Porn: Marriage and Integrity Killer

Yesterday I preached a sermon about pornography and how Christians should stand against it.  In my research for this topic (which was all done under the watchful eye of a trusted accountability partner), I came across miserable stat after miserable stat that left me frustrated and angry.  There are many lies that people buy into about porn in order to justify their use of it, but no justification is sufficient to conclude that porn is harmless entertainment and doesn't hurt anybody.

Here are some stats I found (mostly from Covenant Eyes and several of their research projects): (Note: p = pornography; it was shorthand in my research notes)

Worldwide

-       -More than 1.6 billion searches for porn so far this year

-       -1 in 5 mobile searches are for p

-       -24% of smartphone users admit to having p on their handset (and of that group, 84% say their significant other didn't know about it)

-       -Political persuasion doesn't make any difference; all political groups use p at about the same rate

-      - There are nearly 2 million p sites

-       -In a 2008 online survey of over 560 college students, 93% of boys and 62% of girls were exposed to p before 18.  Nearly 75% say their parents had never discussed Internet P with them.

o   In a 2009 survey of 29,000 college students, 51% of males and 32% of female students first viewed P before their teenage years.

-       -In a 2004 report from Message Labs, 70% of IP traffic occurs between 9-5, when most people are at work.

In the Church of Jesus Christ

-       "If you think you can't fall into sexual sin, then you're godlier than David, stronger than Samson, and wiser than Solomon."  - Bill Perkins

-      - Regular church attenders are 26% less likely to look at p than non-attenders, but those self-identified as "fundamentalists" are 91% MORE likely to look at p.

-     -  A 2006 survey reported that 50% of Christian men and 20% of Christian women view p regularly.

Effects on marriage and family

-       -Prolonged exposure to P leads to:

o   An exaggerated perception of sexual activity in society

o   Diminished trust between intimate couples

o   The abandonment of the hope of sexual monogamy

o   Belief that promiscuity is the natural state

o   Belief that abstinence and sexual inactivity are unhealthy

o   Belief that marriage is sexually confining

o   Lack of attraction to family and to child-raising

-     -  In 2002, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers reported that

o   56% of divorces involved one party having "an obsessive interest in p websites."

o   33% involved excessive time spent speaking in chat rooms.

-       -"Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions." (US Dept. of Justice)

-      - in 2004, 70 million individuals visit p sites each week, 11 million of them are younger than 18.

-       -Nearly 2/3 of parents do not use online parental controls or filtering software.