The Porn Effect
Patricia Weerakoon
Pornography and erotica saturate our culture. From sexualised children’s dolls and video games, pop music videos, comic books, and free porn videos on YouTube to virtual reality camming—there is no getting away from the ‘pornification’ of society.
Pornography is graphic material created to sexually arouse the user. Pornography today is easily accessible and totally anonymous. Internationally, it is a multibillion dollar industry, and intimately linked to sex trafficking.[i] Adults and children, male and female, are climbing onto the bus of easy second-hand sexual gratification.
On average, a child first views porn at around 12 years of age.[ii] What is the impact of pervasive porn on those growing up, and forming and maintaining relationships?
Social learning theory and sexual scripting theorise that watching pornography will result in the acceptance and adoption of the attitudes of male domination and female subservience at the least, and the rape myth that women enjoy forced and violent sex at the other extreme. Research indicates that teenage boys who watch porn feel pressured[iii] to gain masculine status through sexual achievement; accept the sexual double standard of female ‘sluts’ and male ‘studs’; have a narrow image of what is an attractive female body; often expect girls to mimic porn stars in love-making, and develop a tolerance to sexual violence.[iv]
Porn is not just a male problem. Recent research[v] indicates that 67% of male and 33% of female teens use porn ‘frequently’. For girls, porn—supported by the pop culture of media, music videos, and pressures to conform—has resulted in the emergence of ‘raunch culture’.[vi] Girls make sex objects of themselves and others with the expectation that exhibition of the body is the norm. They see female empowerment as signalled only by overt and public sexuality.
Interestingly, immersion in a religious community can help decrease both the use of and the effects of porn in adolescence.[vii]
The ubiquity and acceptability of porn means that almost all men will be exposed to porn before marriage. The images and behaviours they see wheedle their way into the brain, even for occasional users. Porn sex rarely includes affection, intimacy or expressions of love. The focus is on male pleasure with an apparently ever-available compliant partner. These expectations get carried into real life relationships, and are correlated with unrealistic expectations of sexual behaviour, abuse,[viii] infidelity and separation.[ix] There is also evidence that men who are long time porn users are at risk of developing erectile dysfunction (impotence).[x]
Women who find out that their partner is a porn user struggle with two issues. First there is a deep feeling of rejection and loss of self-worth, followed by anger and feelings of being used and abused at being asked to do things that reflect what porn stars do.[xi]
Porn, when accepted as the ‘norm’, sets the user on a slippery slope of behaviour that drags sexuality from being a wonderful act of intimacy and love into aggression and ugliness. It exchanges the beautiful reality of one flesh couple sex for a damaging fantasy world. Whatever age or sex you are, it is destructive. Therapy requires dealing with the compulsive porn use as well as mending the fences of intimacy and re-establishing a good sex-relational model.
Recent research also indicates that frequent pornography viewing diminishes religious service attendance, the importance of faith, prayer frequency, and perceived closeness to God, while increasing religious doubts.[xii] It is also likely that those in a faith community have higher guilt and shame, and perceive their porn use as an addiction.[xiii] And yet in Jesus there is hope: consciences are cleansed and lives are changed. Let us hold, therefore, unswervingly to the hope we profess.
[i] C. Miller-Perrin & S.K. Wurtele, ‘Sex trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children’. Women & Therapy Vol.40(1-2), 2017, pp123-151
[ii] http://www.covenanteyes.com/pornstats/
[iii] M. Flood, ‘The harms of pornography exposure among children and young people’. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18(6), 2009, pp384–400.
[iv] C. Sun, A. Bridges, J.A. Johnson & M.B. Ezzell, ‘Pornography and the male sexual script: An analysis of consumption and sexual relations’. Archives of Sexual Behavior Vol. 45(4), 2016, pp983-994.
[v] https://www.barna.com/research/porn-in-the-digital-age-new-research-reveals-10-trends/
[vi] A. Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (Schwartz, 2005).
[vii] K. Rasmussen & A. Bierman, ‘How does religious attendance shape trajectories of pornography use across adolescence?’. Journal of Adolescence Vol. 49, 2019, pp191-203.
[viii] B. J. Willoughby, J.S. Carroll, D.M. Busby & C.C. Brown, ‘Differences in pornography use among couples: Associations with satisfaction, stability, and relationship processes’. Archives of Sexual Behavior Vol. 45(1), 2016, p14.
[ix] S.L. Perry & C. Schleifer, ‘Till porn do us part? A longitudinal examination of pornography use and divorce’. Journal of Sex Research May 12, 2017, pp1-13; Franklin O. Poulsen , Dean M. Busby & Adam M. Galovan, ‘Pornography Use: Who Uses It and How It Is Associated with Couple Outcomes’. Journal of Sex Research Vol. 50(1), 2013, pp72-83.
[x] B.Y. Park, G. Wilson, J. Berger et al., ‘Is Internet pornography causing sexual dysfunctions? A review with clinical reports’. Behavioral Sciences Vol.6(3), 2016, p17.
[xi] D.M. Szymanski, C.E. Feltman, & T.L. Dunn, ‘Male partners' perceived pornography use and women's relational and psychological health: The roles of trust, attitudes, and investment’. Sex Roles Vol.73(5-6), 2015, p187.
[xii] S.L. Perry, & G.M. Hayward, ‘Seeing is (not) believing: How viewing pornography shapes the religious lives of young Americans’. Social Forces Vol.95(4), 2017, pp1757-1788.
[xiii] J.B. Grubbs, J.J. Exline, K.I. Pargament, F. Volk, & M.J. Lindberg, M. J. (2016). ‘Internet Pornography Use, Perceived Addiction, and Religious/Spiritual Struggles’. Archives of Sexual Behavior doi:10.1007/s10508-016-0772-9
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