There is a pandemic that is decimating communities the world over. Nobody is immune and more and more people are becoming exposed daily. Once it gets hold it often leads to death and destruction.
The Church is not immune. In fact, I’d suggest that this disease is almost as prevalent in our own pews, despite the fact that we have the antidote.
I’m talking of pornography. Pornography damages lives, relationships and society. The same can be said of a casual attitude to relationships and sex in general but the game changer, in today’s technological world, is pornography.
It shocks others when I mention a few statistics that demonstrate how widespread the problem is; that there are estimated to be more porn pages based in Australia than Australian Facebook users is one such statistic.
“There are estimated to be more porn pages based in Australia than Australian Facebook users”
What is more devastating than any statistic is the real people I meet and the impact that an under-regulated, overly accessible porn industry has on their lives.
Take a 13-year-old boy I’ve worked with as an example. He looks at porn daily on his smart phone. Until his struggle was brought into the light his parents probably thought that the worst thing he got up to was “being mean to his sister”.
Another confronting example might be the 17-year-old who attends youth group each week but has had 15 sexual partners this year.
These are real people faced with a real but sometimes insidious problem. One thing I have learnt is that when one starts on a diet of pornography it is a very slippery slope from intrigue to dependency.
Porn and Relationships
Musician and Grammy award winner John Mayer in a Playboy magazine interview (2010) openly connected his porn use with being unable to find a satisfying stable relationship. Mayer, who admits to regularly viewing hundreds of porn images before getting out of bed, finds porn easier than discovering someone new. “How does that (porn) not affect the psychology of having a relationship with somebody? It’s got to,” says Mayer.
In the book, Wired for Intimacy, Dr William Struthers discusses how the human person is essentially created for relationship. He argues that the neurological pathways in the brain are designed for relational intimacy, partner bonding and the desire to reproduce. These get hijacked in porn use by an overload of unrealistic images and experiences.
Many that ponder the anthropology of sex and relationships might inadvertently be led in a direction towards the much-condemned attitude towards sex that the Catholic Church holds. Namely that sex is primarily created to be unitive and procreative.
Males who watch porn are less likely to form successful relationships and are more likely to think sexual harassment is acceptable.
That humans are fundamentally created for relationship is highlighted ever so strongly by our sexuality and our deep desire for fulfilment in this area. It also is highlighted by the deep damage caused by a misuse or abuse of our sexuality.
Exposure to porn is so high that close to 100 per cent of males will encounter it before leaving school, reports Melinda Tankard Reist, researcher, author and activist against violence to women. The pedagogy of pornography is concerning. Porn reinforces that girls and women are merely pleasure centres for men.
What’s even more concerning is what pornography teaches about violence to women. A 2011 study, by the university of Nevada of five highly popular porn sites found that over 50 per cent of video pornography included acts of violence against women.
In a La Trobe University report, researcher Michael Flood found that males who watch porn are less likely to form successful relationships and are more likely to think sexual harassment is acceptable. Not surprisingly, a 2010 study by the Witherspoon Institute found that 56 per cent of divorce cases involved one or both parties having an obsessive interest in pornographic websites.
to read the full article, please go http://www.realtalkaustralia.com/blog/2015/2/13/the-pandemic-of-porn
