In this episode Trent shares highlights from his recent Whatever Podcast debate on sex, p*rn, and feminism with OF Creator Farha.
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Trent Horn (00:00):
Hey everyone. In today’s episode, I’m going to share highlights from my recent debate with only fans pornographer Farha Khalidi. This debate was hosted in person on the whatever podcast, and if you want to help us cover the costs of traveling to venues like this, then please support us at trrenthornpodcast.com. And now here’s some highlights from my debate with Farhath.
Farha Khalidi (00:17):
Because despite an increasingly in vogue, anti-feminist zeitgeist, I don’t believe that sex grounded in love or marriage is inherently more respectful or self-actualizing for women than sex grounded in lust or transaction. Sex grounded in love is often entitled. A man named Randy Vanit repeatedly essayed his 5-year-old partner while she was passed on on pain meds battling throat cancer. He told her about this and she told him this makes her feel violated, but he said it’s to make up for the times that her pain got in the way of them having sex. So she wiretapped a confession out of him and reported him to the police where he confessed it again. Despite this, the police told Randy that he’s done nothing wrong and declined to prosecute. Your husband is the man in your life most likely to rape you.
Trent Horn (00:52):
Well, I had a more informal opening statement that I’d like to go through. First, I would like to say I’m really glad that you’re here. I think that is a very beautiful engagement ring that you have on, by the way. So congrats to that. Do you
Brian Atlas (01:05):
Want to show it to the camera?
Trent Horn (01:09):
That’s
Farha Khalidi (01:09):
A good opening statement. It’s like you’re a hypocrite.
Trent Horn (01:12):
No, I’m just saying that
(01:15):
It’s a very shocking thing to hear. It reminds me, and like I said, this is a bit more informal. We can go back and forth. It’s like when there are some anti-feminist women who sit in front of me and talk about how horrible women are, and I’m like, “Well, you’re a woman. This is the weirdest thing ever.” So it’s just super duper weird for me to hear. I think at one point, and well, I’ll include some of this, we’ll go back and forth. What I want to say is that I believe that we can have virtue. We can have people, there are people who live virtue to love is to will the good. And there are good people. There are bad people, but we need good people in order to keep the bad people in check. And I think honestly, if we practice virtue and discipline as a society, if we understand that each of us is made in the image and likeness of God, then we can reach our full human flourishing, our full potential as human beings.
(02:09):
And so what I want us to argue today is that the root of society, the foundation of society, I think there’s oftentimes two errors here. Some will say that it is the individual and others will say that it’s just the country or the state. But I believe that the root of society is the family because it is through the family that we get more people. But I do think it’s a baffling thing just to see someone and congrats wanting to enter into marriage, but could speak about the idea of sex being grounded in love being no better than sex not being grounded in love. That’s like two plus two equals five to me. That’s just a wild thing. What I heard in that opening was really just like, I feel like yes, there’s bad things, but we could harden our hearts so that the bad things never hurt us or live in virtue and face the bad things head on and choose to be good even in the midst of evil.
(03:07):
It’s better to suffer evil than to do evil. It’s better to be human and humane to others, even if we might get hurt than to be inhuman so that we don’t get hurt. When we talk about feminism, I don’t like the label feminism because it’s been put into this idea of like marriage is bad, men are bad, kids are bad. I don’t agree with any of that stuff. So I don’t like the label feminism, but I do like the idea that Marie Shear in 1986 said, “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people. ” Okay. I think women are people, men are people, treat each other like people. I don’t see what’s wrong with that. John Paul II in his work, Gospel of Life, he said this. “In transforming cultures that it supports life, women occupy a place and thought and action, which is unique and decisive.
(03:52):
It depends on them to promote a new feminism, which rejects the temptation of imitating models of male domination in order to acknowledge and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society and overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation. “So I think we agree violence and exploitation is bad. I agree all the things you listed were really bad. I think we’re going to disagree on the answer to that. I think the answer is virtue and people willing to take the risk to do good and getting married, having children, promoting a virtuous life well worthwhile and can be done. And I think many other things, pornography, abortion, premarital sex, sexual disorders, that inhibits one’s ability to be sexually virtuous. I want people not just to have the bare minimum sexual morality, virtue, doing that which is good. Virtue comes from veer, manly.
