In Defense of Smut for Smut

Joe –
Do keep in mind, though, that there are an awful lot of atheists who object to porn on other grounds; there’s the overall objectification of women in society, there’s the fact that a lot of porn is produced in exploitative conditions, that it can create unrealistic expectations on women, etc. There are a lot of reasons that reasonable atheists might not be thrilled with a “smut for smut” campaign besides being a “damn coward”.

I don’t want to get into an argument about whether or not the negative aspects of porn outweigh the positives; you can go do a google search on feminism and porn and see all the arguments laid out and debated ad nausaeum. Just keep in mind that not all of the unenthusiastic response you’ve seen is a case of getting the vapors over linking sex and religion and “Oh no what will the religious say?” If you were swapping out for feminist-positive porn that might be something (link is an article about it, sfw), but there is still a lot of debate on the topic.
Some of us would simply prefer anti-religion campaigns that don’t also, in our opinion, throw women under the bus as collateral damage just for the sake of attention.

Basically his arguments boil down to two things:

1. If people don’t want to talk to me, the only real response is to scream louder, and
2. Anyone who does not agree with #1 is a coward.

Nope, you’re just an ass.

We’ve tried. We’ve tried showing “The God Who Wasn’t There” with an open panel discussion. Again religious organizations tried to get us shut down because they were “offended.” But they can turn around and have bible study and show their religious stuff with no flack? No one showed up to the panel because we flaked out and hid our tails between our legs.
As far as I can tell, the only difference between the panel not working and the porn swap working is that they held their ground on the latter. Atheists already have a hard enough time fighting the view that we are amoral without being actively associated with porn. And as I think others have said, the porn swap might not be the best way to attract female atheists. It may do wonders locally for your campus group membership, but I think it does more harm than good for the larger atheist community.

Jordan — Joe requested his piece run without editing. Usually, I edit heavily, but I honored his request as much as I could.

Joe, I appreciate the principles you stand for, but really can’t come to agreement with you on what means are acceptable or not for promoting them.
You claim the Smut for Smut campaign is justified by the big turn-out. I’m sorry, I can’t see how a big turn-out renders any event morally respectable by itself. Fiction for fiction conveys the same message without providing grounds for the far-to-common media onslaught against “immoral atheists”.
Giving out porn is a terrible PR move for a humanism-based organization.

Joe,
As I read your response to the criticisms of your group’s pornography peddling adventure, I had to smile. Much of what I read reminded me of myself back in the mid to late 1980’s when I was active in raising funds for anti-communist organizations and groups. Fresh out of the military, I was young, idealistic, brash, in-your-face and I was on a mission. I set up tables and displays in downtown Ann Arbor, drawing attention to the plight of the Afghan Freedom Fighters and the Nicaraguan contras, collecting donations and fending off hostile, spitting, shrieking liberals single-handedly.
Revel in these days and in these times. Make your mistakes now and learn from them as I have (belatedly) learned from mine. You have my undying support and admiration. You fight the good fight for those of us who for various reasons cannot or will not.
That being said, I will offer some counter-points and constructive criticism of two of your statements.
You wrote, “It may sound harsh, but if you are not ready to stand up for what YOU believe in, and defend yourself, then you are a coward and may as well go sit in a prayer circle with all the protesters.”
Taken by itself, the statement rings true. Taken in the full context of your response, however, I take exception to your generalization of those who disagree with your stance as being cowards. As a child, I stood fast against the constant taunts and beatings of neighborhood bullies who hated me for nothing more than the fact that I was a half-breed (I am half Arab) and my father was a Muslim.
I am a combat veteran and a former private soldier and security specialist. I’ve survived a kidnapping attempt in the Middle East and experienced things which cannot be discussed during polite dinner conversation. I may disagree with you, comrade, but I am not a coward. Neither are the majority of fine men and women in this community of ours. A little humility and respect go a long way, my friend.
You also wrote, “We are here to simply say, “Here’s what we have to say. I respect your opinion. I don’t believe it, but I hope you respect mine.” I think if you take a few minutes to yourself and dig deep enough you’ll find that your motivations may be a little different. I know, I’ve been there and I’ve defended similar actions with the same rationalizations and reasons. You know deep inside that this porno stunt was a big “fuck you” to the religious right. You don’t need to admit it to me or anyone else here, but when you get a chance to be by yourself and meditate a little on the whole thing, I know you’ll come to an honest appraisal of yourself and your feelings. No apologies needed, Joe, just don’t feed me bullshit and tell me it’s apple pie.
TGM

