Whoring for Fun and Profit

     Back in the sixties, when everybody was searching for a profound sociological cause for the riots that plagued American streets, Edward Banfield brought the question down to earth with a bump, opining that perhaps people engage in riots because they enjoy it and get something out of it.  So he entitled one of the chapters of his book, The Unheavenly City, "Looting for Fun and Profit."

     That chapter, and its sardonic take on window-smashing and redistribution of television sets and stereos, came to my mind when I read this article, from Mother Times, on the new movie Hounddog, in which the 12-year-old actress Dakota Fanning plays a girl who is raped, who gyrates on her bed in full view of the milkboy, and who is lying in bed when her naked father slips in next to her.  Now, 12-year-olds are not supposed to be photographed engaging in sex acts, or even simulating sex acts, so there is a strong case to be made that the movie falls afoul of federal law.  But no attorney general will be prosecuting it; and that's the way it ought to be, according to Miss Fanning, her mother, the woman who works as her agent, and the woman who is directing the film.  "I'm grownup now," says Dakota.  "It's my choice."

     Yes, she's grownup all right.  She'll be 13 on February 23, my son's birthday too, as it turns out.  My son David doesn't know anything about rape and abuse and voyeurism; he's innocent.  Which Dakota is not: even if she is not filmed in the nude, she is being filmed acting as if she were, and, unless they have a girlish looking adult actress as a stunt double, she will be on the set or in bed when she is approached by the naked actor playing her father.  If the man next door did to your own daughter just that, with her permission, and nothing else, you'd call the cops and he'd find himself in the clink.  But it's Dakota's choice, and her mother's choice, and the her agent's choice, and the choice of Miss Kampmeier the director, and that choice makes it all better.  How "choice" is determinative here, but not in cases of statutory rape or the corruption of the morals of a minor, I can't quite see -- except that here there's a lot of money involved, whereas if your daughter goes behind the barn to do dirty things with the pig farmer down the road, or pretend to do dirty things, or look at pictures of people doing dirty things, well, that's just different.  Not much money to be gotten from a pig farmer, or glamour, or celebrity.

     It occurs to me, too, that Scripture does not take our generally sentimental view of whoring -- does not consistently see whores as victims, but if anything sees them as the ones who cause the damage.  The whores may enter the kingdom before us, only because we are even worse than whores, though our sins are less obvious; they, who know perfectly well how wicked they have been, are all the readier to repent.  But what if the whoring is itself tangled up in self-righteousness, as it seems to be in the production of this movie?  "I'm better than my critics, because I'm grown up, I'm honest, I'm trying to fight abuse, I'm not pretending that the whole world is clean!"  Imagine if the whore is a Pharisee -- and then imagine, as it was no doubt the case with at least a few of the Pharisees, that plying that trade brought in money and prestige.  The old Pharisees prayed conspicuously at streetcorners.  The new ones do other things, and make a great deal more profit out of it.

Comments

[Jendi]

Certainly our media culture sentimentalizes what you call "whoring", but not by portraying them as victims. If anything, the false depiction of lewd behavior as "empowering" helps mask the actual physical and economic victimization of most real-life prostitutes. The debate over whether their chosen lifestyle should be celebrated or stigmatized obscures the fact that most 12-year-olds who wind up naked next to a man (or most women who take their clothes off for money) neither enjoy that lifestyle nor are free to leave it.

[claire]

You're making an excellent, worthy point, but you're picking the wrong example. There was a movie a few years back called Bastard Out Of Carolina where this same issue came up, and where criticisms were merited.

I have seen Hounddog (it is a truly atrocious film), and as far as I could tell, this didn't happen: " even if she is not filmed in the nude, she is being filmed acting as if she were, and, unless they have a girlish looking adult actress as a stunt double, she will be on the set or in bed when she is approached by the naked actor playing her father."

Nor did this: "Now, 12-year-olds are not supposed to be photographed engaging in sex acts, or even simulating sex acts, so there is a strong case to be made that the movie falls afoul of federal law."

