Are Sex Scenes Always Immoral? (Andrew Klavan) — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00I wonder if we disagree on something.
2. 0:02I'd love to kind of tease it out. Have
3. 0:04you heard of the language of intrinsic
4. 0:05evil? This is what the the church
5. 0:07teaches that it just means that there
6. 0:09are certain things, certain objects
7. 0:10chosen by the will that cannot be
8. 0:13remediated by intention or circumstance.
9. 0:15And it sounds like you agree with it
10. 0:17because earlier on you said there's no
11. 0:18possible universe in which bringing down
12. 0:20an axe on an old woman's head could be
13. 0:22justified. You can't say well you know
14. 0:24he his intention was to free her from
15. 0:26suffering or the consequences were that
16. 0:28her sister let's say in a different
17. 0:30world became rich and people benefited
18. 0:32and in fact that is actually one of the
19. 0:33things that they talked about at the
20. 0:35Paul Hall before he makes the murder if
21. 0:36you remember he tries to justify it
22. 0:38saying that she's something of a leech
23. 0:39on society and right so there are
24. 0:41certain actions that are always in every
25. 0:44instance wrong like killing wouldn't be
26. 0:47killing humans wouldn't be an intrinsic
27. 0:49evil but murdering the innocent
28. 0:50intentionally would be so I think that
29. 0:53pornography and I love talking about
30. 0:55pornography because I just find the
31. 0:56subject so fascinating. It is a
32. 0:57fascinating subject. It's fascinating
33. 0:58because I don't know how to define it.
34. 1:00Um I've tried and I'll give you mine in
35. 1:02a minute. But you can look at
36. 1:04pornography from different angles. Okay.
37. 1:06Uh the the the production, the
38. 1:08distribution, the consumption, the
39. 1:10performing in um I think pornography is
40. 1:14something like material which depicts
41. 1:17erotic behavior and which is intended to
42. 1:19be interacted with in the way a man
43. 1:22might interact with a prostitute. It's
44. 1:24it it entered the English language in
45. 1:27the mid-9th century to mean just that um
46. 1:30a sort of um pornographia, the writing
47. 1:32of the prostitutes. so that a man or a
48. 1:35woman engages in pornography uh in a in
49. 1:38a sort of sexualized way that leads them
50. 1:39to to to climax. I think that's
51. 1:42intrinsically evil. I don't think
52. 1:43there's any situation in which that's
53. 1:46acceptable from any angle. But you know
54. 1:48what's really fascinating? I've shared
55. 1:50this on the show before so people will
56. 1:51forgive me but I hope you'll find it
57. 1:52interesting. A man can look uh here.
58. 1:57Think of a situation where a couple go
59. 1:59to an Airbnb and they're out on the back
60. 2:01deck and they've had a couple of wines
61. 2:02and they make love and uh okay and let's
62. 2:05say there's a camera and it's filming
63. 2:06it. And so now you have a filmed sex act
64. 2:09which is not pornography. And then let's
65. 2:12say you've got a a fellow who owns the
66. 2:13Airbnb. He pulls up his computer cuz
67. 2:16there's an alert and he's now watching
68. 2:19uh a filmed sex act, which objectively
69. 2:22isn't pornography, but could
70. 2:24subjectively be that to him, but not
71. 2:26necessarily. So like to to stretch it
72. 2:29and to say it even more
73. 2:31aggressively, a man could watch child
74. 2:34pornography and it be a good thing. What
75. 2:36do I mean? The police officer who I'll
76. 2:38say it really quickly, right? who views
77. 2:40child pornography for the sake of
78. 2:42identifying a victim and a perpetrator.
79. 2:45So there's this distinction then between
80. 2:46what we could say watching and then
81. 2:48maybe consuming like interacting with
82. 2:50the material the way in which the
83. 2:52producer or distributor intends it to
84. 2:54be. All right. So I'd love your thoughts
85. 2:56on that if if you have them. But I don't
86. 2:59think it's ever okay to watch
87. 3:01pornography. And so I would say things
88. 3:03like I wouldn't say that Game of Thrones
89. 3:05is pornography. It's from what I
90. 3:07understand I've never watched the show.
91. 3:09It's an excellent, complicated,
92. 3:10sophisticated story, but clearly
93. 3:12contains pornography. So, I think it's
94. 3:14always wrong to to consume that. Um, but
95. 3:18I don't think you think that. I think
96. 3:20maybe you're okay with uh watching I'm
97. 3:23not saying you delight in it, but that
98. 3:25it's sometimes morally acceptable to
99. 3:26view or to portray sex acts graphically
100. 3:30in in books or movies. That's what I
101. 3:32picked up from this, but I can't tell.