It is worth mentioning that one girl received homosexual anime porn – so perhaps they had quite a collection and variety? Or does anyone know more about what kind of porn they had and how they gave which kind to which demographic, or what not. In my opinion as long as they bought porn which had actors known to be happy and confident about their jobs then I guess it would be less of a problem – concerning feminist issues – and also from big house names which are “legal” and “non-exploitative” (I don’t know how they would know this but perhaps an extensive background check could suffice) and about hentai/anime/toon porn, I doubt anyone is truly “exploited” in the sense we know it (sure long hours drawing and animating stuff but the likelihood of anyone being forced into drawing or voicing for naked people getting freaky is nil)- jus’ sayin’ what do you guys think? would more facts clear this up?

Personally I think campaigns like these need to happen every once in a while – they are attention grabbing , it is after all a “college” campus (people would be more prone to take the porn as a crude joke at worst if not a completely misguided attempt to promote atheism), and it’s good to slap the religious in the face and shake them up.

Hey Joe

Next time tattoo Atheist Agenda on your butt and run around naked.

That should get you some real attention.

I actually have more of a problem with his verbiage “what we believe in,” than I do with the campaign.

Zealotry in any form gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I stand by what I said yesterday. The fringe firebrands are just as important as the dignified public speakers.

I also have to agree with Jordan. The over use of CAPITALIZING a few RANDOM WORDS was irritating. I have to deal with that often enough when reading responses from creationists.

Joe, the ‘wiser, cooler heads’ are handing down sage advice based on years of experience. And most of those people probably did radical and alarming things in their youth. This is your time to do that, and I’m proud that you are. I hope you soon grow to feel slightly ashamed of what you did, and a bit proud. The impetuousness of youth is a powerful tool for any revolutionary. Revolutions are conceived by the old, but fought by the young.

Joe managed to make me think he’s a moron twice in his opening paragraph. It only went downhill in the second, so I didn’t bother with the rest.

It would be interesting if Campus crusade for Christ ran their own “Smut for Smut” campaign where they took in pornography and handed out bibles.

I think the “Smut for Smut” campaign is highly immature. It is not respectful and it does not serve to give the mainstream a better image of atheists. It only furthers the stereotype that we have no morals.

Atheist Agenda, grow up.

We do have gay porn, just sayin. <3

And I'm a CS major, who needs grammar anyways. <3 😛
I only put words in caps cause I didn't know if my bold tags would transfer if it was copied over from the email.

So yeah. If that's what you're here to judge me on, that's a little silly. <3

TheGodlessMonster: All theists are not my enemy, and all atheists are not my friend. To distinguish someone’s value by what group they identify with is simple minded in the extreme.

@ Molly,
Perhaps I didn’t effectively communicate my point. I was not saying that Joe’s methods were effective, good or warmly welcomed. I didn’t even insinuate that. In fact, I stated just the opposite in my original comments to yesterday’s posting.
What I AM saying is that we need to stick together. It’s in our interest provide a united front to the best of our ability to do so. Surely, it is possible to show the world that we can be self-correcting, but can we do it without being jerks to our own? Is this concept somehow offensive?

The Godless Monster: The way to self-correct is to point out to morons that they’re morons. It’ll make them think twice about doing it next time.

@ Andrew,
Again with the name calling. Perhaps you draw on your extensive knowledge and experience in conflict, psy-ops, propaganda or combat to enlighten me on who is my enemy and who is not.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. An old Arab proverb and one that has served me well in the real world.

The Godless Monster: I have a good reason to call him a moron. It’s pretty similar to the reason I call a lot of theists morons – because what they’re saying is wrong/stupid/offensive/dangerous, delete as applicable.

I’m surprised that you think it’s OK to argue against one kind of stupidity while being quiet – infact actively asking people to be quiet – about another.

@ Andrew,
No, I argued against what Joe did. In fact, I called the act “juvenile”. My words bear me out on this. What I did NOT do was to call him a moron.
Criticise those in our camp who do wrong? GOOD
Call them names in a public forum? BAD

The Godless Monster: You’re touchingly sensitive to one stranger calling another stranger names, particularly given the extremely mild nature of that name and the fact that you pretty much agree with me.

The campaign seems fine to me.