The movie is edited to imply that certain events occurred to the character, but there's no indication that the young actress was in danger. The underwear dancing is not pornographic, but, to your greater point, it is not chaste or modest. She looks like a little girl; there is nothing about her that would be sexually appealing to anyone other than a pervert, but since we're so inured to the sexualization of children the imagery reads as sexual. And that actually has the necessary effect of implicating the viewer--though I do not defend the director's choice of going this route.

Hounddog is exploitative to be sure--the writer/director has exploited the very real issue of violence against women and girls in service of a story that is derivative, hackneyed, and emotionally hollow. Nobody told Ms. Fanning she was in a bad movie; being an actress, this kind of part would have been irresistible. The movie also exploits black people, the blues, the South, the disabled, and human beings in general.

I am a film producer and screenwriter, and a devout, orthodox Christian whose first feature film dealt with the issue of rape in high school. It is an issue I care passionately about, having met far too many women who have been personally affected by this crime. Our actress (who was near 14) was not exploited on set, and the movie has reached a vast audience and become a major tool in the fight against sexual violence. None of us got rich from it; on the contrary, I toiled for years at great financial cost to get this movie made. Others on the film put in their own money instead of taking a paycheck. The actors worked for scale, and the crew next to nothing.

You are very lucky that your son is innocent. Most children, even those from Christian homes, are not. In the case of my film, one of our goals was to educate boys about how rape and other kinds of sexual violence hurt girls. Many of them truly do not know the effect that their behavior has on girls. Another goal was to provide girls with tools for healing from rape and abuse, by telling them to trust in their parents and teachers to help them and guide them, not keeping it a secret.

I suppose I sound like one of the self-righteous that you're talking about. Well, I will confess that I am a prideful person, and rationalize my behavior all the time.

The idea that a child should be allowed to control her career (or even have a career) is a truly stupid one. And the whoring you're talking about is evil. I'm definitely not suggesting you see the film and judge for yourself (no one should have to sit through such dreck), but listen to the opinion of someone who did see it. As they say, "there's nothing to see here, folks."

[T. Chan]

Claire, is there a website one can go to in order to find more information about the DVD?

[James A. Altena]

Dear Claire,

While you have a number of good points, I suggest that you go back and read the NY Times story on the movie (which had a separate post devoted to it on this site some days back). The article made it crystal clear that the matters to which Tony refers, and which you state, "as far as I could tell, this didn't happen:, did happen and were intended to happen.

[T. Chan]

oops--I assumed rather quickly that the movie was available on DVD--but if there is a website for the movie in general that would be great.

[claire]

I don't want to sound like I'm defending the movie, because it was so atrocious, but I guess I'm defending fiction. I wasn't on the set, so I am only responding to what I saw onscreen. If any of the allegations against the filmmakers have basis, they should be prosecuted, Fanning's choiced be d-----d.

Some quotes from the Times article:

"a 1950s girl who gyrates in her underwear, wakes up as her naked father climbs into her bed, demands that a prepubescent boy expose himself to her in exchange for a kiss and, finally, is raped by a teenager" -- From the way the film is shot, it appears to me that Dakota Fanning isn't next to a naked man, she doesn't see a prepubescent boy's genitalia, and she isn't raped or even shown with someone on top of her. The rape is implied through a soundtrack (screaming "no") and a shot of her hand clutching the grass, and a shot of her face looking scared. That's all. There is no simulated sex of any kind in this scene. There's no indication that any other actor was even present when these scenes were shot. It's all editing (cf Eisenstein for the power of montage). In production, shots that occur in the same scene are not even necessarily shot on the same day, and you don't have actors on set who are not in the shot, generally speaking, because you need them in hair & makeup for their reaction shots and close ups.

"Ms. Fanning should never have been allowed to play the victim in a rape scene, no matter how much she wanted to or how sensitively it was filmed,"

I actually don't quite get the point he is making here. Is he saying that the wrong committed was in creating a fictional child who had a fictional crime committed against her? Again, from what I saw, this was a rape scene constructed in the editing, not on set.

