You’ve heard some of the shocking statistics. As much as 30% of all Internet bandwidth may be delivering pornography to someone. People on Google search for porn-related terms more than anything else, by a huge margin. But within that broad category of “pornography,” do you know what, exactly, people are trying to find?
A recent news article caught my attention when it offered an answer to this question. This recent report (compiled by a pornography search site) identifies the three top pornographic search terms for each state in the United States. I read the entire list. What I found is disturbing.
The terms “teen” and “college” are the most popular terms in the list. Together they appear 47 times. Remember, that statistic only considers the top three search terms. I’m betting that, if the list were expanded to the top five terms, every state would include at least one of these two search terms.
Now, we can either presume that online pornography is only or mostly consumed by people in their early 20s or younger (in which case you’re going to have to explain how the industry remains profitable), or we can admit that the pornography epidemic indicts ours as a nation of closet pedophiles. Up and down your street in your neighborhood, middle-aged men are seeking sexual gratification from images of high schoolers.
I think a lot of people, knowing that depraved human sexuality has been around for a long time, presume that Internet pornography simply brings to light what has been under the surface since the Fall. I disagree. Yes, all humans are depraved sinners. Yes, sexuality is one place in which human depravity reliably surfaces. Yes, this has always been true. And yet, all of that being true, I still think that human sexuality is malleable. Internet pornography, I think, is CHANGING human sexuality.
Not for the better.
And so, as a father to a daughter, I worry about what is happening to the world around us. At one time, I was imagining a crowd-sourced, if possibly illegal, way to strike back against the scourge of Internet porn. I’m thinking along different lines now. I think that it is time for the government to intervene along the lines of what British Prime Minister David Cameron recently proposed.
All sin is dangerous. The enemy has come, after all, only to steal, kill, and destroy. The terminal dangers of pornography are just becoming evident, and our children are imperiled by it.
I think you’re absolutely right. I wrote an anti-trafficking youth curriculum for a non-profit last year. One of the things I learned in my research was how strongly pornography is tied to trafficking. The industry itself uses coercive and exploitative techniques to recruit its victims, then continues to coerce them to perform through abuse, addition, and psychological coercion. This is a justice issue for our time.
Also just as a note, September 27-29 is the Weekend of Prayer & Fasting for Victims of Human Trafficking. Resources are available from the Salvation Army’s Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking (IAST). It might be a good time to educate your congregations about this issue and call them to prayer.
Cameron is proposing a variety of measures including education, voluntary participation by internet search providers, along with new and strengthened laws against depiction of various pornographic and criminal acts. I see no reason why such measures would not be welcomed here by most citizens.
I appreciate this post. I really do, but government getting involved? I’m not so sure about that. The government has notoriously failed at everything they’ve tried to do. I think the church should address it more and with more boldness, but I am always wary of government interference into anything.
This is a timely and appropriate blog, a post that needs to move us all to seek the face and favor of the Almighty. We have made so much of man’s power and will, but we see in such addictions as this his utter helplessness. You are right to be concerned. I worked in a Senior High School with some 1800 students from ’88-91, and they had such a large counseling staff that they could assign pathologies. Mine was incest and pedophilia, both the most sickening and incredibly destructive sins and crimes that can be committed. To overcome such evils, we need Christians of all denominations to come together for prayer for a Third Great Awakening, seeking the Lord for His divine help. We are like Moses and the children of Israel, when the came up to the Red Sea and had Pharoah’s army behind them. Only the favor of God opened that sea and dried out the sea bed so that they passed over on dry ground, while “Big House’s” host perished in that sea (I remember one of my history professors saying that was the meaning of Pharoah’s title, “big house,” from 51 years ago). By the way one outfit has pictures from the sea bed in the gulf of Akaba (sp.?), showing chariot wheels. You can even view such on the internet. Now, if the Lord can do such a thing then, there is nothing He cannot do now. God grant us the desire to come together and pray for a visitation like that the Moravians had about 1712, when the power of God fell and people some 20 miles away, working in a field, felt the power and fell to their knees.
It is a sad and sick world we live in.
I had a conversation with the guy at the the Safe Eyes booth at the convention. It was disturbing. He told me a story about a family who said that they didn’t think they needed safe eyes because their kids were younger teens and probably not into porn. He told them to go get their son’s smart phone. He took the phone, went into the history and showed these parents that their “good little boy” was downloading porn on his smart phone.
We used to worry about our desktop computers. Now our kids have iPhones and Droids in their hands which they can use easily enough – and with a great deal of privacy.
My kids are all raised and gone. If I was raising teens in this world, I would have Safe Eyes or something like that. We cannot just assume that our good little boys (and girls) are above the use of porn.
Thank you, BART!
Does anyone know of a good way to filter internet use for iPhones and iPads that cannot easily be deactivated in the sync process? i.e. you can deactivate Safari and install a “family-friendly” browser, but can’t Safari be reactivated whenever the iPhone or iPad is re-synced?