Theists will claim to be offended no matter what we do. But, I don’t believe that anyone is going to take a deep personal hurt from this, any more than they’d take from the bus ads.

And, whenever I hear people claiming to be turned off, it almost always seems to have the subtext of, “why don’t you just stop talking about the issue and go away?”

Take Dawkins, for instance. The man is polite, well-spoken, and exceptionally reasonable. But, people still paint him as being an equivalent to the sorts of theists who blame gays for earthquakes.

I don’t think this comes from any sincere objection to his content or tone. It’s simply that he’s an atheist who is openly an atheist and argues in favor of theism.

The smut-for-smut might not be the most effective campaign in my area. But, it sounds like it’s working well for the people who run it. And, it’s getting their message (the bible is far from perfect) out there in a way that other things wouldn’t.

“Touchingly sensitive”.. yes that’s me…Mr. Sensitive 🙂
I’ll take it as a left-handed complement.

Hello everyone.

I tried to see from both point of views while reading what Joe wrote and the comments and I came to think that both have a valid point.

I believe what was left out during the evaluation of the “smut for smut” campaign was the target audience. I am no expert on marketing. All I have to work with is common sense, so if I make mistakes please be understanding.

Teenagers and young college student’s are used to provocative, in-your-face campaigns to promote anything. Even the religious go about sharing their views in a more zealous way. To approach older audiences you usually go about cautiously, with lots of calms and wits. To get your views heard by teenagers, you just make sure you have a bigger crowd and shout the loudest.

Please note that I said “getting heard” not “convincing” in the above paragraph. To do this, you’ll also need discussion and good arguments, but getting the discussion started is often the real challenge.

So I’m not so much concerned about the type of campaign, as for the type of arguments. If a feminist approaches to reproach these kids for the objectification of women in porn, that is attention. If those kids have the wits to point out that the objectification of women in porn does not approach one millionth of what the bible does, that’s attention being used correctly.

In short, I think Joe is a prime example of what people his age do when they feel offended. They get up and shout about it. They’re not in the habit of “just ignoring the idiots.” So, in my opinion, “smut for smut” is wrong for a crowded street. Unless that street is located in a campus.

Oh hey, what did the gay community do to get mainstream approval? Should we have a parade or something? We need a catchy slogan, something like “We’re Here! We’re Queer! Get used to it!”, except for atheists.

Have to agree with Godless Monster and others who are in (at least lukewarm) support of what the Atheist Agenda group did. That group is making a perfectly valid–and sorely neglected–point about certain “holy” scriptures; I don’t see what’s so “moron”ic about their efforts; and I’m not convinced that the attention they’ve garnered has been terribly negative, unless one credits the complaints of the same folks who (and mindset that) whine and cry about “Don’t Believe in God? You are not alone”-style bus campaigns. One shouldn’t.

In the end, I think Godless Monster (echoing Greta Christina and a certain cephalopod fan) is correct: we atheists fighting for societal respect are going to have to get used to being a diverse lot who see fit to express ourselves in notably different ways. Hemant is “Friendly”; P.Z. nails communion wafers; the Atheist Agenda folks use porn to make cheeky points; and so on. This is what a broad and diverse movement looks like. You can call any of the above a “moron,” I guess–it is indeed a free country–but I don’t see what it accomplishes.

There’s another lesson that I think atheists can learn from the LGBT movement; one that the LGBT movement took a little while to learn. And that’s to let firebrands be firebrands, and to let diplomats be diplomats. We need to recognize that not all activists pursue activism in the same say; we need to recognize that using both more confrontational and more diplomatic approaches makes us a stronger movement, and that both these approaches used together, synergistically, are more powerful than either approach alone.

To some extent the LGBT movement is still learning this lesson, but we’ve become much better about it, and our movement has become stronger as a result. Here’s an example: In the queer activist movement of the ’80s and ’90s, loud, angry street activist groups like ACT UP and Queer Nation often accused more mild-mannered lobbying groups of assimilationism, excessive compromise, generally selling out. And the mild-mannered groups often accused the street activists of being overly idealistic, alienating potential allies, and making their own job harder.

