The relationship between ethics and fantasies is far more complex than either “thought experiment” suggests. That fantasies don’t happen says something about the elements they have that reality lacks, and the uncomfortable elements of reality that they conceal.

    — Wrongshore · Jun 20, 06:57 PM · #

15. “Men are terrified of sex. If you actually talk to women who are sexually adventurous and assertive, you’ll find that the comment scenario (“I don’t want to have sex with you, I want to fantasize about having sex with you”) is not all that absurd. Men preserve a fantasy of limitless potence and irresistibility, but crumble in the face of actual women who like sex.”

    I’ve always thought sentiments like this amounted to a sort of fantasy. The sort of thing you say without (even the hope of) empirical validation because it creates a feeling of sexual-political triumph. The scenario of “actual women who like sex” and the men in whom they effect – categorically, it seems; all such women, all men – a shameful “crumbling.” It has its uses, I’m sure.

    — Matt Feeney · Jun 20, 07:26 PM · #

16. 1) Alan, you can obviously fantasize about something you would prefer not to do. I enjoy playing Civilization III from time to time, but if you offered me the chance to actually sack Stalingrad in order to obtain vital aluminum resources, I would say no. I don’t play Vice City, but I cannot believe that all or even most players are only “circumstantially innocent” of shooting cops and hookers.

    2) I think you are generally right about circumstantial innocence, but I don’t know that a given person’s pron consumption tells us much about whether he would take up Denise Williams on an appropriately worded offer, were such an offer to come around. In fact, observation of people who do have such opportunities suggests that many or most of us may be only circumstantially innocent.

    — J Mann · Jun 20, 07:27 PM · #

17. Wrongshore, you’re absolutely correct that fantasies are safer for men than actual sexual encounters, and that some men prefer the safety. I should have noted that, or the genie should have. But in general that’s a function of fear, fear of inadequate performance, and, like the fear of getting caught, creates merely “circumstantial innocence.” I bet a competent genie could address that as well.

    I’m not convinced that my little thought-experiment is “prep-school,” whatever that means, unless perhaps Balzac is pre-school: I modeled it on something in Père Goriot. But if you don’t find it helpful, you’re free to ignore it. There’s no compulsion on The American Scene!

    And David, thanks for the explanation. I still don’t get the intensity of even your response (which isn’t rude or mean-spirited) to a post which tried to steer a middle course between two extreme views, but I appreciate the clarification and the good words about TAS.

    — Alan Jacobs · Jun 20, 07:28 PM · #

18. <i>I wonder if the difference between the two relates to the idea that watching porn could be thought to be a formation toward adultery? What I mean is that in watching porn (or other kids of sexually explicit and illicit stuff), might it not be the case that people help form themselves in ways that make them more likely, then, to engage in that illicit stuff?</i>

    Michael Simpson illustrates what I was trying to get at and that I either failed to articulate or Mr. Jacobs completely ignored. That viewing porn can lead to adulterous behavior is taken, especially in Mr. Jacobs’ “genie” and “have your way with me” examples, to possibly lead to adulterous behavior. But how is this demonstrable in any way other than axiomatically? It seems to rather be an article of faith — literally, if AndrewN is to be believed. Mr. Douthat’s linking pornography and adultery on a continuum places them on a slope of moral probity that simply doesn’t seem causally linked in any kind of real-world fashion: the watching of porn does not seem to, per se, lead to the boinking of non-spousal sexual partners. What, then, is the utility of placing them on any kind of continuum together?

    — James F. Elliott · Jun 20, 08:11 PM · #

19. Of course the fundamental error in the example is that no matter how you swing, it would seem to be obvious that the absolute primo top of the line experience you could have, as long as wishes are being granted, would be to make it with the genie.

    — Sanjay · Jun 20, 09:24 PM · #

20. Let’s face it, you are only circumstantially innocent.

    This is true about a great many things. I’ve never stolen bread, but I’ve never been that hungry. I’ve never murdered anybody, but I’ve never been that angry. I’ve never cheated, but I’ve never been that worked up.

    As the temperature rises in each of these scenarios, ethical and moral constraints break down. Cool rational reflection, then checks and inhibitions, and then even a minimally-active conception of consequences go out the window as circumstances approach extremes. When input from the environment reaches a critical mass, consciousness itself is bypassed, as the older, less nuanced parts of your behavioral repertoire are activated. ‘You’, the executive, are side-lined, and the more primitive handiwork of the selfish-gene takes over.

    You can have sex with that person, right now, if you want. And you do want it, right?

    Let’s be clear about what morality is, and why it is. Morality exists because we are social animals. It is a judging mechanism, an inhibitory mechanism, and a motivational mechanism, each coordinated with the other two but also separable. As a judging mechanism, it evaluates other agents by plugging in relevant agent-information into a grammatical algorithm (which we still don’t understand fully). Out of this algorithm comes a pre-reflective intuition — an assumption of the ‘moral’ facts. These assumptions are then accented by emotion, and out of this whole scenario comes a valuation of the agent. As you can imagine, all of this is very useful for a selfish-gene who needs a society of other organisms to survive. You need others, but you don’t want to get played. A built-in, short-hand way of judging other agents based on very limited information is just what the doctor ordered (as well as a built-in constraint on your own behavior when other, similarly judging agents are watching you, or, as in guilt, a motivation toward social redress when your inhibitions fail).

