Here are a few stats that are hard to ignore:
- Online porn earned 2.5 billion dollars last year
- All pornographic sales last year earned 76 billion dollars
- There are 68 million search requests per day for sex related words and phrases
- The 2 largest bandwidth buyers in the US are for pornography
- 60% of all internet site visits are sex related
- 20% of men admit visiting porn sites at work
- 40 million adults admit visiting porn sites weekly
- 10% of adults admit to online pornography addiction
- 81% believe obscenity laws should be enforced vigorously!
Obviously there is a disconnect here; some 25% of the adult population admit to going to porn sites weekly (how many do you think didn’t admit it?) and yet 80% support obscenity laws. Is this a cry for help or what?
I believe that pornography (especially online) viewing is so ubiquitous that few people want to talk about it and I don’t think we as Christians are exempt. One poll done at 3 Christian colleges found that 68% of students admitted accessing online pornography.
The average age of first exposure to pornography is 11 years old.
As Christians, we need to be able to call ourselves to account first in addressing this problem so we can speak to our society with authority. Here is a great place to start: www.xxxchurch.com . There are a lot of resources for your church or mens group here to help address this issue.
Online pornography is easily containable. Designate .xxx for any sexual content unsuitable for children under 13. This makes it easy for parents to restrict access, does not interfere with anyone’s first amendment right to free speech and makes it much easier to regulate, and prosecute violations.
As for foreign porn sites - the US regulates everything else coming into the US. It should be no problem whatsoever to divert foreign porn on .com, .net or .org to .xxx or restrict it entirely. Besides, if we opened up .xxx as the new redlight district of the web, most vendors would voluntarily move out to where the customers are going.
Why hasn’t this been done before now? I said 76 billion dollars. More than the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, ABC, CBS, NBC, Rock AND Country music combined earned last year. If this industry ever organizes to significant degree, it will be all but impossible to stop with those kinds of numbers.
Christians have been quite successful in recent years in the fight against abortion by winning the hearts and minds of individuals in addition to court fights and arguments. It will be the same with pornography, but we have to clean our own house first.
It is a radical problem and here is the start to a radical solution.
I like your blog.
I feel like there is this tear… [men] thinking it’s normal male activity and harmless but not realizing how ugly and ungodly it is and that porn is NOT normal in the eyes of our God Almighty.
I have noticed that Christian men are reluctant to break away from porn because of the strong “mental relationships” with the industry that formed prior to gaining a relationship in Christ Jesus. Basically, they have known porn longer than God and therefore feel more at ease with the familiar. It’s sad but I’ve heard and witnessed it time and time again.
And I think women that like porn often like it because they know men like it and feel they can gain something they can’t gain elsewhere. This isn’t discussed nearly as much but is also an issue that deserves attention.
Keep up the great work on your blog!
Comment by Essence Neal — September 27, 2009 @ 4:41 pm