Problems with Pornography

Original Design

The God of Genesis is more an Epicurean than a Stoic. He does not design bodies without pleasure sensors but instead squeezes onto the human tongue 10,000 taste buds. He does not make reproduction an onerous or bland affair but loads human genitals with thousands of erotogenic nerve endings. In His extravagant kindness, He engineered eating and intercourse to give us pleasure and then commanded His first two humans to engage in both. C. S. Lewis, writing as the demon Screwtape, offers the following portrayal of God:

“He’s a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a façade. Or only like foam on the sea shore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are “pleasures for evermore”. Ugh! …He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least— sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working, Everything has to be twisted before it’s any use to us [demons]. We fight under cruel disadvantages. Nothing is naturally on our side. “²⁹

Thus, sex as God originally designed it serves a wonderful purpose within marriage. Only once it’s twisted out of shape can it serve a demonic end. Pornography is one of the biggest ways sex gets weaponized and turned against us.

– Defining Pornography –

porneia (πορνεία): sexual immorality
porne (ἡ πόρνη): a prostitute
grapho (γράφω): to draw

From these Greek words we understand that pornography is the depiction of sexual immorality or prostitutes. According to Merriam Webster, pornography is the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement.

Statistics

The current state of porn use is simply staggering. Pornography consumption is ubiquitous across the industrialized world and is a spiritual epidemic within Christianity. Here are some reliable statistics that a Barna survey found from April 2016.³⁰

– 50% of adults think viewing porn is wrong
– 33% of teens think viewing porn is wrong
– 33% of Americans seek out porn at least once a month
– 2x as many teenaged males use porn more than females
– 4x as many young adult males (ages 25+) use porn more than females
– Practicing Christians are 3x less likely to use porn – Only 31% of 18-24 year olds think porn is bad for society
– Teens and young adults rank not recycling as more immoral than viewing porn
– Only 20% of porn users feel a sense of guilt about it (for Christians 33% feel guilty)
– Only 9% of porn users are trying to stop (19% for practicing Christians)
     o That means 81% of Christians using porn aren’t even trying to stop!

Arguments for Porn Use

Many in our society look at consuming pornography as a normal healthy behavior. Some argue that it is a good way to relieve stress: “When you are stressed, your brain releases cortisol that blocks problem solving and the ability to think clearly. In a study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University, men who flipped through pictures of naked women cut their cortisol in half and did a lot better on a math test.”³¹

In addition, some argue that watching pornography is enjoyable, sometimes funny, and can be very educational. Oftentimes, discussions of porn’s detriments stall out when someone invokes the “no harm principle,” which is the idea: “It’s not hurting anyone, so how can you tell me it’s wrong?” Before getting to some secular arguments against pornography, let’s first consider what the Bible says.

Biblical Arguments against Porn

Once again, we return to the words of Jesus who condemned looking with lustful intent in the strongest possible language:

Matthew 5:27-30 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

1 Corinthians 6:9-20 gives us great insight to the spiritual dimension of illicit sexual acts. We are united to Christ, so we cannot take his body and unit it to a prostitute. Secular Arguments against Porn In addition to the many biblical verses that promote purity and condemn the types of behaviors depicted in pornography, we have a number of arguments against it that are accessible to believers and unbelievers alike. Here are five secular arguments against porn from Luke Gilkerson’s ebook, Your Brain on Porn:³²

1. Watching porn decreases our sexual satisfaction within marriage.
2. Watching porn disconnects us from real relationships. It trains us to detach emotional involvement from sexual experience.
3. Watching porn lowers our view of women. It trains us to see women as sexual commodities, not people of equal value.
4. Watching porn desensitizes us to cruelty. It numbs us to the seriousness of verbal and physical aggression.
5. Watching porn makes us want to watch more porn. It taps into the neurocircuitry of our brains, making us desire the rush of sexual energy from porn again and again.

We will return to the brain science behind pornography next time as well as look at some practical ways to overcome this issue.

29 C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (NY: Harper Collins Publishers 2000, originally published 1942), p. 118.
30 David Kinnaman, Roxanne Stone, “Porn in the Digital Age: New Research Reveals 10 Trends,” Barna Group, April 6, 2016, https://www.barna.com/research/porn-in-the-digital-age-new-research-reveals-10-trends, accessed February 3, 2017. To arrive at these numbers, Barna surveyed 1,188 age 25+ and 813 age 13-24 in July and August of 2015 (n = 2,001).
31 EJ Dickson, Kristen Hubby, Nico Lang, “7 Unexpected Benefits of Watching Porn,” The Daily Dot, July 8, 2014, http://www.dailydot.com/irl/benefits-of-porn/, accessed February 3, 2017. For more in this vein, see “10 Reasons Porn Is Actually Good for You” http://www.puckermob.com/relationships/relax-prudes-10-reasons-pornographyis-actually-good-for-you
32 Luke Gilkerson, Your Brain on Porn (Owosso, MI: Covenant Eyes 2016), p. 19