But when we look at those years in retrospect, it becomes clear that both methods together were far more effective than either method would have been alone. And the LGBT movement has learned — to some extent — to recognize this fact, and to deliberately strategize around it. Part of this is simply that different methods of activism speak to different people. Some folks are better able to hear a quiet, sympathetic voice. Others are better able to hear a passionate cry for justice. And the “good cop/ bad cop” dynamic can be very effective. Again, in the queer movement of the ’80s and ’90s, the street activists got attention, got on the news, raised general visibility and awareness. The polite negotiators could then raise a more polite, nuanced form of hell, knowing that the people they were working with had at least a baseline awareness of our issues. And when the street activists presented more hard-line demands, that made the polite negotiators seem more reasonable in comparison. The line between an extremist position and a moderate one kept getting moved in our direction. We see this working today: the same-sex marriage debate has made supporting civil unions seem like the moderate position, even the conservative one — which wasn’t true ten years ago.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t debate our tactical differences. On any given issue, it’s sometimes worth debating whether diplomacy or confrontation (or a combination) will be a more effective tactic in that particular case. But I’d like to us stop treating these debates as if they were larger questions of morality or character that have to be resolved in one direction or the other once and for all. We do what we’re inspired to do, and what we’re good at. Some of us are good at passionate, confrontational idealism; some of us are good at sympathy with our opponents. (And some of us are good at a mix of these approaches.) The diplomatic atheists need to stop trying to shut up the firebrands, stop accusing them of alienating people. And the firebrand atheists need to stop accusing the diplomats of being wusses. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and energy.

– Greta Christina, “What Can the Atheist Movement Learn from the Gay Movement?“

“What about this was immoral? It it being atheists? Owning porn? Thinking that the bible is flawed?”

The people who dislike us based on our atheism are the same people who are anti-porn. It would be like having a veal for vegans campaign. It’s viewed as immoral to the people it’s aimed at (assuming it’s aimed at the religious). It’s also very disrespectful to the people it’s aimed at (again, assuming it’s aimed at religious folks). It is equating porn to their holy text. They might as well have had a sign that said “Hey, religious people! Come here to get insulted and be deeply offended!”

I think that idea of the campaign would have been fun to talk about privately, but it was a bad idea to actually act on it.

“@ Molly, again, I agree with you 100%.”

I love hearing that 🙂

The campaign may be immature, but it’s nevertheless funny. I laughed.

Theists who will be offended will be offended with just the word “atheism”. You’re not going to offend them any more or less with “Smut for Smut”.

Theists who are sensible and realize their holy text aren’t holy to anyone else but them know it’s entirely another person’s right to trade in their holy text for porn if the person chooses to do so.

Just because something is “immature” doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. Besides, who decides what’s mature and what’s immature? If it gets a point across it’s mature enough for me.

I think, rather than donating the books to the library, they should sell the books back to the Christians and donate the funds to a secular non-profit organization. Even Red Cross or United Way (yuck) would do.

It may sound harsh, but if you are not ready to stand up for what YOU believe in, and defend yourself, then you are a coward….

No one showed up to the panel because we flaked out and hid our tails between our legs.

Not sure if I am following this – you guys are cowards too for not showing up to the panel? Am I reading it incorrectly?

@Molly

The people who dislike us based on our atheism are the same people who are anti-porn. It would be like having a veal for vegans campaign. It’s viewed as immoral to the people it’s aimed at (assuming it’s aimed at the religious).

I like your pride-parade analogy here.

Being gay is seen as immoral by the anti-gay folks. So, it is literally impossible to run a pro-gay event that wouldn’t be seen as immoral by the folks who are frightened by gays.

The pride parades weren’t, “if we hide our views will you kindly allow us to live in peace?” They were the gay community stating that they existed and that the rest of the world was going to have to live with that.

To me, atheism isn’t really about not-believing in God. It’s about not-believing in the arbitrary assumptions and moral claims that are imposed on people by religious indoctrination.

So I’d take, “consensual sex is ok, and there’s no reason to feel shame about it” as a more important part of New Atheism than, “there’s no actual evidence supporting a deist-god, so in as far as someone wants to be consistent with Occam’s Razor and empirical methods, they shouldn’t be a deist.”

It’s also very disrespectful to the people it’s aimed at (again, assuming it’s aimed at religious folks). It is equating porn to their holy text. They might as well have had a sign that said “Hey, religious people! Come here to get insulted and be deeply offended!”

I think that idea of the campaign would have been fun to talk about privately, but it was a bad idea to actually act on it.

Here we disagree again. To me, truth is not insulting. The bible contains erotic verses.

If people are hurt to learn this, then the problem really isn’t with the atheists.