"Ms. Fanning was always clothed during the production."

"In it Lewellen sings and dances her best Elvis impression -- horizontally, on her bed -- upon learning that the singer is coming to town. While she does, however, a teenage milkman is in the room, looking on a little too hungrily."

You would think from reading this that the milkman is in the same shot as her, but the scene is constructed as a shot-reverse shot. Fanning is in one shot, the milkman in another. They were probably not even on the set at the same time. And I agree with the statement that her dancing is innocent.

I was watching this film with a careful eye because of my prior experience with my film, and because of the controversy. I just don't think it's a fight worth fighting. It's a bad movie that doesn't deserve any of the attention or publicity it's getting. The movie did not sell at Sundance, and Fanning is distancing herself from the film because of the bad reception it received. I was present in the press/industry screening of the film and it is true that there was loud hissing when the final credits came up. The movie is so bad it was rejected by an audience of those people who would stand most to gain financially off of the kind of exploitation that Esolen is talking about.

[claire]

t. chan--you can email me for the name of the film, which is widely available.

[Tony Esolen]

Claire,

If what you say is true, that's good; you'll probably agree that it does not come close to absolving the principals in this case from their corrupting the imagination of this young lady, never mind from making money by scratching the itch of teenagers and others in the audience.

[GL]

When one considers all the child actors who have ended up with miserable lives as adults, sometimes even dead of drug abuse before their thirtieth birthday, and when one adds to the common problems associated with child actors the exploitation of this child as a sex object, one can only feel heart sick for what the future may hold for Dakota Fanning. May God save her from those who are using her for their own ends. Perhaps the better title for this blog entry would have been "Pimping for Fun and Profit."

[claire]

The corruption of Dakota Fanning happened a long time ago. She's immensely talented, but as one reviewer put it, she's constantly being abused and violated in her films. Rape was only the last bridge to cross. That doesn't absolve anyone involved, of course. Here's a link to an article from Slate that addressed this:

http://www.slate.com/id/2158214/

Tony, I agree with the principal you are expressing. But you have to understand the economics involved here and realize that nobody made money on this film. It is a low budget independent film that did not have distribution prior before its 5 screenings at the Sundance Film Festival. It received such a bad reception at the press and industry screening that no distributor wanted to purchase the rights to put it in movie theaters.

The only real objection that I have to what anyone is saying (here or in the Times article) is to the notion that narrative film should not address this particular topic. I know that Touchstone is not a very movie-friendly site, but I don't think this charge should be leveled without some understanding of the vocabulary of cinema and the processes of film production, and the economics of film distribution. There is a right way to tell that story, one that does not violate anyone, and there are ways to tell the story that run the gamut from merely immodest to the illegal to the wicked and evil. It bothers me to see Christians stick their necks out in the wrong fight.

Last point I'll make before exiting the conversation to listen & learn from others:

I have been a script reader for a major international screenplay competition for the last 8 years. The thing that galls me most about Hounddog is that this story is not even original! I have seen countless scripts--at least 3-4 a year out of the 150 I read--that tell the story of an imaginative, precocious girl age 8-12 living in the South in a time before the present, with a bad home life and at least one absentee parent, who uses her creative gifts to escape the pain of her life. She is either hiding her rape or molestation which will be revealed in flashbacks, or she is about to be raped or molested (usually by someone she trusts). She will leave the town she lives in or kill her attacker.

This is the go-to template for a story that writer/directors think will get them attention for being both sensitive and willing to engage with tough material. Trouble is, even the ones that come from a real place and have autobiographical elements are all the same. And I felt in watching the film that the Hounddog screenplay was not even written from a genuine place. If I had come across that script for work I would've passed on it, not for the subject matter, but for being derivative, uncommercial, and downright silly in several places.

To GL's point:
The girl who was raped onscreen in Bastard Out Of
Carolina went on to emancipate herself from her mother. That particular scene is sickening, and there is no doubt in my mind that the actress was subjected to treatment that was wrong and possible illegal. She was filmed with a grown man on top of her, and she was about the same age Fanning is now. And that movie is on TV all the time now--talk about making money.