102. 3:34Well, yeah. So, that's a it's such a
103. 3:36complicated thing. I have a lot of a lot
104. 3:37to say about I I do have to start with
105. 3:38one story. When I first moved in with my
106. 3:42girl the girlfriend who is now my wife
107. 3:43for of 50 years, we I I we had this
108. 3:47little place on a narrow street in
109. 3:49Manhattan and across the street this
110. 3:51beautiful couple moved in and started
111. 3:53making love next to an open window. Damn
112. 3:56it. Was that Come on, guys. So, I'm I'm
113. 3:59walking. We need a blackout. And I'm
114. 4:00thinking, unbelievable. This is
115. 4:01unbelievable. And and they were
116. 4:03gorgeous. I mean, she was unbelievably
117. 4:04beautiful. and and they're doing and my
118. 4:07wife came in, my soon to be wife came in
119. 4:10and I said, "This is filthy. This is
120. 4:12really obscene." And she looked over my
121. 4:15shoulders. She said, "We do all that."
122. 4:17And I said, "Well, it's not when it
123. 4:18seemed when we do it because it's
124. 4:20happening. It's internal. You know, what
125. 4:21we're doing is is is not just a flesh on
126. 4:24flesh. It's actually soulto soul, you
127. 4:27know." And that may have been the case.
128. 4:29Well, I don't know what you were looking
129. 4:29at and I don't want to know. No, what
130. 4:31I'm saying is to me it was pornography
131. 4:33because I was just watching forms
132. 4:35shapes, but to them it wasn't. You know,
133. 4:37that's what my wife was saying. To them,
134. 4:39it may have been the greatest love of
135. 4:40all. They may still be together and, you
136. 4:42know, have a dozen kids and all this.
137. 4:44So, so that that's that is one place
138. 4:46where I think the pornographic lives. I
139. 4:49I'm always a little I'm always a little
140. 4:51worried about the word evil because
141. 4:52there's some things in life that are so
142. 4:54I want to talk about this. Okay. There
143. 4:55there's some things in life that are so
144. 4:56e like I would say pornography is always
145. 4:58corrupt and corrupting but that's what I
146. 5:00think evil is and so do you which I was
147. 5:02really pleased in your opening chapter
148. 5:03you and I agree on what evil is it's
149. 5:05parasitical it doesn't have positive
150. 5:07sort of energy it's it's the absence of
151. 5:10something that ought to be there right
152. 5:12but so corruption that word corruption
153. 5:14means just that right right but I guess
154. 5:16I guess what I'm talking about is in the
155. 5:17same way I would use the word art to
156. 5:20mean craft at the highest level I think
157. 5:22of evil as the lowest level of
158. 5:24corruption you And I I think in other
159. 5:26words, in other words, if you steal a
160. 5:28stick of gum, it's different than
161. 5:29shooting a guy in the head, you know,
162. 5:32unless you do both. And then Yeah. Then
163. 5:33if you do both, gum wasn't worth it. So
164. 5:35So when it comes to art, I I loved Game
165. 5:37of Thrones. And it was the first few
166. 5:40seasons is HBO's trick to keep you
167. 5:41watching. They would have uh you know uh
168. 5:44they would explain something and while
169. 5:46they were explain something, two naked
170. 5:48women would be having sex. No absolutely
171. 5:49no reason. They they call it what do
172. 5:51they call it? uh sex position because
173. 5:54it's exposition, expositional dialogue
174. 5:56explaining the story and then they just
175. 5:58have these stupid banging each other for
176. 6:00no reason. And at one point I I was
177. 6:02watching it with my wife and I I I
178. 6:04turned to my wife and I said, "Put your
179. 6:06shirt on, sweetheart. I can't hear the
180. 6:08dialogue." It's like, so I found that
181. 6:11exploitative. I found it wrong. I found
182. 6:13it difficult. But I knew it wasn't going
183. 6:14to do anything to me. I mean, I know
184. 6:16myself well enough at this point that
185. 6:18like I said to a friend, you should be
186. 6:19watching this. And he said, "I can't
187. 6:20because I I get addicted to porn." I
188. 6:22said, "Then you shouldn't be watching.
189. 6:23You need to know yourself." Yes. But but
190. 6:25I guess I guess for me, I thought, you
191. 6:27know, I love stories so much and they
192. 6:29mean mean so much to me and they do so
193. 6:30much good for me that I thought like,
194. 6:31all right, I get it. HBO I know these
195. 6:33guys. I I know the people on HBO. I know
196. 6:35what they're thinking. You know, it just
197. 6:37didn't bother me in that way. I've I've
198. 6:40seen very very few nude scenes that were
199. 6:44necessary.