Someone else’s beliefs or opinions don’t have to be respected, and people can be offended about absolutely anything, and if you start thinking you can’t offend anyone, then people will get offended by absolutely everything. As Stephen Fry once said: “So what if you’re offended? It’s just a whine”.

Also, who the fuck cares if Christians think what we do is immoral? We should think about what Christians would think of our actions before doing them now? The 10 Commandments, a list held as some kind of perfect abbreviation of morality by many Christians, says you should believe in Yahweh. The first four commandments are about believing in Yahweh.

@ Molly,
Correct me if I am wrong, but what I am understanding from your comments are this:
When dealing with the other side, we should be aware of what their reactions are to our message, not because we need to be afraid of what they might say or do, but because our message may be diluted by the way in which we choose to deliver it, thus making it less effective as propaganda. We should gauge our target audience before attempting to propagandize them in order to get the maximum desirable effect. Right?
BTW, do not look at the word propaganda as dirty…propaganda is a tool and nothing more. I use the term in a neutral and non-judgmental way.

First, the Atheist Agenda made it clear that they were not supporting pornography but were simply using it as a comparison. Second, I don’t see a problem with pornography. Christianity has so invaded our culture that naked people having sex has been deemed immoral. It isn’t. I have written a short defense of the Atheist Agenda and encourage more discussion on Dangerous Talk.
-Staks

@ Guy G,
Bravo, you hit the proverbial nail right on the head.

I really think this whole idea that we should be concerned about how individual events and people who are atheists reflect on atheists as a whole is stupid.

This is somewhat off-topic, but apparently watching porn reduces misogynistic tendencies in men, and may even act to reduce sex crimes:

http://www.the-scientist.com/2010/3/1/29/1/

Maybe we should be a little less critical of this event…

…or maybe not

Several commenters have said some version of “the religious will be stirred up no matter what we do.” I think this is a mistake.

There is a subset of the religious audience that will be stirred up no matter what we do. And it’s even possible they won’t be much more stirred up by “Smut For Smut” by anything else. We’re probably not going to reach those folks anyway, and of course, debating with them is generally futile.

But I think most of the religious audience, the ones that we do have a chance of reaching, will be repelled by “Smut For Smut” when other campaigns might’ve reached them. This might not be the case specifically at UTSA, where they apparently got a good response (attention, discussions, etc.), though perhaps another campaign would’ve done just as well without the negatives. But I think it’s true generally.

Consider the difference between, for example, “Smut For Smut” and UCoR’s “Good Without God” billboards. A few of the billboards get defaced, and many theists (at least, the ones we have a chance of reaching) are embarrassed and/or sympathetic; we start looking like an oppressed minority to them; if they felt a little defensive on their own account at first, now they want to defend our rights. Many of these same theists will be offended by “Smut For Smut” in a way that they weren’t by the billboards, and won’t want to give anyone the impression that they’re sympathetic to the atheists; the campaign will make the fundamentalists seem to have the moral high ground (always a bad sign for an atheist campaign) since even moderate theists who can tolerate others’ doubts won’t tolerate contempt.

In other words, even if this campaign was the best way to reach the religious audience at UTSA (which I’m not convinced of, but can see how it might be the case), let’s not tell ourselves it is therefore a “win” in the broader atheist community. (It could be a local “win” but a global “lose.”)

I agree that a movement needs a wide range of voices. I can even accept the possibility that this campaign might be a global “win” in the long run. But I think our movement tends to benefit more by helping the moderately religious to understand and respect us.

So many of the moderate to liberal religious already have so much in common with us (indeed, many of them are essentially atheist without knowing it) that we have the advantage of being able to simply accentuate those affinities, or indeed just to wait for them to gradually recognize those affinities. I don’t think we (in the global picture, at least) need desperate grabs for attention that cause the moderate religious to see more affinities with (or sympathy for) the fundamentalists and less with us.

@ Jeff Dale, no I see nothing negative in something such as you describe. Of course, nobody will truly know until someone tries it. Perhaps a good future project for Joe and his naughty crew…

1. If people don’t want to talk to me, the only real response is to scream louder, and
2. Anyone who does not agree with #1 is a coward.

No. People who “be careful what they say” and who are afraid to speak their minds through fear of offending the (idiotic) majority are the cowards.

And screaming louder is how you get heard. Simple as that. It is what religion has been doing for thousands of years. Now it’s our turn.