If anything, perhaps this controversy will open up a larger dialogue about child labor practices in the film and television industries. But you have to understand that nobody in the industry listens to us about this stuff, mainly because the biggest bloviators (not you, Tony), tend to be the least informed about the actual content, as well as of the way that movies are physically created in production and post-production, and of the real economics of Hollywood.

If those who stand for what is right really want to be heard, then they're going to have to speak the language of those they're speaking to. And, for heaven's sake, stop letting anyone on on Fox News say it. That's an instantaneous DQ.

[Tony Esolen]

Claire,

Thanks for your comments, and for your support of the magazine. I guess it is a fair charge to say that MC is not a movie-friendly site. Touchstone will, however, be running a new feature, movie "reviews" -- that is, retrospective reviews of old and possibly forgotten movies that ought to get another look. If you have any suggestions for such dark horses??

For what it's worth, though I've been trying to make a distinction between mass entertainment and popular culture, I'll readily admit that mass entertainment can produce great art, and that the greatest cache of such art for the last 90 years has been in film. It's a separate question to ask what happens to film when its ties to a truly popular culture are severed, either because there is no longer any truly popular culture, or because the principals involved in the filmmaking no longer understand what it is like to live in East Podunk and go to church at East Podunk Second Baptist.

Another question to ask, which we have broached here before, but it's been a while since we've done it, is "What is the experiential difference between reading and looking at a photo of and watching the performance, live or simulated, of what is obscene or lewd or, if neither, sexually charged?" We assume these days that everything or nothing must fall under the ban of censorship, but that doesn't seem obvious to me. A book is not a picture, and a picture is not a movie clip....

[otto]

North Carolina state officials viewed an uncut version of Hounddog, and agreed that nothing illegal took place. The Utah State Attorney General viewed the movie at Sundance, and also stated nothing was wrong.

It's a shame that people are uncomfortable discussing a problem as bad as rape, and are willing to attack a 12-year old and her family without bothering to see the movie for themselves in order to have an informed opinion. 'Tis much easier to speak in ignorance, I suppose.

[GL]

Otto,

I will admit that I have not seen the movie and likely will not see it. I also am unwilling to pass judgment on those who must decide whether to prosecute, understanding that they must review what occurred and apply the relevant statutes and case law to determine whether an offense occurred and what the likelihood of success in a prosecution would be even if, in their judgment, an offense did occur. I practiced law for several years and worked on some high profile cases that received media coverage, so I also understand that the media can exaggerate and distort the facts.

With all that out of the way, I think it is inherently wrong to expose a 12-year-old to the type of information and physical environment which would be necessary to film the scenes I have heard described. Further, presenting a 12-year-old as a sex object, even the scene described by Tony as her "gyrat[ing] on her bed in full view of the milkboy," is exploitation of that child. A movie that did that with a 12-year-old would not have been accepted as a mainstream film 30 years ago and would have caused much greater outrage than it has generated today. Twelve-year-olds are children. That they now are much more aware of "mature" subjects than they were 50 years ago does not change that, it just demonstrates how far we have fallen as a society and our neglect, perhaps even abuse, of our children that such is the case. And no twelve-year-old, no matter how sophisticated, famous and wealthy has the maturity to accurately declare, "I'm grownup now. . . . It's my choice."

[dilys]

Or, contracepting for fun and profit. One hard-core long-standing utilitarian reason for the prohibition on sexual activity by the very young is the danger to females of extremely early pregnancy, and the inadequacy of unbonded unproductive "child" parents. Without that issue, why not seek the most dramatic, titillating, and over-the-top stimuli available, with lip service to "consent" and "psychology" and "technical modesty"?

Helping boil the pot is the modern assault on noble and virtuous images accelerated by the ritual contemplation of Willy Loman and Hemingway's power-prose whores with a heart of gold. Partly bloody-mindedness, partly grief and disappointment at cultural religion as hypocricy.