    Back when this faculty evolved, the information available to one agent to judge another was limited; you can only judge what you perceive, and back then you could only perceive cause, consequence, and, using circumstantial clues, intent. Thus, all cultures have moral systems that distinguish between distant and proximate causes, intended and unintended consequences, and between desire and consummation (though particularities can vary).

    So why mention all this, besides the fact that I’m an insufferable know-it-all? Simply to make the following points:

    1. Finding out that Hubby watches porn is information about the kind of person Hubby is. Insofar as that kind of information has been moralized, the wife will find herself making a moral judgment, not about the act itself, but about Hubby. She may seek to rationalize it after-the-fact by saying it’s on a continuum with adultery and that’s why she feels betrayed, but as we all know now moral intuitions are pre-rational. If the reason given for a moral judgment is subsequently proven (dialectically, say) to be inadequate, it will be discarded for another ad hoc justification (See Hauser on this); but the moral judgment remains. So if you have two wives, each of them holding strong views about men who watch pornography, but each having her own reasons (e.g., Wife One doesn’t think it has anything to do with cheating, to her it’s just disgusting and base (think Kate Winslet in Little Children); whereas Wife Two considers it an abomination before God and a violation of the marriage covenant), both will make a moral judgment, both will have their opinions of their husband irretrievably altered, both will experience alienation, and both will exhibit the same outward behaviors in the short and medium term, should you, the objective observer, be there to watch them.

    2. If pornography is not moralized, none of the above happens (even if the Wife would go ape-shit about actual cheating). For good or ill, many young people (my generation and younger) do not moralize pornography, though cheating remains equated with betrayal.

    3. Since the moral faculty judges ‘information about an agent’, and since it developed during a time when ‘information’ meant Action + Intent, this whole discussion and your reaction to it depends on how sensitive your antenna is. If you believe ‘watching’ pornography is an action that implies intent to cheat, your brain will compute it just like an action with intent to cheat. Likewise, if you believe ‘thinking’ is an action and indicative of intent, your brain will compute it as if it were an action with a controlling intent. If, like me, you believe that there is a sharp distinction between thought and action, between imagination on the one hand and environmentally-registered fact on the other, and, most importantly, if you believe there is something beautifully human about desire meeting opportunity only to be overridden by ‘Me’, then you have a whole different moral calculus, one that remembers that we do things, or abstain from doing things, with inclination, not because of it.

    — JA · Jun 20, 09:29 PM · #

21. The weird thing about Ross’s post, that I only noticed upon reading this one, is that he starts off as if he’s going to disagree with Sanchez and defend the Fox commentator. But actually he doesn’t, he gives us this continuum, on which by any measure, there’s a lot of things between adultery and porn. I think I misread Ross at first because of the way his post was set up.

    As for the trolls, they seem to flock to the highest profile sites. Ross and Megan got nothing on Crooked Timber.

    — Justin · Jun 20, 09:40 PM · #

22. Alan-
    Let’s not sell “circumstantial innocence” short. Controlling one’s circumstances (leaving genies in their bottles) is part of the whole package. The Christian ideal is complete mastery of both nous and actions, but most of us aren’t that far along the — shall we say — “continuum” of salvation.* Your “interesting scenario” of the woman’s advances spurned seems like a good enough example of successfully executed self-mastery.
    And speaking of salvation, I suppose I agree with Ross’s flaming commenters (without having read them) insofar as there is no way to sustain his continuum without reference to a created soul that suffers pollution in both cases. I’ve never been convinced by any of the various secular, harm-based arguments against pornography.

    *Here I risk opening a theological can of worms between Orthodox and Protestant, I think.

    — Matt Frost · Jun 20, 09:52 PM · #

23. “Presumably, on this account, there’s no reason to think that a person who continually fantasizes about winning the lottery would actually be excited if he won it. . . .”

    I watch pornography when I feel like having an orgasm. It’s a quick trigger. Describing it as a fantasy akin to daydreaming about my Oscar acceptance speech simply doesn’t capture the experience.

    — Dave · Jun 20, 09:57 PM · #

24. Couple things:

    I don’t think I would actually go around boinking every porn star I find superficially attractive if I had the chance. For one thing, there are health concerns. More importantly, there are moral concerns. Porn, as Dave adequately shows, is entirely self-centered; it is precisely and completely about what the viewer wants. Sex, for me anyway, is not that way. There’s the question of fulfilling the other person’s needs. There the question of whether you like each other and want to have breakfast together—or build a life together—afterwards. There’s the question of possibly having a child or taking steps to avoid that result. There’s the question of what sort of person I’ve let into my bed. There’s the question of who, if anyone, gets hurt as a result of the sexual encounter. Etc. Etc.

