How "Oppenheimer" nudity lands in Utah's porn war

As the world gawks at a TikToker's distressed reaction to "Oppenheimer's" sex scenes, attention is turning to a question Utah has occupied itself with for years.

• Is it really unhealthy to see images of nudity?

Driving the news: A viral video this week showed an anti-porn activist describing her husband's efforts to hide his eyes from the intermittent sex scenes in Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed "Oppenheimer."

• "I don't want my night to be ruined by being triggered by something on a screen," said influencer Jourdan Kehr. "…Have a plan and talk about it before you go."

Why it matters: Kehr's video was part of her ongoing discussion of pornography "addiction" with her 82,000 TikTok followers — a cause Utah has long focused on, with lawmakers declaring porn a "public health crisis" in 2016.

• Yes, but: Porn addiction isn't recognized as a diagnosable medical disorder, and the term itself is controversial.

Details: Porn and sex addiction are not included in diagnostic manuals because there isn't evidence of the same shift in brain activity that other, recognized addictions produce.

• Multiple researchers have found that religiosity was a significant factor in whether subjects reported problems connected with pornography — particularly whether they believed they were addicted.
• Studies have shown associations between porn and poor relationship outcomes, but a causal relationship isn't clear — and there hasn't been much research into couples' positive experiences with porn.

The big picture: Utah's cultural and political opposition to erotica is long-standing and fierce, from the Legislature's 2001 appointment of an official "porn czar" to an age verification law that prompted PornHub to cut off access here in April.

• Objections to nudity often extend beyond porn; a Cache County art teacher was fired in 2017 after François Boucher's "Odalisque" appeared in flashcards of historic art he was using to teach color theory.

What's happening: With critics hailing "Oppenheimer" as a cinematic masterpiece of our age, Utah news media have written detailed content warnings describing the degrees of nudity.

• A Deseret News opinion piece criticized the film's use of nudity as damaging to women and unnecessary to the story.

Zoom in: Erin, here! When my husband and I saw "Oppenheimer" a couple of weeks ago in South Jordan, the teenager staffing the theater lobby volunteered a similar word of caution.

• We didn't "need to worry about" swearing, he said — but he grimaced as he alerted us to "that scene."

The latest: We saw the movie anyway and found Oppenheimer's instruments of mass death to be generally more distressing than Florence Pugh's chest.