Dr Emma Rush: Sexual Idealism and Moral Control

Two seemingly innocent words have been nagging me this week. I didn’t think they were worth writing about, but now that their author has written a piece attacking Michelle Griffin a few more pieces have fallen into place. The author of course, is Dr Emma Rush (who I mentioned in Corporate Paedophilia).

The two seemingly innocent words were ‘unique intimacy’. They come from her rather dismal apologia over at the ABC’s Religion and Ethics: Media must do better on porn debate.

Faced with this last, porn apologists point to the DIY porn genre, created and shared among consenting adults, without any commercial transactions involved. What could possibly be wrong with that? One response, open to people across the political spectrum, is that porn per se chronically misses the point of sex: unique intimacy. (my emphasis)

To be anti-porn does not mean being anti-sex. Rather, it promotes sex in the context of loving relationships. It does not mean “protecting” women from sexuality, although it does critique the increasingly violent and misogynist sexuality promoted by the porn industry.

This is just bizarre. Even the most conservative Catholic argues that they are not ‘anti-sex’. They are all for sex – provided it is contained within acceptable parameters, namely heterosexual marriage. In fact Emma’s concept of ‘unique intimacy’ seems awfully close to Catholic doctrine as explicated by John Paul II in Theology of the Body

The lust of the flesh directs these desires, however, to satisfaction of the body, often at the cost of a real and full communion of persons. (Lust Limits the Nuptial Meaning of the Body)

However, I do not think Emma is a Catholic (perhaps she is), rather I think she is an acolyte of Clive Hamilton (who I have critiqued here) and perhaps shares his philosophical idealism.