(04:43):
Men to be men so that women can trust them. I think bad men, crefeminism, good men are the answer to feminism. I think you and I fundamentally disagree though about … I would never say that in my marriage, I sexualize myself for my wife. What I would say is, and the question I would ask you would be, what is sex for? And so for me, I believe the answer written into our very being is this. Sex is for the expression of marital love. So that leads to what is marital love. I would say that, and that gets us a more fundamental thing. What is love? Maybe don’t hurt me no more, no more. Love is when you will the good for another, but I like one definition of love being this. Love always seeks, not definition, but it’s commonality. Love seeks union with the beloved.
(05:32):
I love going in and out when I’m out here. I have union with the burger. If you love a friend, you spend time with him. Marital love is a very unique kind of union. It’s a bodily union. In marriage, husband and wife fully give themselves to one another. Mind, body, heart and soul. They give themselves to each other and free and unreserved in bonds that say,” I am yours till death to us part. “It’s that complete gift of self. A union, nothing like it. And what’s neat about it is that the man and woman incomplete on their own, when they come together, that union, and it’s real union, can produce something greater than them. It has the capability of producing a new person with an immortal soul. That’s crazy that God entrusted us with that. And so that child becomes a sign of their gift to each other.
(06:16):
And so sex is a way of expressing that when husbands and wives fully give themselves to one another, it’s the greatest love on earth. And I want more people to experience that. And things like the general social survey statistically show that married people are on average happier than unmarried people. There’s going to be cases like ones you cited, but there’s also cases of unmarried people who are more likely to be abused because they’re in tenuous relationships. There’s lots … For example, I take abortion. 87% of abortions are obtained by unmarried women. So you’re much more comfortable, secure, feeling with the child if you’re pregnant if you’re married than if you’re unmarried.
Farha Khalidi (06:53):
But also 80% of abortions were procured by women who conceived the fetus while in a relationship with the father. So why not just draw the line at casual versus in a relationship? And then I can just as easily deduce, okay, therefore casual sex is better because you’re less likely as a woman to be coerced into unprotected sex because it’s actually easier for you to lay out a boundary to someone who you don’t have to necessarily see a week later. It’s harder to do that to a boyfriend or husband. So you’re kind of choosing where to draw the distinction when I can just as easily draw it casual versus non-casual.
Trent Horn (07:21):
No, I wouldn’t put it in that way because when someone’s in a relationship, they’re going to be having sex a lot more. So it makes more sense when you do become pregnant. It’s going to be in the context of a relationship where people are not having tons and tons of casual sex. Most people, they might have a few flings here or there, but most people who have sex outside of marriage, the number of encounters, it’s just easier, well, especially for men, to have sex in a relationship versus just casual or I’d say with a stranger or something like that. So I think though it’s clear in the statistics to drop down that when you are married, you really have a stable connection to that other person that other people recognize there is in law, in society, in culture, and it really does change the relationship.
(08:09):
It makes it something more stable. I’m excited for that for your relationship with your bow. And I would encourage that for people that has been historically throughout history, a way to provide stability when marriage breaks down, we get a lot of other problems. The reason sex is so important is because families make society. What is society? It’s a bunch of people, right? Where do people come from? They come from families. So it’s in the best interest of society to make sure families are really strong. So when a baby is born, they’re super helpless. I have three children. They’re all very … One of them was born at home accidentally. It was COVID, and so we were waiting to go to the hospital because we really didn’t want to go, and he’s on his way, and I catch him, and then I’m getting ready to … I took off my shoelace to make a little tourniquet to tie off the cord, and then the ambulance gets there and all that.
