DrW wrote:Kishkumen wrote:I get commandments against viewing pornography.
zeezrom wrote:I get it too, but I still don't know what it is, exactly.
krose wrote: A commandment against something that can't even be defined is pretty useless.
As the venerated Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said with regard to pornography:
"I know it when I see it."(IMHO - words to live by.)
Can we really expect LDS Church leadership to do any better (even if they really wanted to)?
Have you seen the official LDS definition of "porn" on their web site?
"Pornography is any material depicting or describing the human body or sexual conduct in a way that arouses sexual feelings."
This definition relies entirely on the response of the viewer/listener. And that actually makes sense, because if an item doesn't excite someone, it's really no more than the individual dots, pixels, or words that compose it. But the necessarily vague definition makes it impossible to regulate.
If an item does not arouse sexual feelings in a person, it's not pornographic, according to the church, even if it's the most graphic depiction of a sex act that you could imagine.
In fact, I can think of several types of materials that don't give me a thrill at all (they're actually a real turn-off), so by the LDS definition they can't be pornographic. They include bestiality, man-on-man, bondage, rape, pretend violence, sodomy, and many others. On the other hand, a nice picture of the right person in an outfit commonly worn to the gym or the beach (or even a photo of a beautiful face) can be quite enticing.
Therefore, a video of that kind of graphic sex is not "porn," but a photo of my wife in her yoga gear (or a nice portrait) is.
Here is an example of pornographic material:

It's all about the eyes and lips.
"The DNA of fictional populations appears to be the most susceptible to extinction." - Simon Southerton