Surveillance of sex

Adam Phillips notes, of Christian Puritanism and its cognates: ‘no one doubted, or indeed doubts, that sexuality is the kind of thing that needs to be under surveillance.’ [LRB 5 Jul 2007] But of course it is this, rather than mere stimulation, and even more than the larger motive of human curiosity, that defines porn. In this sense, porn is the most Puritan thing there is; the surveillance of sex.