200. 6:45I mean I mean I can count them on one
201. 6:48hand. Okay. You know. Yeah. And to your
202. 6:50point, you know, maybe I'll watch a
203. 6:52movie with my wife and something will
204. 6:53happen, right? I I'm like, okay, cuz I I
205. 6:56need to do that. Yeah. She doesn't need
206. 6:59to do that. Yeah. Because she's not
207. 7:00consuming. She's watching. There's the
208. 7:02distinction. I remember one of my mates
209. 7:04from high school, he went home after
210. 7:07school and found his mother had found
211. 7:10his porn collection and was cutting up
212. 7:12the, you know, so this woman's clearly
213. 7:15not guilty of consuming pornography even
214. 7:17though she saw exactly what he saw. It's
215. 7:19something about the reduction of the
216. 7:21human person to an object for my selfish
217. 7:24gratification. So yeah. All right, keep
218. 7:27going. So and I think it's very very
219. 7:30different in in novels. Yeah. than it is
220. 7:34in uh movies. And and Alfred Hitchcock
221. 7:37said the two things you should never
222. 7:38film, and he filmed both of them, but he
223. 7:39said two things you should never film
224. 7:41are prayer and sex. And he didn't say
225. 7:44why, but my conclusion was he meant
226. 7:46because they're internal acts. And when
227. 7:48you show them, yeah, you're not showing.
228. 7:49And this is one of my problems with the
229. 7:51movies in general, by the way. The
230. 7:52moment when two people fall in love is
231. 7:54almost always represented as a sex scene
232. 7:55in modern movies. and you think like,
233. 7:58well, I I sort of see that, you know, in
234. 8:00terms of storytelling, but in terms of
235. 8:03what I'm watching, it's corrupt because
236. 8:05that's not what happens when you fall in
237. 8:06love. You don't It's not always the
238. 8:08moment that you go to bed. In fact,
239. 8:10hopefully it's much later than that, but
240. 8:12but still, I understand they're
241. 8:14representing something, but it's a false
242. 8:16representation. I think it it is
243. 8:17corrupted. In books, you can write the
244. 8:19inner life of somebody. And and one of
245. 8:22my many run-ins with Christian readers
246. 8:24is was in a fantasy trilogy I did called
247. 8:27Another Kingdom where at one point the
248. 8:29hero becomes corrupt and I had describe
249. 8:32him using his power to bed a starlet.
250. 8:36He's become a Hollywood famous Hollywood
251. 8:38producer and he uses it to bed a starlet
252. 8:40and he talks about what bliss it is to
253. 8:43have sex with this woman, you know, and
254. 8:45they were furious. I thought, "No,
255. 8:46that's what it's like to be corrupt."
256. 8:48You know, like, in other words, you
257. 8:49wouldn't do it if it weren't bliss. I
258. 8:51mean, you know, it's like, so I I
259. 8:53thought and I thought it was right. And
260. 8:54I thought there was no at at no point
261. 8:57was he separated from the moral order.
262. 8:59At no point were you thinking,
263. 9:01you know who does this well? Um, uh,
264. 9:04Martin Scorsesei. Okay. Because he's at
265. 9:07least a lapsed Catholic. He may actually
266. 9:09be a believing Catholic. I don't know.
267. 9:10But he he made a movie called The Wolf
268. 9:14of Wall Street. Oh which is so riddled
269. 9:16with sex. Yeah. So I couldn't and
270. 9:19couldn't watch it. And but I hear it's
271. 9:20great. I'm sure Leo DiCaprio is
272. 9:22brilliant. And Margot Robbie is in it
273. 9:24naked and she is un, you know,
274. 9:27mindshatteringly beautiful. At the end
275. 9:28of the movie, all you can think is I
276. 9:30never want to live that life. I never
277. 9:32want to live that life. I'm so glad I
278. 9:33haven't lived that life. And because
279. 9:35he's just, I don't know what he does. He
280. 9:37infuses it with a kind of death that
281. 9:39that redeems it. I Yeah, I get that. I
282. 9:42can see that. Yeah. If you have not
283. 9:44heard of the College of St. Joseph, the
284. 9:46worker, you need to. Their program
285. 9:49combines the rigor of an elite
286. 9:51bachelor's degree with the practicality
287. 9:53of training in the skilled trades. And
288. 9:56their tuition model is structured so
289. 9:57that students graduate without crippling
290. 10:00debt.