(09:03):
But when that little guy was born, it’s like, wow, he’s totally helpless. Me and my wife, Laura, we are irreplaceable to him. I mean, if we died, other people could raise him, but it would never be exactly the same. It’d still be a loss.
(09:17):
But so if we’re irreplaceable to him, what if … It’s good there’s something that makes us irreplace, that bonds us together, makes us irreplaceable to each other, and that’s where marriage comes in. And sex is really important to marriage because that’s what keeps the couples united together. So that’s why I super don’t like it that you do OnlyFans and 90% of the people who use OnlyFans are married guys. I mean, I think … Let me give you an example. Let’s say if I owned a gun store and I found out 90% of my customers were murderers, they used the guns to kill people, I would close down shop the next day. So for me, I’m just like, does that ever give you pause or make you feel like, oh, guilty or sad or anything?
Farha Khalidi (10:03):
No. I mean, you and I maybe have some … Well, let me give you an example. So you’re Catholic, you’d probably think that thinking of someone with lust is a form of adultery, right? Yeah. Okay. I’m pretty ratified. I would think also it’s cheating to be checking out another girl, or at least it transgresses monogamy. If for instance, you’re watching porn and stuff like that, or if you’re-
Trent Horn (10:24):
And I’m not a super weird, like, “Oh my gosh, if you glance and notice somebody, you’re cheating.” It’s like there’s a difference between
Farha Khalidi (10:31):
A snap- Looking at someone and checking them out. There’s a
Trent Horn (10:33):
Difference
Farha Khalidi (10:33):
Between
Trent Horn (10:33):
A snapshot and time lapse photography.
Farha Khalidi (10:35):
Okay.
Trent Horn (10:36):
Okay.
Farha Khalidi (10:37):
Yeah. So my point was lust based off both of our definitions. I don’t mean just checking someone out. So if I were walking around in, let’s say not even this outfit, I’m at the beach wearing a bikini, right? Let’s say 90% of the people who check me out are married men. I would say that they’ve committed adultery, so would you. Yeah, I should. I wouldn’t then say that I have a moral onus to cover up just because most of the people looking at me shouldn’t be. It’s fine for single people to look at me perhaps, or it’s fine for people who aren’t transgressing a monogamous relationship, but why does the onus fall on me for them transgressing it when both watching porn and subscribing to someone’s only fans and checking someone out by both of our worldviews is infidelity. So why is the onus only falling me for one of those?
(11:16):
Is it just because I’m making money off it or what is it?
Trent Horn (11:18):
No, I would reject the premise. I would say that it’s wrong for you to use nudity and sex to make money on OnlyFans. And I also think women who do it for free on the beach, it’s also wrong. I think-
Farha Khalidi (11:29):
Wear bikinis.
Trent Horn (11:30):
Yeah. I think that people, that’s the virtue of modesty. And the reason for that is I believe, and this is where I think we might differ, I think sex has an inherent, powerful meaning that is always communicated in sexual acts. It is something intrinsic, you can’t turn it off. So you can’t be like, oh, when I have sex with this person, it means something, but when I have sex with this person, it doesn’t mean anything.That’s a lie. That’s not true. Under my view of what sex is, because it’s written into our nature as human beings, sex always communicates is about communicating that kind of marital love. Now, revealing the sexual elements of one’s body is a prelude to that. So I believe that sex is not just something that we do, it’s something that we are. Just because somebody commits evil towards you doesn’t mean you would commit evil back
Farha Khalidi (12:20):
At that. I was asking between the two, a woman masturbating or having sex with a husband who tells her she looks hideous naked. Which one’s more ethical?
Trent Horn (12:27):
Which one’s more ethical?
Farha Khalidi (12:28):
Yeah, because I would pick the first. Well,
Trent Horn (12:30):
I would say the sex act itself between the two of them, there’s nothing wrong with that, but sex outside of … Now, the sex act itself is nothing wrong, but the husband’s being a total jackass, he and he’s being mean to her.
Farha Khalidi (12:44):
He disrespects her.
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