i'm heavy inside of my chest.

i've been reading a lot of anti/pro pornography/prostitution feminist literature the past few days, wow. it's heavy stuff. i took this brilliant philosophy class my senior year that dealt with all these sorts of topics, namely, linking pornography to intimate violence and oppression toward women. being against pornography as someone who is a follower of christ and raised within the confines of western christianity is a given, something on the list of ways to define christianity. but i want it to be more than that for me, i'm not just blindly following some sort of legalistic structures because i'm told to, or because something is just morally wrong. god doesn't make commands that have no meaning - the bible speaks of purity and opposing sexual immorality for a reason, and i think many of those reasons lie with anti-pornography feminists, as seemingly ironic as it is (being that the generalized projections of feminism and christianity rarely hold hands). but i think that's silly, and being pro-humanity, and pro-justice, we are strong allies. i believe in seeing a better world, and i believe the things they say about pornography to be truth. that it's, on the whole of things, violent, brutal, de-humanizing towards women and children. that it enforces a misogynistic world, as covert or overt as that may be for each of us. i do, however, understand the dangers that go along with censorship, and the damaging effects that legislation against pornography and prostitution could have on women's rights and women in general. i also believe with all of my heart and soul that another world is possible. and another way is possible. it's not action, redemptive violence. it's also not pacifism. it's a third way, the way that jesus used - it's creativity, imagination, ringing in a new way of doing things. 

i imagine jesus suggesting for porn what he suggested about the oppressive roman rule to the jews: if someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. under roman rule, civilians were required and would be (sometimes brutally) forced to carry soldier's gear and walk with them for one mile. it was an assertion of authority from the romans, a reminder of who's in control. here, there was a clear distinction being made between dominant and subordinate. so this law allowed roman soldiers to force a civilian (read:jew) to carry his gear for one mile, but only one mile. any further would be seen as cruelty, and a soldier charged with forcing to someone to carry his stuff for over a mile would be in rebellion of the law. so when jesus tells the people they should carry packs for two miles instead of one, is he just being the kind and generous jesus he is? is he telling us to help people more, to force ourselves to be more selfless? sure, maybe. but given the context and the law of the roman rule, telling people to carry packs two miles is telling them to break the law. he's telling them to do something that is actually pretty badass. his message says carry the pack two miles, because when you do so, you change the power structure. the dominant soldier is now the subordinate. if he doesn't get his stuff back, he could lose his job. and maybe, just maybe, you'll force him to confront the conflict and messiness of this ridiculous power struggle in the first place.

jesus isn't here physically to come up with awesomely brilliant plans like this, but he gave us as followers of him the authority to do the same thing. and i believe at the heart of jesus, nothing was ever a moral issue, it was never an agenda or a plan for control. rather, and at the dismay of many, it was a humanity issue. it was about making the world a better place to live in - the place that god intended. it was about bringing the kingdom of heaven - that is, everything good, beautiful, fulfilling, right - to earth now.

"We have given the pornographers far too much power to construct our sexual imaginations. It is our world, not theirs. It is our world to take back. This is not just about taking back the night, but taking back the whole day, taking back the culture's imagination, taking back the way we see men and women and sex. If we do not, I fear that the light inside us will dim. Our hopes and dreams will be increasingly shaped by the pornographers. And our hopes for a desire based on equality, maybe even the dream of equality, may not survive. I am afraid of that.

We all need to work to make sure that does not happen."

 quote from robert jensen, who i am rapidly starting to adore. the article this came from is here. he co-authored a book called pornography: the production and consumtion of inequality, also wonderful.