Tuesday, July 11, 2006

What's in Your Closet?

With palms together,
Good Morning All,
 
Someone wrote to me recently asking about pornography the precpt regarding sexual misconduct.  The letter was refreshingly candid and clearly presented a picture of a man working hard to understand himself and the precepts.
 
Internet pornography is a huge mega-billion dollar industry. This means that a lot of people go to these site and a lots of women and men participate in conduct that creates the materials for these sites.
 
The existence of this industry, like prostitution, raises a number of good questions about our nature, ethics, and our biology.
 
Just what is pornography, anyway?  I was sitting in Barnes & Nobles the other day with a friend and her step-daughter who was 16 going on 21. This young lady picked out a copy of Cosmo, she was wearing a very mini, mini skirt, and was clearly suffering from raging hormones. The cover of the magazine promised information on ver specific sexual issues and questions, the pictures in the magazine were tantizingly sexual. What do we make of this?
 
Is creating or viewing pornography a violation of the precepts? And if so, how?
 
When does sexual content or conduct become "misconduct"?
 
I have my own understanding of these questions, but I would like to hear yours.
 
Be well. 
 


Harvey So Daiho Hilbert, Ph.D. 
May All Beings Be Free From Suffering
On the web at:
 


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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Q. Are you breaking an established law/more of the society/culture you have decided to live within?

A. Yes = misconduct

-----------

Q. Are you aware that your actions may be causing another to come to harm in some way?

A. Yes = misconduct

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Q. Are your current actions infringing on the time that you have already committed give to another activity, for others or yourself?

A. Yes = misconduct

Indian Ad Critic said...

Dear Sir,

I started reading this post with a hope for an answer to my own problems, if it's a problem at all.

But was surprised to find the ball in my court. I always had a belief that watching porn is bad, but I want to doubt my belief. Osho always said in his books, that belief is the greatest enemy of the human race.

Well what I feel on the total issue of being involved in porn watching or doing is that..these are all side effects of something going wrong. Our society has framed itself in a wrong way and all these activities are signs that there is something wrong with the framework and something needs to be done about it.

and as the ZEN says the change has to come from within.

There is nothing right and wrong..same is true with the pornography.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this post. I am still working through this issue.

Be Well

Anonymous said...

As long as there are consenting adults with no force on either one to commit the acts. Who is being hurt? The sex drive is the same as the drive to eat, drink or sleep. Try to suppress one and see what happens.

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