I was reminded in the Nativity readings that Bathsheba and Rahab were in the lineage leading up to Christ. Harlots and adulterers who didn't/couldn't contracept the consequences.

Sexual activity associated with founding families is the plumb line here. No big surprise. Athens' art for art's sake is a cultural and personal "high," but sooner or later crosses swords with Jerusalem, usually with quite a high-handed tone of voice. We moderns are an outer-space distance from coming to terms with the prohibition on graven images. Not excluding myself.

[K Garner]

Claire wrote:
<>

Did this description remind anyone else of Flannery O'Connor?

[K Garner]

Claire wrote: "have been a script reader for a major international screenplay competition for the last 8 years. The thing that galls me most about Hounddog is that this story is not even original! I have seen countless scripts--at least 3-4 a year out of the 150 I read--that tell the story of an imaginative, precocious girl age 8-12 living in the South in a time before the present, with a bad home life and at least one absentee parent, who uses her creative gifts to escape the pain of her life. She is either hiding her rape or molestation which will be revealed in flashbacks, or she is about to be raped or molested (usually by someone she trusts). She will leave the town she lives in or kill her attacker."

Did this description remind anyone else of Flannery O'Connor?

[JRM]

I agree with all of GL's comments except:

A movie that did that with a 12-year-old would not have been accepted as a mainstream film 30 years ago."

Pretty Baby--a nude 12 year old Brooke Shiels whose virginty is auctioned off in a brothel. She is delivered on a silver platter to the winning bidder.

Pretty Baby is why I won't waste the energy to get worked up over Hounddog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Baby_(1978_film)

Thanks to Claire for some very educational comments on camera angles and other "behind the scenes" matters relating to the movie industry.

Anyone interested in a Christian engagement with the movie industry should check out Barbara Nicolosi at Act One and her weblog, "Church of the Masses." Barbara and Claire seem to have a lot in common.

http://churchofthemasses.blogspot.com/

[Nick]

Otto,

You can't be serious. *We're* attacking a twelve year old? Do you shoot the messenger often? If these charges are even a-wee-little-bit-true her mother is the type of monster that has become all to common in the entertainment industry. Exposing her to these thoughts without a mature frame-work to deal with them is a pathetic practice. I also don't have to burn myself in the kitchen to know that the stove is hot. I despise people who use the, "didn't see it," argument. It reeks of the conceit that only personal experience counts. We are also not afraid of discussing rape or viewing it as an evil. There are probably some hard nosed fellows in the room who would be willing to adopt penalties far more severe than anything you could stomach simply because we view it as a heinous breach of power.

Claire,

I really think your underestimate what the level of outrage should be. She is, even if not placed in harms way, now being treated as an object by the viewing public. That is outrageous. Artistic merit be damned. There are some things you-just-don't-do. I'm not willing to protest it however for just the reasons you mention. It is a small time film that will die on the vine (hopefully) if no attention is paid to it.

Anthony,

Please-please-oh-please don't just do old movies. New movies can be good. Batman Begins, for example, has a wonderfully powerful message in it that Good can be good without being forced to constantly save Evil from itself. Spider-Man 2 also had the incredibly noble scene with the train accident. Of course I may now be betraying my comic book leanings...

Also, some of us would greatly appreciate having a thoughtful review of something like "Dancing Feet" without having to be exposed to lines like, "So there are no supernatural beings are there?"

[Labrialumn]

"They are not like you and I"

:-/

[GL]

JRM,

You got me on Pretty Baby. I had forgotten about it -- I was a teenager at the time and it didn't ever show in my small rural town. I guess I need to go back another decade or two -- how depressing.

[Juli]

I guess I need to go back another decade or two

Yeah - that would get you back to "Lolita."

[Tony Esolen]

Otto,

I was relying upon the NY Times article, which is certainly sympathetic to the movie. A 12-year-old girl cannot be supposed to have anything sensible to say about these issues; that's where the mother, the agent, and the director come in.

I'm not uncomfortable talking about rape. Am I a member of your "some people"? The question has nothing to do with "talking about rape". It has to do with the corruption of the morals, or of the moral imagination at least, of a child.