    Alan and Ross want to import some or all of those inquires into the viewing of pornography. To do it, they have to manifest the presence of another person—an actual sexual partner—and plant the axiom that anything the viewer is pleased to view he would be equally pleased to do. I think it’s a stretch. Porn is idealized and sanitized; casual sex is messy and often disappointing. There are plenty of guys who wouldn’t take the genie’s offer.

    — southpaw · Jun 20, 11:53 PM · #

25. J Mann: If you offered me the chance to actually sack Stalingrad in order to obtain vital aluminum resources, I would say no. Are you sure about that? If you were really in that situation, I mean? Please don’t force me to say just how low my opinion of human nature is. . . .

    James F.: I can’t respond to every comment, sorry. Are there any serious studies about the relationship between porn and adultery? There may be, I don’t know. I believe there are some studies that indicate that men who watch a lot of porn are less likely to have sex with their wives, though I don’t know which way the causal flow goes.

    JA: Let’s be clear about what morality is, and why it is. You’re aware that many people find your account of morality unconvincing, aren’t you?

    southpaw: There are plenty of guys who wouldn’t take the genie’s offer. I agree. But that (in my view) is what makes the experiment interesting, especially if people are honest in their self-assessment.

    But I think sanjay has the definitive response here, I must say.

    — Alan Jacobs · Jun 21, 12:51 AM · #

26. Alan, you’re right about “prep-school”. As someone who competed in public school Forensics, I should know better. Though we didn’t know our Balzac, so maybe I was right the first time.

    So now your genie is going to take care of fear? Once fear is gone, can desire be far behind? The Genie scenario is disinfected in a way that stops telling us about sex and starts reminding us of the myths we already cherish, which is why I don’t like it.

    Feeney: “It has its uses, I’m sure.” What are the evidentiary rules on the scene, so that I can avoid using examples that aren’t backed up by the approved stereotypes? I’m being no more hyperbolic than the assumption that men are fired-up-and-ready-to-go without regard for context, psychology, fragility. If I granted that this is not a categorical crumble, would you be more ready to accept that male fragility has something to do with sex that many of our ideas about it would prefer to banish?

    — Wrongshore · Jun 21, 04:16 PM · #

27. You’re aware that many people find your account of morality unconvincing, aren’t you?

    Very much aware, yes. You’re aware of the same thing, I’m sure.

    You know, Alan, sometimes it’s okay to eat the apple.

    — JA · Jun 21, 04:55 PM · #

28. I agree with kenB. It would make a lot more sense to try to talk about the reasons adultery is wrong and the reasons pornography is wrong than to attempt to say one is wrong because it resembles the other.

    Jesus also said, “The Law says you shall not murder, but I tell you anyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” Surely you don’t believe that the reason anger is wrong is because anyone angry with a brother would murder him if only he could get away with it.

    Your thought experiment seems to be saying, “Lust is wrong because it leads to adultery,” but I think Jesus is saying the opposite: “It’s not just the murder and adultery that are wrong, but the lust and anger behind them are also wrong.”

    — Michael Straight · Jun 22, 06:09 AM · #

29. Well, if no-one will ever know and there aren’t any risks, why wouldn’t I have sex with the genie-generated fantasy? The reason adultery may be morally wrong is that it can hurt your spouse, and in this case, it won’t. Right?

    — Jesper · Jun 22, 11:32 AM · #

30. kenb and Michael S: It would make a lot more sense to try to talk about the reasons adultery is wrong and the reasons pornography is wrong. . . I guess that depends on what you’re interested in thinking about. But (here anyway) I’m interested in thinking about the distinctions that people commonly make between seeing and doing, fantasizing and acting (see bcg’s comment above, for instance). The point of my thought experiment was merely to suggest that those distinctions might be a little smudgier than many of us believe.

    — Alan Jacobs · Jun 22, 03:13 PM · #

31. Jesper, re: The reason adultery may be morally wrong is that it can hurt your spouse, and in this case, it won’t. Right? That may not be the only reason to reject adultery, but leaving that aside, whether the undiscovered adultery hurts your spouse depends on whether it has an effect on your attitudes and responses to your spouse.

    — Alan Jacobs · Jun 22, 03:22 PM · #

32. Alan, I agree. However, the adultery might very well prove to have positive effects on attitudes and responses to the spouse.

    — Jesper · Jun 22, 08:34 PM · #

33. Wrongshore asks: “If I granted that this is not a categorical crumble, would you be more ready to accept that male fragility has something to do with sex that many of our ideas about it would prefer to banish?” That’s an excellently, or at least very interestingly, worded question. But since we both seem to agree that evidentiary rules, much less actual evidence, are lacking in this domain, I’d have to answer that I simply do not know. Or, to put it another way, maybe. Among the many things male fragility might have to do with, it could well be one. Another could be those damn castrating mothers!

    — Matt Feeney · Jun 23, 04:54 AM · #

34. Thanks, Alan, glad I navigated over from Ross’s page. Circumstantial Innocence – I’ll have to add that to the mental toolbox.

    — Ferrell · Jun 24, 10:39 PM · #

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