I've been reading a classical essay on Love by C.S. Lewis, called The Four Loves. Many years ago I used the chapter on friendship as a part of a research paper that I wrote on the theory of Friendship being just as important as love, and if blessed by God, is just as if not more uniting in soul and spirit. What struck me as interesting this time was the chapter on Eros. (For reference, the four loves, according to Lewis, are Affection (Storge, or Family love), Friendship (Philia or Amacitia), Eros, and Charity (loving the unlovable.) )
In the chapter on Eros, Lewis divides Erotic love into two separate entities. Lust (which he calls Venus, which makes no sense, since Eros and Venus are the same Greek/Roman deity. I would cast Lust into more the realm of Dionysus or Bacchus) can exist without Eros. Remarkably, Lewis says that fulfilling lust is simply a biological need, as desire, much as being hungry or sleepy. He doesn't apply the puritan philosophies that all lust is Satanic and should be repulsed. Hunger is not a sin, neither is passing gas, so the biological desire to have sex is not one either. It's when the sex violates a bond, or a promise, such as marriage, or creates some sort of wrongness, then that is the sin that must be forgiven. Lewis reminds me of Joel Osteen, in that God has the only right to determine what is right and wrong, what sin has been committed. We cannot determine that anothers act of passion is a sin, is right or wrong, since that is between God and that other person. We have only the responsibility to love one another and to apply the laws of our nation to determine justice. Divine justice, forgiven through Grace, is determined by God, not by some preacher or the followers of any religion.
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C.S. Lewis lived many years ago, and did not experience the wonders of the Internet. I wonder what he would have said, having seen the anonymity that the Internet provides its users. His point in the Eros chapter that made the biggest impact on me was the idea that nudity, the removal of clothing, turns us into human ideals, mere shadows of the Human form (as Plato would say). We become man and woman (or two people), passionate and universal. And this is all good theory, but when I read this, I immediately thought of the impact that pornography has on people viewing it.
What is it that we see in porn? Sure, there is the attractive body (bodies) of our fellow man (or woman), naked in all his glory, performing some sexual act and inviting us to watch. Opponents of pornography, such as women's groups, would say that porn, from posing in Playboy to participating in adult entertainment, is denigrating and insulting to the woman and to womenkind. I would counter that instead, porn makes one anonymous. Because, especially with adult videos, we incorporate ourselves into the movie, replacing the partner of our choice with ourselves. We moan when they moan, we reach our climax when they do. And the cameramen know this and spend more time on closeups, where the face of the other person is not shown, so that we can pretend we are that person. The people on the screen become the anonymous, universal place holders of man or woman.
This is why pornography is so addicting. Not because of the actors on the screen or in the magazine, but rather because we replace them with ourselves, and in this, we can fulfill lustful needs without having another person there. And, in some cases, it's the only way to do this. Because socially speaking, not everyone has the ability to find that special Beloved (as Lewis says) to merge lust and Eros together and spend a lifetime with. It is the lust aspect of Eros that turns love into a craving, and without lust, the lack of a loved one in our lives becomes bearable. We hold off making a bad choice which might hurt someone by releasing the tension that lust, a simple biological need, creates in our lives.
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