A thought experiment: make Dakota a boy, and the director a priest; keep everything else exactly the same. Bet that Mother Times sings a different tune then.

[GL]

Juli,

Did the earlier film adaptation of Lolita feature a child actress in sexually explicit scenes? I honestly don't know. There is a difference in kind between describing, even in graphic detail, sex involve a minor and using a child to portray such scenes on screen. Indeed, there are films where adult actresses play characters who are minors and who are involved in sexually explicit scenes. Those too are different in kind from using a child actress for those scenes. The former could be classified as virtual child pornography (see Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 224 (2002)). The latter could be actual child pornography and, depending on the circumstances, even child sexual abuse.

I do not deny the disturbing nature of Lolita, but the novel certainly did not and at least the first film adaptation may not have involved the actual abuse and exploitation of a real child. I would welcome any information you are anyone else could offer regarding the nature of the scenes and the age of the actress involved in the first adaptation of Lolita.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Did the earlier film adaptation of Lolita feature a child actress in sexually explicit scenes?<<<

Sue Lyons was eighteen but looked like a very precocious fourteen year old. James Mason was a suitably oleagenous Humbert Humbert. But for all the furor it caused, it was a very chaste movie in which, to the best of my knowledge, Humbert doesn't even kiss Lo-Lo on the lips.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>They are not like you and I"<<<

You and ME.

[GL]

Sue Lyons was eighteen but looked like a very precocious fourteen year old. James Mason was a suitably oleagenous Humbert Humbert. But for all the furor it caused, it was a very chaste movie in which, to the best of my knowledge, Humbert doesn't even kiss Lo-Lo on the lips.

Stuart,

Thanks. I teach Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition. Lolita was specifically referenced in that case as an example of a film which the virtual child pornography statute at issue in that case would, if applied literally, make criminal. I thought the actress must have been an adult or else it would not have been a relevant example of virtual child pornography, but would instead be actual child pornography, if pornographic at all.

Do you happen to know about the 1997 version of the film and the age of the actress in that version?

[tony]

Flannery O'connor or not, I can assure you that those of us living in "the South" (horrors and hominy!) take a far less nuanced view of child rape (or any other type of child abasement) than those (in whatever New England enclave)who disguise titillation and voyeurism beneath a veneer of "forthrightness," "painful confrontation of societal problems," and the usual platitudinous blather.

We traditionalists (in less enlightened geographical areas)tend to speak more forthrightly; we tend to call sin by its real name (even the Catholics among us), and we tend to view violaters of children somewhat peremptorily. As a friend of mine (whose family provides temporary shelter to abused, neglected children) often says, their abusers should be counseled with a 2 x 4 (for those in NYC, that's a heavy stick).

I would suggest outrage, anger and disgust as appropriate responses to this type of media vileness. You can save the "discussion of the problem of rape" for the next PBS special.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>for those in NYC, that's a heavy stick<<<

Having been born and raised in the great Borough of Brooklyn, I assure you that child molesters are not tolerated there (what goes on in Manhattan is another matter). But our preferred councelling method usually involves a baseball bat or tire iron, rather than a 2 x 4. But then, you must remember that New York skulls are particularly thick, and a softwood board just won't do an adequate job.

[Matthias]

GL: according to Wikipedia, the Lolita of the 1997 film was Dominique Swain, and she was fifteen at the time.

[GL]

Matthias,

Gracias.

[Ethan Cordray]

>>GL: according to Wikipedia, the Lolita of the 1997 film was Dominique Swain, and she was fifteen at the time.<<

And who apparently went on to become a cover girl for "Stuff" magazine, one of those ostensibly non-pornographic lad mags. No corruption of morals going on here, folks!

