Porn and pregnancy...

... in two entirely unrelated comments. (Sickos).

Graham: I don't think it's accurate to speak of the porn industry in terms of being "symptomatic of a moral sickness in society", no. Its success is predicated on a combination of two factors:

• people masturbate a lot more than they get laid...

• ... and a whole lot more than they get laid with the kind of people they'd really like to.

Porn simply provides accessible visual stimulation as a proxy for imagination (and/or reality...). If you like, it's pre-packaged, emotionally-sanitised sexual fantasy for lazy consumers. And that isn't a criticism, as such-- just an acknowledgement of the fact that it's often easier (or at least less time-consuming) to whack one out to some smutty photos or videos than to rely on less tangible forms of mental stimulation. The whole point of it is that it doesn't hold any emotional investment, and facilitates the safe discharge (tee, hee) of sexual urges. And you're correct in that natural human curiosity is an important element in that... but then, it's an important element in pretty much every kind of cognitive process too, so I wouldn't read anything too specific into that.

Now: I suspect that if the context of someone's porn consumption goes beyond that superficial level, then they're taking it all a little too seriously; that's how functional disorders such as so-called 'porn addiction' arise, in which it's seized on as a substitute for dealing with reality, rather than as an aide. In that respect, yeah, there can be a personal problem, with the potential to make itself a social problem-- but the cause is the sufferer's underlying dysphoria, not the means they use to express it.

So, no: porn isn't the key to some kind of Pandora's Box of latent hypersexualised depravity buried within our collective subconscious (or whatever). Neither is it, in itself, indicative of any such tendency in individuals or societies. People are simply hardwired to be curious about anything that's suggestive of sex on any level, but particularly visual stimuli-- that's because a) vision is our primary perceptive sense, and b) primates don't have 'heat' cycles or any similar 'patterns' of sexual engagement (so on a purely reproductive level, we rely on individual circumstantial signifiers for courtship, rather than collective/seasonal ones).

... which is a pretty long-winded and drivelly way of suggesting that pornography, while arguably not essential, is pretty much inevitable in any human society in which images can be reproduced. For example, even during the apogee period of Victorian table-leg-covering, Henry Hayler was doing a brisk trade in dirty projector and microscope slides.

A Rebel Yell: I'm not sure I follow the reasoning for your argument in favour of government intervention to legally discourage/prevent pregnant women from smoking. You've stated "A baby is a human being (obviously!) and will have the same rights as anyone else. This should not be any different just because he/she is in utero."

This is neither 'obvious', nor entirely true...

A baby categorically does not have the same legal or civil rights as a adult. Its parents are expected-- in point of fact, legally required-- to assume responsibility for all that stuff until their child attains majority. A foetus, more to the point, doesn't even have the human rights attributed to a child... but its mother does. Which brings me to my point:

In modern Western society, the personal choice of the mother-to-be holds primacy over considerations of her unborn child's health-- and, I'm afraid, rightly so (albeit on general principles, rather than applied morals). This is a good example of something that is no doubt morally wrong being legally right, simply because restricting personal choice and freedom in this case would invalidate those same principles in every other legal context. I have no doubt that Joseph Cullman was keenly aware of this when he made the apparently grotesque comment that "some women would prefer having smaller babies." While the remark itself was motivated solely by cynical business interests, the nature of its implication is nonetheless significant: that the freedom of mothers to smoke, despite being well aware of the risks involved, is paramount.

Now I agree that you, and with Lou, that smoking while pregnant is a hideously irresponsible and morally indefensible thing to do. I agree that social opprobrium should fall like the proverbial ton of bricks on any woman who chooses to do so. But I can't agree that the principle of that choice should be undermined or compromised. It's repulsive, it's tragic, and yes, the women in question probably don't deserve to have kids... but mandating government oversight, even if it's only in terms of compulsory attendance on an assisted quitting course, would amount to putting a bomb under the foundations of our universal personal liberties.