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christian counseling today
VOL. 22 NO. 1
11
SE AN MCDOWELL
t
The porn revolution has left no part of our culture unaffected—
including the Church. Before we can discuss how to parent in a pornified
culture, it is critical we first understand how radically porn consumption
has changed in recent years. Below are six indicators of how porn use has
changed with the advent of modern technology:
1. Accessible:
“It’s all mainstream now!” That’s what Zack,
Seth Rogan’s character, says to his best friend and intended love about
pornography in an effort to get her to make a pornographic film
with him in the movie,
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
. Technological
advancement has indiscriminately allowed people of all ages to encounter
and consume sexually explicit content. Mobile devices have passed
computers as the most common means of accessing pornography. And
virtual porn is just emerging.
2. Affordable:
Pornography used to cost money. People accessed
porn through books, magazines, hotel rooms, videos, and other mediums
that typically required some kind of fee. Even though the porn industry
will make more than $100 billion dollars this year worldwide (more than
Apple
©
©
, Netflix
©
, Microsoft
®
, eBay
©
, and Yahoo
©
combined
1
),
much is still free.
3. Acceptable:
Porn consumption simply does not have the
stigma it once did. As a whole, porn use is much more acceptable than
in the past. In fact, according to “The Porn Phenomenon,” a massive
study released jointly by the Barna Research Group and Josh McDowell
Ministry, teens and young adults rank not recycling as more immoral
than viewing porn (56% vs. 32%).
2
Further, nine out of 10 young men
ages 13-24 say that how they talk about porn with friends is encouraging,
accepting
, or neutral.
3
4. Anonymous:
In the past, people had to buy a porn magazine
from a real person, such as a worker at a video store or a clerk.
Purchasing porn often required at least some form of face-to-face
interaction. Today, however, anyone with a cell phone can anonymously
access endless free images with just a few clicks. People can now watch
pornography entirely alone without any human interaction at all.
5. Aggressive:
To compete for viewership and money, porn
producers have turned to increasingly aggressive content. In her 2016
article for
TIME
, Peggy Orenstein notes, “Producers of porn have one
goal: to get men off hard and fast for profit. That means eroticizing the
degradation of women. In a study of behaviors in popular porn, nearly
90% of 304 random scenes contained physical aggression toward women,
who nearly always responded neutrally or with pleasure. More insidiously,
women would sometimes beg their partners to stop, then acquiesce and
begin to enjoy the activity, regardless of how painful or debasing.”
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6. Active:
Historically, most people have been
passive
consumers
of pornography. There were limited numbers of people who controlled
both production and distribution of pornography. However, now with
the advent of social media, blogging, text messaging, and “oversharing”
on the Internet, many people (including some youth) have become
active
producers
and
distributors of porn.