[Bobby Winters]

By townes van zandt

The name she gave was caroline
Daughter of a miner
Her ways were free
It seemed to me
That sunshine walked beside her

She came from spencer
Across the hill
She said her pa had sent her
cause the coal was low
And soon the snow
Would turn the skies to winter

She said shed come
To look for work
She was not seeking favors
And for a dime a day
And a place to stay
Shed turn those hands to labor

But the times were hard, lord,
The jobs were few
All through tecumseh valley
But she asked around
And a job she found
Tending bar at gypsy sallys

She saved enough to get back home
When spring replaced the winter
But her dreams were denied
Her pa had died
The word come down from spencer

So she turned to whorin out on the streets
With all the lust inside her
And it was many a man
Returned again
To lay himself beside her

They found her down beneath the stairs
That led to gypsy sallys
In her hand when she died
Was a note that cried
Fare thee well... tecumseh valley

The name she gave was caroline
Daughter of a miner
Her ways were free
It seemed to me
That sunshine walked beside her

[Craig]

Dr. Esolen wrote:

How "choice" is determinative here, but not in cases of statutory rape or the corruption of the morals of a minor, I can't quite see -- except that here there's a lot of money involved...

I am reminded of Alexander Pope's wonderful poem 'The Triumph of Vice' which reads, in part:

"Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth,
And stoops from Angels to the dregs of Earth:
But 'tis the fall degrades her to a whore;
Let Greatness own her, and she's mean no more:
Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess,
Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless;
In golden chains the willing world she draws,
And hers the Gospel is, and hers the Laws,
Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,
And sees pale Virtue carted in her stead."

[James A. Altena]

Great post, Craig!

[cyrano/rox]

A fine kerfuffle of insult and indignation here is found. Opening with that 'Whoring', another of Esolen's slurs, neither true nor false, but a lens to make the object ugly, ridiculous, contemptible, and other. Or if technically on the edge of true, then the worst and most inflammatory description.

Having lurked a great deal, I've finally sussed out the basic Mere Comments move: to protect supposed lesser men from bad men, while bringing out all the anger that might be permitted to the encircled and threatened, and coating it all with the oil [no charism] of self-approbation. This thread provides a convenient example.

Of course that girl is not a whore, by any reasonable standard: she is, I agree, being exploited, and led to believe she is able to make adult decisions. She probably had heard, and believed, the idea of self-ownership, and acted on it. Not lovely, but no reason to have a fit of indignation, except perhaps the pleasure of the indulgence. In fact, if I may judge from several posts, the spasms of outrage must far exceed any twinges of pleasure experienced by the movie audience.

Christ having conquered the world, we who stand with Him cannot be threatened-- neither by the folly of some moviemakers, nor by the appetites of some audiences. We put ourselves at risk when we portray ourselves as defenders of the weak, ready with our 2-x-4's to bash the wicked. Not that many would. The act, in hot anger, might not be so bad; the savoring of that self-image is.

[David Gray]

>A fine kerfuffle of insult and indignation here is found. Opening with that 'Whoring', another of Esolen's slurs, neither true nor false, but a lens to make the object ugly, ridiculous, contemptible, and other.

Your whole post is unjust in my opinion but to state that "whoring" makes an object ridiculous is absolutely bizarre. Whoring is ugly. Whoring is contemptible. But it is far too great a tragedy to render its subject ridiculous.

>Christ having conquered the world, we who stand with Him cannot be threatened-- neither by the folly of some moviemakers, nor by the appetites of some audiences.

Your not shooting for an antinomian position, are you?

[Bill R]

"Having lurked a great deal, I've finally sussed out the basic Mere Comments move: to protect supposed lesser men from bad men, while bringing out all the anger that might be permitted to the encircled and threatened, and coating it all with the oil [no charism] of self-approbation."

Nailed us! Well, by golly, no more oil of self-approbation for me.

"Christ having conquered the world, we who stand with Him cannot be threatened..."

You mean, no worries? No "lesser men [to be protected] from bad men"? Whew. See you later. I'm gonna jump in the Jacuzzi.

[cyrano/rox]

"Your not shooting for an antinomian position, are you?"

