Virtuous/virtual

For all the fascination with bodies, our current technology is arguably exacerbating our carnal alienation. While offering us enormous freedoms of fantasy and encounter, digital eros may also be removing us further from the flesh. Pornography, for example, is now an industry worth tens of billions of dollars worldwide. Seen by some as a progressive sign of post-’60s sexual liberation, pornography is, paradoxically, a twin of Puritanism. Both display an alienation from flesh — one replacing it with the virtuous, the other with the virtual. Each is out of touch with the body.

Richard Kearney, “Losing Our Touch”