Porn II
At 12 billion a year, the revenues of the porn industry in the U.S. are bigger than the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball combined. Worldwide porn sales are reported to be 57 billion. To put this in perspective, Microsoft, who sells the operating system used on most of the computers in the world (in addition to other software) reported sales of 36.8 billion in 2004.Is there a more difficult combination to combat than greed and sex?
Family Safe Media
Most of the media delivery systems we have come to love (VHS, DVD, HS Internet, camcorders, home video editing, MPEG encoding, streaming video, pay-per view, peer-to-peer networking) have all been driven by the porn industry. It was the pornographers that really decided the VHS vs Beta Max debate, and it will be them that decide the debate between Blu Ray or HD DVD's in the future. The new technology on the horizon is something called "teledildonics" (click link for explanation). That particular technology will revolutionize the way games are played and felt on-line (think about playing Halo and actually feeling the bullets hit your chest), but it's origins will have come from pornographers seeking to give their on-line customers a more life like experience.
Porn is everywhere. And we are all caught up in it to some degree or another. This is the first step in the journey to winning the war against pornography. We can no longer stick our heads in the sand and pretend that we can insulate ourselves from it. We must take an offensive position for our children instead of a defensive one. We have to tell them about pornography before they discover it themselves. We have to tell them what it is and how it portrays our bodies and sexuality in ways that are wrong and distorted. When do you talk about it? Ten sounds good to me (read 8th stat down). Most ten year olds know how to use computers better than their parents, so they could very easily find themselves somewhere they shouldn't be. As parents we must stand up, shoulder the responsibility of talking with our kids about sexuality, and quite deferring it to the youth minister, school system, or their friends! Don't be fearful, rather be bold and tell them what sex can be, should be, and is in the right circumstances.
For us adults, sex in fantasy can be a lot easier than sex in the real world. If a marriage has a lot of tension around the topic of sex (or any issue for that matter), then pornography often becomes as an easy place to go for release without having to confront the issues that exist between the two partners. But fantasy can't compete with reality and that's where the most sinister trap for couples is laid. Our sexuality is such a nuanced and complicated topic to begin with. Within that unraveling the curiosity, attraction, flirtation, or addiction to porn can lead a person to discover multiple motivations for a person to become involved in pornography. Before we can deal with pornography, masturbation, infidelity, homosexuality, promiscuity, monogamy, marriage, etc...we have to understand sexuality.
Porn isn't just an issue for men, 34 percent of female readers of Today's Christian Woman's online poll admitted to intentionally accessing Internet porn. 17% of all women struggle with porn addiction; 1 of 3 visitors to all adult websites are women; 9.4 million women access adult websites every month. Adolescents and young women are increasingly buying into the "Girls Gone Wild" view of feminine sexuality. This kind of feminine sexuality delights in raunch, exhibitionism, and flippant sexual encounters. Women who have been emotionally and physically abandoned by their spouses seek out relationships via the web. Frankly women who find themselves involved with pornography have an even more difficult time finding ways to talk about their sin or struggle because of our preconceived ideas of what female sexuality is supposed to be like.
Men still make up the largest constituency of porn consumers, and Christian men aren't exempt. Some men need to be locked up, and some need to get serious help. We need to care about each other's sexual integrity, and take the time to know each others sexual temptations and failings. We need to work hard at meeting and understanding the sexual needs of our wives (that might include times of not having sex). Finally we hope and pray that we won't be lured in by the lies, accessibility, and pervasiveness of this poison on demand.
I am 31 years old, have a beautiful wife that I am absolutely crazy about, an amazing kid, a wonderful (and convicting) job, and sincere love and desire for Jesus. Yet I know that with all of this going for me, my sinful nature is capable of throwing it all away for a naked picture of a stranger. AND I AM NOT ALONE! May God help us all.
4 comments:
Thank you, Jason. Amazing post. I'm going to show my husband and we're going to talk about this as soon as possible.
Jason, this is another great post.
"Before we can deal with pornography, masturbation, infidelity, homosexuality, promiscuity, monogamy, marriage, etc...we have to understand sexuality."
Have truer words ever been spoken!? I couldn't agree with you more. Part of the problem, for Christians especially, is that, contrary to popular belief, scripture does not provide us with a consistent sexual ethic. In fact, there is no sexual ethic in the Bible. You will not find "True love waits" within its pages, but you will find appeals to be people of character, purity, etc.
