Thursday, July 7, 2016

Is watching Game of Thrones a mortal sin?


From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2354  Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.


The pornography of Alessandro Serenelli's time was basically the sort of stuff that sailors would have pinned up beside their bunks. It was a major influence and corruption in his life. He lost his mind to it.

What would he say of the material in Game of Thrones? People call it "soft porn" because it gets compared to the "hardcore" stuff on the internet. Yet Game of Thrones is totally hardcore in comparison to the pornography of Serenelli's time (from what I've read in descriptions about the show).

Isn't it interesting, the relativistic sliding scales we use in order to immediately excuse ourselves?

I was thinking about this because I just read this article at StAR about Game of Thrones.

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