A Bunch of Imbeciles Wrote About a BYU-Idaho Video
First, here is the BYU-Idaho video that has apparently caused a small stir this week:
It is a video warning about the dangers of pornography addiction. The dangers of pornography addiction are well documented and opposition to pornography is certainly not only a Mormon thing.
So here’s a question for you: How many times did you hear the word “masturbation” used in that video?
If you answered “none times” that means you are brighter than numerous writers and bloggers across the country who railed against what they called an “anti-masturbation” video. Here are some of the headlines from these clowns:
The Daily Beast: “BYU to Undergrads: Self-Love Is A Battlefield — The Mormon university is urging its students to narc on chronic masturbators, whose fight against self-pleasure is like rescuing a fallen soldier during war.”
The Stir: “College Wages ‘War’ on Masturbation With Video That Offends Soldiers”
The Daily Caller: “War-themed BYU video implores students to rat out masturbating roommates”
Look, I realize that people who view porn often masturbate too. But this particular video is not about masturbation. How is that hard to comprehend?
I am a little baffled by these stories. They actually link to the video and write entire posts saying it is about masturbation when it never even broaches the topic of masturbation. Is this just a copycat situation from writers not bright enough to comprehend the video? Were these writers too lazy to actually watch it? Or is the concept that pornography addiction itself might be a bad thing so foreign to these writers that they miss it entirely?
At any rate, the ridiculousness of the articles irritated me enough to get me to post about it. Feel free to sound off in the comments.
Thirty seconds after I saw you posted this, a friend of ours asked for something she could show her 10 year old boy who is struggling with some issues in this area. Thanks for this.
Comment by Matt W. — February 4, 2014 @ 9:57 pm
The video in question dramatizes what is apparently a devotional address about dealing with porn problems. There is nothing controversial about the subject. Popular media sources look to derive sensational headlines by misrepresenting the presentation. Pornography – and media distortion – are common problems.
Perhaps we should not feel surprised when the popular media distorts the facts to defend pornography. It would seem that defense of porn has always been more important to most journalists than actually promoting a helpful and beneficial cause.
Comment by Jim Cobabe — February 5, 2014 @ 7:32 am
Apparently if you’re a blogger trying to generate page-click revenue then calling it an “anti-porn video” isn’t zany enough to cut it.
Comment by Bryan H. — February 5, 2014 @ 10:54 am
Yeah, this is probably a link-baiting situation as much as anything else. Pretty annoying.
Comment by Geoff J — February 5, 2014 @ 11:21 am
Yeah, a lot of stupid.
Comment by Chris Henrichsen — February 6, 2014 @ 10:46 am
I agree. This is some very poor reporting.
In saying that, I don’t much care for the analogy: a victim of pornography is like a soldier wounded in battle, and confronting the victim (or reporting on him) is like carrying the soldier to safety. With respect to the rescuer, the analogy is probably okay, but with respect to the victim, the analogy falls flat pretty hard. The wounded soldier probably wants to be helped and would be very welcome to it; the pornography user probably doesn’t want help (at least, he doesn’t want it enough), and probably isn’t going to be welcome to the rescuer’s attempts to save him.
I would be much more supportive if they had a link to a follow up video giving instruction on how to talk to someone about their pornography addiction. As it is, the video is a little bit sensationalized, and not in a way that I think is really all that helpful.
Comment by DavidF — February 6, 2014 @ 12:04 pm
No analogy is perfect, so it is easy to nitpick. But “spiritual warfare” analogies among Christians are as old as Christianity itself so it’s not like any new ground is being broken here.
Further, anyone who has served a mission (which includes the majority of males at BYU-Idaho) is very familiar with the “help keep your brothers out of spiritual trouble” line of thinking.
Regarding wanting help or not; like with any intervention, waiting for the addict (or budding-addict) to come out and ask for help is missing the point.
Comment by Geoff J — February 6, 2014 @ 12:50 pm
Looks like the Deseret News published an article on this topic too:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865595949/Leno-others-misunderstood-BYU-Idaho-anti-porn-video-president-says.html
Comment by Geoff J — February 9, 2014 @ 4:22 pm
Also, it looks like one of the imbeciles who called it an anti-masturbation video has since come to her senses and updated her atrocious post on the video:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/03/byu-idaho-anti-masturbation-video-war_n_4719599.html
Comment by Geoff J — February 9, 2014 @ 4:26 pm
This video response is like a Rorschach test for modern blogging media. These imbeciles obviously did not even see the video. They judged it and desired to jump on a moronic bandwagon of people talking about a video that was right in front of their eyes that they did not even need to see because it gave them an opportunity to criticize BYU and the Church. The commenters and know-nothing bloggers could comment and heap scorn without even the courtesy of seeing what it had to say.
When the Huffington Post corrected its story, it says that “BYU says its video is about porn addiction” — and the blogger still had not even watched the video but had to rely on what she says BYU says about the video! So what is the take away? Not that these folks are morons — they don’t care enough to rise to that level.
Comment by Blake — February 17, 2014 @ 9:35 am
Okay, so we’re anti-pornography. We all agree. Can we all agree that masturbation is not a big deal? One who masturbates occasionally is not a wounded warrior? All the outrage here can only be justified if everyone says “yes”.
Comment by ji — February 17, 2014 @ 4:38 pm
Uh, ji…
No one ever implied that “one who masturbates occasionally is a wounded warrior”. Nothing in this video says that at all. That’s why these writers are such imbeciles. Please tell me you aren’t making the same mistake they made.
Comment by Geoff J — February 17, 2014 @ 4:53 pm
No, I’m not confused. I agree that pornography is dangerous and should be avoided. I’m glad you agree that the video condemns pornography as dangerous but does not condemn masturbation as dangerous. These are entirely different matters.
Comment by ji — February 18, 2014 @ 2:26 pm