I'm not sure why, but I am surprised by the stats of women who use pornography given all the talk about how "men are visual" and "women are emotional." Granted this is a poor explanation, but this is the message we hear all over the place, including in books like His Needs Her Needs (my wife and I like to call it, "His Needs, His Needs").
For those interested in a some helpful books from a theological angle, you may want to check out Body, Sex, and Pleasure: Reconstructing Christian Sexual Ethics by Christine Gudorf. She is a Christian (Roman Catholic feminist to be accurate) ethicist and provides some helpful insights. James Nelson is also thought to be a wonderful author in the area of Christianity and sexuality, but I have not read his work yet.
There must be a new way of approaching sexuality. Parental ignorance and expecting schools to teach our children what they need to know about sexuality will only widen the gap between appropriate sexual behavior and some derivative of the ideal. I realize that this is a sensitive topic, but anonymity seems to be the rule of the day in these comments (including the previous post). It is anonymity that makes pornography so enticing. My prayer is that we will be willing to own our actions, whether they be through comments about this important subject or through our solitary behavior on the computer. I wonder how long sex will be considered such a taboo topic surrounded by the threat of embarrassment if we were to talk about it openly? I know that many at my church would not be willing to do so, but we must be comfortable doing so if we are going to help those who come after us.
Sorry to post such a random response, Jason. Enjoying your thoughts on this matter. shalom, kw
Great posts, Jason. And I especially appreciate Kate's comment because I believe the pornography/drug analogy is incredibly apt. I talked a little about porn in my rant about the FCC HERE. With that in mind, I'm gonna play Devil's advocate a little bit here, not defending porn, but just throwing some thoughts out on this discussion.
A War on Pornography would ultimately prove to be as futile as Prohibition or the current "War on Drugs". As the documentary "The History of Sex" said, "Every single invention or technological advancement in human history ultimately always comes back to the penis." We are sexual beings. We are born with a desire for sexual gratification. And, over the years, we have developed easier methods of acquiring this gratification.
And pornography is not new. Archaeologists have discovered paintings on cave walls of sexual imagery. It's that old. As the Ecclesiast said, "There is nothing new under the sun." Every single culture since the beginning of recorded history has had some sort of pornographic material. What is unique to each society is how they view this material. The social mores of the time are what determine what is acceptable and what is sexual deviance. And the societies' religions determine the mores. Both ancient Greece and ancient Rome had their socially acceptable orgies at different times in their histories. Like a pendulum, social mores have swung to extremes in both directions. Our society was born of, though it's become a pejorative term synonymous with intolerance, Puritanism. That's not to say that porn didn't exist in that time, either, it was simply not acceptable.
And many people believe that the concept of "domination" is unique to American culture, too. It is most certainly not. At its basest level, "sex as power" is the core of the male sexual psyche. It's how we are born to view sex. Sociological or religious influences are what train us to be otherwise. But it's a "propagation of the species" kinda thing. It's innate. It's the reason why almost every culture in history has been patriarchal and why it has taken mankind so long to develop gender equality.
The main thing that has changed over the years regarding porn is its availability. It is literally now only a click of the mouse away. Because of that, Jason, I believe you are completely correct: we have to start educating kids about what sex is from a much more aggressive posture. They're exposed to it younger, so we have to teach them younger. But, as I said in my FCC rant, I don't believe there is any developmental force to children greater than the parent. There is only so far you can blame your own culture.
These posts have been great. And I totally agree with the fact that we must teach our children about sexuality...not just that porn is wrong. I don't think I buy the part of the last comment that we are born to view sex as power--that this is at the core of the male psyche...I think that is another lie that Satan tries to put into our minds.
I have a son just a month younger than yours, Jason...and it does terrify me that this is becoming so much more accesible. I do not have a little girl yet, but if the Lord chooses to bless me with one, I know that teaching both my sons and daughters to honor the sexuality and the bodies of others also begins with honoring their own body. This whole issue has so much to do also with our distortion of our own body image. I know that I struggle with this, and I often find myself wrapped up in the lie that I need to be more attractive to my husband or he will want to leave me for one of those images you can see by just turning on your television or computer.
I wish that it were not so hard, almost taboo to speak openly about sex within our communities of faith. This is something that must change in order for our children to view sex as the beautiful thing that God created it to be.
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