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If there does exist pornography that is beautiful, it'd be like a beautiful woman whose heart is wicked; the beauty only serves evil.
And it's for essentially the same reason why I can say with confidence that customs of temple prostitution are inherently better than pornography, which coarsens and cheapens the human soul and life in a way that's much worse than even the buying and selling of sex.
One of the most tired tropes I hear is how Protestants created the modern world, and if all of Europe were still Catholic, then there wouldn't be problems. This ignores how many of the modern mistakes in intellectual philosophy originated Catholic thinkers like William of Ockham and Rene Descartes; it ignores the role Catholic repression the Leftist uprising in Catholic countries like France; and it ignores the special role non-Christian religions like Freemasonry and Judaism played in bringing about the modern world. Ultimately, the problems of modernity are the fault of the Catholic Church because they were the ones in power at that time, so they have the ultimate responsibility for not handling the problems. This entire "blame the Protestant" narrative comes from disgruntled reactionaries that are jealous that their preferred regimes (such as Prussia or the fascist states or the ancien regime) collapsed under their own weight. To me, they are throwing stones through glass houses. The blame for Atheism is not found in the contradictions of Protestantism (for every false religion must lead to Atheism), but the failure of Catholicism. Only when we Catholics are able to accept modernity as a result of our failures will be able to avoid making that mistake.
I apologize for the small rant, but I hear too much of this cliché within traditionalist Catholic circles, and I am tired of it.
But I'm not a Catholic and neither was René Guénon at that point. So it's a Traditionalist argument. So I just beg you to read his works, as he was much wiser and more enlightened than I or any of my compatriots are, and we can only walk shallowly in his footsteps.
I understand where you're coming from: such safety-valves in traditionalist societies have served the wider order of things. I fail to see how a custom that encourages mental illness in the population could act as that safety valve though. Similarly, I don't see how a traditionalist could defend the current state of affairs involving more and more young men masturbating their lives away. I see that as a problem that needs addressing, and the best way I think to deal with an addiction is to use coercion. If people hit rock-bottom because they get in trouble with the law, then they will be forced to re-evaluate their life choices.
I think the simple answer is that such safety valves didn't encourage anything. They discouraged it. It's the same way temple prostitution at least forced some disaffected young man who couldn't have a normal and healthy sexual relationship to get experience with a woman who had plenty of it, and possibly some confidence as a consequence. It required effort, it didn't dehumanise anyone, it channeled a social problem into an acceptable place which rendered it part of the overall social order. Becoming a Kathoey in Thailand or a Hijra in India or a Femminielli in the Two Sicilies isn't encouraged, it isn't easy; however, it's there, because in the mystery of humanity, all the discouragement in the world simply won't stop some people. And if your society is ruthless and controlling enough to forbid that entirely, then sooner or later the erudite and polite ones in the number of some such group will create seeds of doubt in the enforcers, and delegitimise the entire system. If you hew to tradition, then those same sorts become like the "Gurus" of the Hijra in India, and enforce order on their own community to uphold the overall social mores of their culture.
Also, with regards to @Bacle and @Captain-General's discussion over the burkha. The entire point I was actually making was showing how any so-called "religious law" could have a "secular" function (because said secular function is stated within the religion in question), thus showing the entire religious law/secular law dichotomy to be a false one. The discussion of whether the actual argument ("women ought to wear burkhas to not tempt men") is a good one is entirely irrelevant to my actual point.
I apologise. Modesty is near and dear to my heart, so I swung off and engaged on it out of a feeling of passionate at the original comment. I concur that there's no real distinction between secular and religious law.