No, but I may be closer in some respects to that than to strict moral enforcement. As my position on salvation is roughly universalism-minus-one, so on sin: the sins of others weigh lightly with me. I approach antinomianism-minus-one: the weight of the law bears on me. That can seem egotistical, but that fault is avoided in this being the position of as many people as possible, aware of each other. To state my point more literally: no one else's sins threaten me and mine, or Christians generally, in quite the way often suggested here. Gay marriages do not deduct from my marriage; loose sexual morals don't attack my chastity, theological errors [in amateurs] don't undermine the dogmas or my appropriation of such portion of them as I can take in.

As regards the idea of lesser men, I recall CS Lewis's comment on Aristotle's idea of natural masters and slaves: yes, but where are the natural masters?

[James A. Altena]

"As my position on salvation is roughly universalism-minus-one, so on sin: the sins of others weigh lightly with me. . . .To state my point more literally: no one else's sins threaten me and mine, or Christians generally, in quite the way often suggested here."

You obviously have a rather caricatured idea of what is "often suggested here." Equally obviously, you do not have a true Christian mindset, the mind of Christ.

[Tony Esolen]

C/Rox,

You're a regular reader of souls, aren't you? How easy it is to know, simply know, that a man you've never met (and with whose writing you are at best only slightly familiar) is a perfect Pharisee! But I wonder -- unless it's prefaced by a lot of handwringing, rendering it entirely ineffective, what attack on sexual sin could not be tagged as the attack of a Pharisee?

I've written at great length, and I think with an even temper and much sympathy for homosexuals, about the harm that an acceptance of gay marriage will cause. Gay men have thanked me for it -- many of them, and I appreciate their gratitude and am deeply touched by their struggles. I've also written with sympathy for those who have suffered from the false vision of love that our culture peddles. But what sympathy should I have for the porno-twaddle industry? It's one thing to fall in love and do the wrong thing; it's another thing too to use one's sex to stave off hunger or cold; it's quite another to do what Hollywood and our publishing industries do. Why should I not grow angry at the likes of this girl's handlers?

I guess there are certain sins that are mainly self-destructive, and that we should refrain from punishing, because the punishment only makes matters worse for everybody. I also think that that is the default position for people of our day -- and that's why I'm suspicious of it. Sure, the sexual chaos out there does not "threaten me and mine," at least it doesn't threaten mine yet. It has, however, not only threatened but ruined a lot of people's lives, and has also produced a culture wherein even those of us who are aware of the degradation are compromised by it. At the very least, it means that we must live in neighborhoods wherein, as I've written many times, it takes something of a database to try to figure out who lives with whom, who is whose father, and when and where they used to live with one another.

It won't do, either, to say that other cultures have been beset by their peculiar sins; that does not absolve us of ours, nor does it absolve us of the need to resist it, and sometimes to decry it. That is one of the functions of anger, according to Aquinas -- it is a part of the hunger for justice, especially when justice concerns protecting the innocent.

Is "whoring" really an inaccurate description of selling sex or prurience or sexual fascination to gain either money or power or prestige? I don't think so -- though I'm not saying that Miss Fanning is a whore; she is too young to know what she is doing. I'll end by noting two things:

C/Rox is quite content to pass psychological and moral judgment on everybody here, while claiming to doubt his own -- her own -- salvation. How about retreating a tad from grand discussions of universalism, and attempting instead to give a break to your fellow Christians trying to fight the good faith in a bad and foolish age? If they -- we -- err, if our anger is disproportionate to the cause, or is unjustified, then your job is to point out where and how.

As for the corruption of minors, I don't think that it can be condemned in strong enough terms. If Christians were at all consistent in their condemnations, and if they exercised just a little righteous indignation against the right targets, our schools wouldn't now be laboratories of sexual innovation. Unless, C/Rox, you do not really care one way or the other about that. Indifference too is sometimes a sin against chastity, though, and we are our brother's keepers -- especially if he's our little brother.

[Bill R]

"That can seem egotistical, but that fault is avoided in this being the position of as many people as possible, aware of each other."

So the world would be better off if we were all as egotistical as you consider yourself to be? Sorry, Ayn, that doesn't sound like the Gospel to me.