Pornography and murder: an interview with Ted Bundy

Jacob Stein, of the blog Jewish Philosopher has posted the following interview with Ted Bundy, a serial rapist and killer, a few hours before his execution.



The issue of pornography has concerned me in other posts. I have linked to a video documentary analysing teenage porn addiction in Britain as well as an interview with an ex-porn producer turned trainee pastor.

Sucking Someone's Life Out

This is a fascinating interview with an ex-porn producer turned trainee pastor (!). In it, he recollects how new models would turn up at the studio, and in a matter of weeks you could see the life being sucked out of them. There was always a transformation, and always for the worse.

I made the mistake of drinking coffee at 7 p.m. last night, which meant I had the opportunity to lie in bed wide awake until 4 o'clock in the morning, thinking about the things that interest me. And I tried to figure out, what it means to have the 'life' sucked out of someone. Somehow, I feel I know what this means. I've experienced both 'life', true life, overflowing vibrancy in which my interconnectedness to this creation was so complete the thought of non-existence was terrible. And I've also felt 'death', the feeling that something vital has been destroyed, leaving a vacuum between me and the world of which I, technically, should intrinsically be a part.

But what does that mean!? I'm sure there are some great theologians or philosophers out there who can explain this to me. For now I'm just left to muse. I'm sure it has something to do with the true meaning of 'shalom' as interconnected wholeness, the goodness of creation, the relationality of our being, the insufficiency of an isolated existence. Pornography seems to utterly deny all of that.

So, any thoughts or pointers would be appreciated. This post should tide me over till tomorrow, when I hope to pick up my main thread and talk about the criteria of prophetic truth.

Pornographic Time Bomb

Perhaps I'm being overly apocalyptic here, but I feel that the Western world is standing on the brink of a cultural catastrophe. Never before has a society been so exposed to so much explicit sexual imagery. With roughly 250 million pornographic sites on the Internet, free access to the most hardcore content is only a few mouse clicks away. This addictive drug is shaping the minds of a new generation, whether youth or adult, single or married. As Europe looses its identity by which it should face new and significant challenges, we are being exposed to a silent poison that feeds off our deepest desires and insecurities, turning one half of humanity into predators and the other into prey.

The BBC has produced a documentary on teenagers hooked on Internet porn. Not only can you see how it affects the lives of those boys who consider it an affliction, you can see the social consequences it has for those for whom it has become a way of life. The psycho-sexual therapist interviewed in the documentary describes the situation as a time bomb, something unprecedented, the consequences of which can only be destructive.

The documentary is about 40 minutes long.

You can watch it here.

Update: After Existentialism, Light links to video updates from a recent conference held on sexuality in American conferences.