Pornography has been described as the cancer of today's society. Because at the start, it seems a source of harmless pleasure. Like the early stages of cancer, its effects on the mind and behaviour are hardly noticed. But like the disease, its effects grow rapidly and quickly become out of control. Some people will never recover from their exposure to porn, living damaged lives that affect not only themselves but also their loved ones.
In the 1960's it's source was largely restricted to back-street shops and private membership cinemas. Today the internet can put it on a high-school kids mobile phone, for viewing in a lunch-break. No longer is it restricted to print. Technology allows its presentation in ways that make it powerfully real and have spawned a wide range of ancillary services and equipment.
Putting aside what the Bible leaches about lust (which is what using porn is), there is irrefutable evidence of the changes to the brain ( 5 ways porn affects the brain ) that can follow from regular porn use, along with links to violence and relationship damage.
The Family Life website describes porn as "... a major trap for our youth. As parents we must do everything we can to protect our sons and daughters from this provocative snare." It includes extracts from two letters...
At the age of 13, I started my first job. That day I took my first puff of a cigarette and was exposed to pornography for the first time. I had no idea of the power that was to take control of my life as a result of that action. For the next 25 years I battled with pornography. My sin did not stop with pornography but took [other forms]. No matter how hard I tried, I could not make real changes. I could not escape it...
In the 1950s a boy named Ted grew up in what he described as a normal, loving Christian home. When he was about 12, Ted started looking at so-called soft-core pornography...Ted’s casual interest in pornography over time turned into a compulsive addiction... until he was hooked on the worst, the most explicit printed and film images of raw sexual violence. To his family and friends Ted was just the all-American boy. He was intelligent, was an A student, became an Eagle Scout... The desire for pornography was a hidden part of his life. He reached the point where merely seeing violent pornography no longer gave Ted the rush that he craved... One day he snapped—abducting, abusing, and murdering a young woman. Some months later he did it again. By the time he was finally stopped, Ted Bundy admitted having killed more than two dozen women and girls. Just hours before he was executed, Ted explained the role that pornography—and alcohol—had played in fueling and enabling his twisted passions. “Pornography can reach out and snatch a kid out of any house today. It snatched me out of my house 30 years ago.…"
Even though Janet can have had no idea how porn availability, graphic detail and the wide range of perversions available would change in Peter's lifetime, she realises it's important that he stops it at seventeen before it becomes a habit in later life. So, he gets what she believes - full throttle! How right she was. And how much I wish I'd had had a Janet in my life at seventeen!
The Mission Frontiers website provides the following data on pornography use in 2020...
Let’s look at some data to see the scope and effects of porn in society and the church.
1. Over 40 million Americans are regular visitors to porn sites. The average visit lasts 6 minutes and 29 seconds
2. There are around 42 million porn websites, which totals around 370 million pages of porn.
3. The porn industry’s annual revenue is more than the NFL, NBA, and MLB combined. It is also more than the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC.
4. 47% of families in the United States reported that pornography is a problem in their home. Pornography use increases the marital infidelity rate by more than 300%.
5. 11 is the average age that a child is first exposed to porn, and 94% of children will see porn by the age of 14.
6. 56% of American divorces involve one party having an “obsessive interest” in pornographic websites.
7. 70% of Christian youth pastors report that they have had at least one teen come to them for help in dealing with pornography in the past 12 months.
8. 68% of church-going men and over 50% of pastors view porn on a regular basis. Of young Christian adults 18-24 years old, 76% actively search for porn.
9. 59% of pastors said that married men seek their help for porn use.
10. 33% of women aged 25 and under search for porn at least once per month.
11. Only 13% of self-identified Christian women say they never watch porn—87% of Christian women have watched porn.
12. 55% of married men and 25% of married women say they watch porn at least once a month.
13. 57% of pastors say porn addiction is the most damaging issue in their congregation. 69% say porn has adversely impacted the church.