I’m not sure about all the syncing stuff, but I do know as far as my iPhone is concerned, my wife deleted safari and put a password on here to block me from downloading any apps that may even have a hint of adult content. I will pray for you, but check into that avenue. There is no reason why teens should have the Internet at their fingertips 24-7.
Should not. But many do not see the need to protect themselves because they don’t believe their kids would do such things.
Yes, it will return with a sync….
I don’t think you can’t get rid of safari from iPhones, etc.
Glad to see this discussion happening and thankful to see others pointing out the smartphone issues.
It’s tragic that so many parents, who wouldn’t dream of handing their teenager a PlayBoy magazine for their birthday, have instead opted for giving them an endless supply of porn in the name of “security”. As somebody that didn’t even own a cell phone until I was finished with my B.S., I find the excuses for this rather lame when we consider the risk involved.
In our house we use “opendns.” Found at http://www.opendns.com The nice thing about it is that it takes place at the router so any device connected through WiFi or a network cable goes through the filter; and remember many game systems and MP3 players have internet access. PS3/4, iPod, xBox etc. The filtering is extremely well done and you can select the level desired. Plus its free.
Another suggestion I would give is to pray and ask the Lord to show you if there are areas of your children’s lives that need to come to light. Whenever I have been moved to ask the Lord this question He has answered in a most timely manner.
While some of their ministry connections (Rob Bell…yuck!) are problematic, xxxchurch.com has some great materials. While I have not used it, their x3watch programs are apparently fairly good, works both with Windows and Mac, and they even have apps for cell phones (android and mac iOS.
I’m out of town and unable, mostly, to respond. I want to thank everyone for the important and healthy discussion ongoing here. I do want to address Tony’s concern. Although I’m not a cradle-to-grave statist, I do affirm with Paul in Romans 13 that government is an agent of God. It is, in my opinion, difficult to read that and walk away with any view of government that is entirely negative (not that you said yours was).
When we have something like pedophilia that is demonstrably evil, ubiquitously present, and damningly influential, I think it is a good thing for government to act to curb its influence.
I’m not saying I disagree with your comments on porn….I agree wholeheartedly….but at the same time – I’m generally Leary of govt. censorship as not everyone agrees what is “demonstrably evil, ubiquitously present, and damningly influential”.
I think we agree generally on those matters…but you do realize there are some who view religion, and especially biblical Christianity as such.
Has there ever been a study done that proves soft porn leads to hard porn which leads to child porn which leads to actual hands on pedophilia? Do countries that outlaw porn have a lower rate of pedophilia?
Todd,
I think the American Family Association founded by Donald Wildmon might have some data that may answer your questions.
In my personal experience, I have never spoken with a pedophile who had not been deeply involved in the use of pornography, not one.
The Hill-Link Minority Report response to Johnson’s President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (circa 1970) was read into the record of both Houses of the U.S. Congress while the majority report from the Commission was rejected by a 60-5 vote by the Senate with 34 abstentions. it is available in paper form from Amazon.
The final report (colloquially referred to as the Meese Report) from the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography led by U.S. Attorney General included the following consensus statements from a workshop led by Surgeon General Everett Koop that was included in the commission report quoted from the Wikipedia Anti-pornography movement in the United States article (the article cites the workshop as limited for time and money and also the only original research that was conducted as part of the Meese Commission):
“Children and adolescents who participate in the production of pornography experience adverse, enduring effects,”
“Prolonged use of pornography increases beliefs that less common sexual practices are more common,”
“Pornography that portrays sexual aggression as pleasurable for the victim increases the acceptance of the use of coercion in sexual relations,”
“Acceptance of coercive sexuality appears to be related to sexual aggression,”
“In laboratory studies measuring short-term effects, exposure to violent pornography increases punitive behavior toward women”
In addition, According to Surgeon General Koop, “Although the evidence may be slim, we nevertheless know enough to conclude that pornography does present a clear and present danger to American public health”[15]
Now let’s be honest: the Hill-Link Minority Report and the Messe Report represent a traditional, conservative, largely both Catholic and evangelical/Christian view of pornography. On the other side, we have become aware over time of structural flaws in the various “sex” studies by folks like William Masters, Virginia Johnson and Shere Hite strain credulity regarding accepting the “scientific” and “statistical” nature of those studies, and yet there is a certain amount of directness that their various studies opened up from a cultural perspective.
I’m sure there are other materials and statistics. I’m not claiming these two reports are final authority on the subject. But they are intriguing as are the politics behind each.
In fact, as a nod to the similarity in values and our common cause with Catholics on this subject, I’ll add a link to A Catholic News Agency article on “How to Answer Defenders of Pornography”
P.S. Once again…I have two links and this article requires moderator intervention to be freed for publication.