@ haley…
Effective movements require a diversity of EFFECTIVE tactics.

I posted a full length response on my blog but my basic response to this event is it seems the Atheist Agenda, of the University of Texas at San Antonio, is just a group of people who lack the creativity to get their ideas out there in a legitimate and respectful manner. Thus, their only recourse is to revert to a childish attempt to piss off as many people as possible all at once in the hopes that they can somehow exploit the attention they receive from it.

In defense of Smut for Smut I’d like to say a few things.

One, these are kids in college. In college you can do some outrageous-seeming stuff that no national organization would try to do. The context allows for it, so they should go for it.

Two, it’s funny. It just is. That counts for a lot. You have one life to live, so be witty and be fun and go for it.

Three, so what if part of the motive is to say “Fuck off” to the religious right? Honestly: so what? If everyone who felt that way actually said it, America would be a much better place.

Four, in our worry about respectability we underestimate the power of frank, seemingly offensive speech to liberate people. I’m pretty sure that straight people have enjoyed more benefit from the gay rights project than they will ever know; likewise men, from feminism; and white people, from racial egalitarianism. Often being shocked or offended is the first step to being liberated. Religious people are no different.

(Imagine trying to tell gay people today not to dress outrageously now and then and go on parade, because it’s not respectful. They would laugh at you. I see no difference here.)

Five, porn is a fact of life. It is a fact that stems from being sexual beings that know how to communicate. Good porn is just that: good. Unethical porn exists, just as unethically produced clothing exists, but that doesn’t make porn or clothes intrinsically bad.

The simple fact is that Smut for Smut exchanges something that is mostly bad for something that is mostly good.

Six, if other atheists can’t laugh along with an event like Smut for Smut, then I suspect our evident lack of humor hurts us a lot worse, collectively, then Atheist Agenda’s lack of respect for religion.

@ Godless Monster.

I suppose I fundamentally disagree with the notion that expressing our opinions and engaging in atheist oriented activities are tantamount to salesmanship.Atheism is the lack of faith in God…that is not something you can “sell”. I operate under the notion that you can reach out to someone, share ideas, express knowledge, debunk myths, and challenge perspectives, but ultimately people have to reach those conclusions themselves.

Even assuming your premise, that public communication is in and of itself, salesmanship, the important question is “do we tailor our “sales pitch” to fit the conservative notions we seek to disrupt?” That was the driving point for my discussion on porn; a lot of people feel morally opposed to something because of religious indoctrination and the norm/taboo issues created by a conservative values society.

So I support campaigns and individuals who challenge the status quo, taboos, and norms and who offer different tactics to achieving common goals.

@ Godless Monster
Fair enough. Mea culpa. I read & posted hastily and mixed part of your comment with parts of other people’s comments in my poor scrambled brain.

… we are not all PR agents … so lets stop viewing all atheist oriented programs as exercises in good salesmanship.

All we’re saying is, they’re entitled to pull their stunt, and we’re entitled to say we think it was a bad idea on PR grounds. And now I’ll add, you’re entitled to ignore the PR dimension of things people do that reflect on us, and we’re entitled to say that’s a mistake if you care about promoting understanding and acceptance of atheism and the societal standing of atheists.

Erotic literature is mostly aimed at females, and promotes the objectification of men and gives unrealistic expectations. Of course, since I don’t want to censor and stamp on female sexuality, I would greatly be in favour of adding other media to be as inclusive as possible, but still including porn.

I only referred to the other thread but should’ve quoted from it:

Arctic Ape:
I think they should stick more clearly with the “violence bad, sexuality harmless and fun” theme. They could name the event something like “Read love, not war” and deliver copies of some wide-spectrum erotica anthology.

I then noted that they’d still get the chance to point out the smutty stuff in the bible (as well as the violent stuff), but to do so by offering a positive view of sexuality as the alternative. Arctic Ape later suggested “a wide variety of well-selected specific-themed erotic books, videos, etc.” with an attempt to be “inclusive and ethical.” I further suggested romance/erotic novels, non-erotic nude art, and “good sex” manuals for couples.

With these, I suppose you could also include porn, now that you mention it. My objection was not to porn per se (which I have nothing against) but to the way porn was used specifically to shock and offend. If they offered a variety of sex-related material with a positive message about sexuality (to contrast with the biblical messages), there’s no reason why that material shouldn’t include porn.