Erotica - it can make you feel good

Pornography involves people who use others simply for sexual gratification. It is related to violence in that it treats people as mere objects.

Erotica involves people who are liberated sexually and who want to give and receive pleasure equally and engage in healthy sexual enjoyment and share their joy with others.

The distinction can be easily blurred but this is not a justification for forbidding everything that is sexy. The same problem occurs in everything to do with life. For example, a friendship involves treating yourself and your friend as equally valuable. But in certain difficult situations you may find yourself needing some space.

It is thought that pornography is all about taking pleasure while love and erotica is about giving pleasure. Lust is thought to be concerned about physical gratification and not about love. To have sex with somebody you don't love is lust and it is said to be dehumanising.

Looking sexy is a part of erotica. If erotica is bad then so is looking sexy. No two persons have the same tastes in relation to what they find sexually alluring. Some women think men in sportswear are sexy. Other women prefer men dressed more casually but tastefully. Some men are turned on by women’s naked arms. A woman can be well-covered up but can turn a man on by a rip in jeans just above the knee. Men who want to lay down rules about how they think women should dress to be modest have a deep suspicion about women. Their hang-ups speak more about themselves and speak of their desire to degrade women. Women who want to lay down rules concerning female modesty have an undue suspicion towards men and may be jealous towards other women.

If looking sexy is evil then so is looking pretty. Many men find a woman sexier if she goes for pretty rather than sexy.

Is a woman who dresses sexily encouraging males to think only in terms of sex?

A woman or man who appears in a newspaper scantily clad is not being an object or doing wrong. A woman can be dressed from head to toe in robes and a man can still be aroused by her and his imagination can be stimulated.

If a woman appears scantily clad in a magazine she is not giving out the message that it is only looking sexy that matters. She is saying, “I am confident and sexy and pretty, why don’t you get to know me?” She is drawing attention and attracting people to get to know her. The woman who makes herself as unattractive as possible is not saying to people, “I want you to like me. I want you to like how I look. I want you to like and be drawn to the person I am underneath it all.”

Do men mentally undress women who dress sexily?

Not necessarily. Many people think total nudity is not as sexy as wearing something that looks good.

Does encouraging men and women to look sexy tell them they are valuable only as long as they look good?

If we value men and women we want them to look good for their own benefit. Encouraging them to look sexy helps them to look better for longer. It encourages them to cope better with life. Nobody can look look sexy without having nice qualities. A man or woman who looks good but who has an unfriendly expression is not sexy.

Do women who look sexy encourage married men to be dissatisfied with their less than sexy wives?

But a girl who is not sexy looking but slim could do that. Are we to forbid men to even talk to women who may look better than their wives? A man does not become dissatisfied with his wife when he sees a beautiful girl. Seeing the beautiful girl only reveals and brings out the dissatisfaction that already existed.

If a man raped a woman and he says he found her sexily dressed and lost control, the woman didn’t cause the rape or ask for it. The man’s response to her reveals him, it was already in his nature to rape her. Do not infer that women ask to be raped if they look sexy or sexually available.

When lovers look at erotica, some people say they are betraying one another. They are said to be looking for sexual stimulation outside of each other. But does it matter as long as they use the arousal to bring themselves closer together? Every couple has to look for support for their relationship outside the relationship. A wife may be talking to a counsellor instead of her husband but she hopes that she will get stronger and be able to talk to him. She might need to think about being in bed with men not just her husband to feel aroused and ready for sex. If that is wrong then going to the counsellor must be more wrong for in some ways it is more intimate than sex!

Accept and enjoy your sexuality and your joy in life will be better.

Enjoy your body and its beauty and you will be able to respect the sexiness of others far better.