291. 10:03Collegeofst.com/mattfrad. I think I've
292. 10:04been thinking about this a lot, right?
293. 10:06And so, yeah. So, let's I just want to
294. 10:07say something about evil again because I
295. 10:09know you say evil, people think all
296. 10:11sorts of things, right? They might think
297. 10:12of like a cracked porcelain dollface or
298. 10:14they might think of a clown that has a
299. 10:15dagger. No, no, by evil, I just mean the
300. 10:17absence of a good that ought to be there
301. 10:20or privation. And so, we could talk
302. 10:22about physical evil and moral evil. Uh
303. 10:25both if if a rock lacks sight, this
304. 10:28isn't a natural evil. If a man does, it
305. 10:30is a natural evil, but not a moral evil.
306. 10:33But in every act of moral evil, I would
307. 10:36say that you could point to there being
308. 10:38a lack of virtue that ought to have been
309. 10:41there. Like if I abuse my children,
310. 10:43there's a lack of paternal affection and
311. 10:46protection that ought to be there, you
312. 10:49know? So I that's what I that's what I
313. 10:51mean. So I'm not Yeah. So it's like
314. 10:54maybe more of a kind of like in the
315. 10:56philosophical sense of when I say that
316. 10:58pornography is evil, I think there's a
317. 10:59lack of a good that ought to be there.
318. 11:01So someone might say, "All right, Matt,
319. 11:02like you say that pornography is
320. 11:04intrinsically evil, and so therefore you
321. 11:06shouldn't be depicting it, but you know,
322. 11:08there's other things intrinsically evil,
323. 11:10like killing the innocent." Uh, and yet
324. 11:12you're okay with that being in certain
325. 11:14instances, right, depicted depicted. So
326. 11:16what's the difference? Like you show
327. 11:17that. And and here's why I think here's
328. 11:19what I think the difference is, cuz I've
329. 11:20wrestled with this for a while. I think
330. 11:22it's easier for whatever reason to watch
331. 11:25an intrinsically evil act such as the
332. 11:27murdering of the innocent without
333. 11:29committing an internal sin. You know, I
334. 11:32can there's some separation that still
335. 11:34exists
336. 11:36uh that that is a lot harder to keep
337. 11:38distant when I'm watching a sex act.
338. 11:41It's something um a lot more visceral or
339. 11:44it just um it's very hard to watch it
340. 11:47without consuming it. Yeah. in a way
341. 11:50that I think watching a murder in a
342. 11:52movie or reading about one in a book uh
343. 11:55is without engaging it. Yeah. Because I
344. 11:57mean you could you could think of a
345. 11:58snuff film, right? So if there's a movie
346. 12:00where someone's actually being killed or
347. 12:02even you know it's we're depicting it
348. 12:05such that maybe I killed this person
349. 12:07even if it is acted out and if that's
350. 12:09the entire point of the movie I would
351. 12:10say well that should be condemned. So
352. 12:13anyway those are some thoughts. Well, I
353. 12:14I I do think you know I was I told you
354. 12:17that story before about the guy pitching
355. 12:18me this story about but that those were
356. 12:20things that were being made at that
357. 12:21time. They were called torture porn and
358. 12:23it wasn't it wasn't pornography per se
359. 12:25but it was people being tortured
360. 12:28throughout a long period of the movie
361. 12:30for the excitement the exitation of the
362. 12:34audience. And I tried to watch one once
363. 12:37because I was out in Hollywood and I
364. 12:39thought I keep hearing about this. Yeah.
365. 12:40And I I I literally could not watch it.
366. 12:43I mean, I just thought, you know, it was
367. 12:45girls with beautiful bodies taking off
368. 12:46their clothes and then they would cart
369. 12:47them off and I just thought, I'm sorry,
370. 12:49I'm not doing that. And that and that
371. 12:51was a sense that like somebody was doing
372. 12:53something evil to me. Yeah. You know,
373. 12:55and I wasn't going to participate. Now,
374. 12:57I I won't say it explicitly because I
375. 12:59don't want to divulge personal
376. 13:00information, but you do in this book,
377. 13:02you talk about, you know, watching
378. 13:04certain things that you went down that
379. 13:06rabbit trail. It's raining, but we've
380. 13:08got really good microphones, so
381. 13:09hopefully they won't hear it. Um, so but
382. 13:12I mean are you of the opinion that no
383. 13:14one should ever watch pornography?
384. 13:16Am I? Yeah. Good. Okay, cool. Me too.
385. 13:20Thanks very much for watching that clip.
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