You can google “why porn is bad for you” and find hundreds of articles and studies telling you that porn causes all kinds of ills for individuals, couples and society at large. But you can also google and find articles that will tell you that the world is going to end in 10 years due to “climate change”, that socialism is better for society than capitalism and egalitarianism is better for marriage than Biblical patriarchy.
In other words, don’t believe everything you read.
The Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good”. That means we need to test what we are told, to see if it is true.
Rather than spending time debunking all kinds of studies that say porn use is bad for individuals, couples and society, I am going to supply something here for you that you won’t easily find online unless you really looked for it. I will show you scholars who disagree with the popular narrative that porn is bad for society and they actually have the facts on their side to prove their case.
So, let’s get to it.
The Vast Majority of Men Look at Porn
79 percent of men between the age of 18 and 30 look at porn. The fact I just cited is from a 2014 Barna Group survey reported by the Washington Times.
The number of men looking at porn drops as men age so when you take middle age men (40s and 50s) and elderly men (60 and older) together the percentage of men of all ages looking at porn on a monthly basis is 64%. But still that is a pretty high number. So basically, three quarters of young men (18 to 30) look at porn on a monthly basis and two thirds of all men across all ages look at porn on a monthly basis.
And if you are wondering about if there is any difference between Christian men – these numbers were from Christian men. The numbers are basically the same between Christians and non-Christians on this issue.
Porn Use Decreases Sex Crimes and Teenage Sex
In his article, “Does Pornography Cause Social Harm?”, Michael Castleman M.A., gives us some very interesting and unreported facts about the impact to societies which allow widespread porn use:
“The Internet became a major force in everyday life in the late 1990s. Before then, porn was available in adult stores, through X-rated video rentals, and on some newsstands. But with the arrival of the Internet, porn availability exploded. It was just a click away 24-7 for free in tens of millions of homes and offices. In 1997, 16 percent of American adults used the Internet regularly. By 2005, the figure had quadrupled to 65 percent. The Internet has also made porn much more available to impressionable kids. How many kids, ages 10 to 17, have viewed Internet porn? According to a recent report in the journal Pediatrics, 42 percent.
If porn is a significant contributor to social harm, we would expect to see substantial increases in sexual irresponsibility, divorce, and rape since the late 1990s when the Internet suddenly made X-rated material much more available to those who might instigate sexual mayhem, overwhelmingly men.
Guess what. Since the arrival of Internet porn:
* Sexual irresponsibility has declined. Standard measures include rates of abortion and sexually transmitted infections. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), since 1990, the nation’s abortion rate has fallen 41 percent. The syphilis rate has plummeted 74 percent. And the gonorrhea rate has plunged 57 percent.
* Teen sex has declined. The CDC says that since 1991, the proportion of teens who have had intercourse has decreased 7 percent. Teen condom use has increased 16 percent. And the teen birth rate has fallen 33 percent.
* Divorce has declined. Since 1990, the divorce rate has decreased 23 percent.
* Rape has declined. According to the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey, since 1995, the sexual assault rate has fallen 44 percent.
Why would social ills decline as porn becomes more widely available? No one knows. But the one thing porn really causes is masturbation. Internet porn keeps men at home one-handing it. As a result, they’re not out in the world acting irresponsibly-or criminally.”
And in another article entitled “Evidence Mounts: More Porn, Less Sexual Assault” Mr. Castleman writes:
“Clearly, the anti-porn activists are wrong. Porn doesn’t incite men to sexual violence. It looks more like a safety valve that gives men an alternative outlet for potentially assaultive energy. Instead of attacking women, men who might commit that crime can masturbate to unlimited amounts of internet porn.”
Shaming of Porn Use Increases Likelihood of Sex Crimes
Milton Diamond is a professor of anatomy, biochemistry and physiology at the University of Hawaii and director of the Pacific Center for Sex and Society. In his article “Porn: Good for us?” on the-scientist.com he wrote the following:
“In terms of the use of pornography by sex offenders, the police sometimes suggest that a high percentage of sex offenders are found to have used pornography. This is meaningless, since most men have at some time used pornography.
Looking closer, Michael Goldstein and Harold Kant found that rapists were more likely than nonrapists in the prison population to have been punished for looking at pornography while a youngster, while other research has shown that incarcerated nonrapists had seen more pornography, and seen it at an earlier age, than rapists. What does correlate highly with sex offense is a strict, repressive religious upbringing. Richard Green too has reported that both rapists and child molesters use less pornography than a control group of “normal” males.”
Porn Use Wrongly Used as A Cop-out for The Bad Behavior of a Few Men
In the same article above, Professor Diamond makes the following statement:
“Now let’s look at attitudes towards women. Studies of men who had seen X-rated movies found that they were significantly more tolerant and accepting of women than those men who didn’t see those movies, and studies by other investigators—female as well as male—essentially found similarly that there was no detectable relationship between the amount of exposure to pornography and any measure of misogynist attitudes.
No researcher or critic has found the opposite, that exposure to pornography—by any definition—has had a cause-and-effect relationship towards ill feelings or actions against women. No correlation has even been found between exposure to porn and calloused attitudes toward women.
There is no doubt that some people have claimed to suffer adverse effects from exposure to pornography—just look at testimony from women’s shelters, divorce courts and other venues. But there is no evidence it was the cause of the claimed abuse or harm.
Ultimately, there is no freedom that can’t be and isn’t misused. This can range from the freedom to bear arms to the freedom to bear children (just look at “Octomom”). But it doesn’t mean that the freedom of the majority should be restricted to prevent the abuses of the few.”
When some men abuse their wives or others and they or their wives attempt to blame this abuse on their porn use – this is the very definition of a copout. It is not the porn which made them engage in whatever abusive behavior they did, but rather it was their own choices and bad behavior.
Clinical psychologist David J Ley Ph.D. wrote article entitled “Porn is not the problem – You are” for PsychologyToday.com and in it he stated the following the following about the popular porn “addiction”:
“Porn is not addictive. Sex is not addictive. The ideas of porn and sex addiction are pop psychology concepts that seem to make sense, but have no legitimate scientific basis. For decades, these concepts have flourished in America, but have consistently been rejected by medicine and mental health. The media and American society have accepted that sex and porn are addictive, because it seems intuitively true – we all feel like sometimes, we might do something stupid or self-destructive, when sex is involved. But, this false belief is dangerous, and ultimately not helpful. Because when people buy into the belief that porn is addictive, it changes the argument, and all of a sudden, it seems like it is porn and sex that are the problems. Porn addiction becomes a label, and seems to be an explanation, when in fact, it is just meaningless words and platitudes that distract from the real issue. But sex and porn aren’t the problems. You are.
…
It is getting increasingly difficult to find men in our society, who’ve never viewed pornography. But, if porn were the problem – if porn were addictive, then the problems of porn would be far, far greater than they are. In fact, in recent studies, fewer than 1% of people report that they have had problems in their life due to difficulties controlling their sexual behaviors, including watching porn. Now – higher numbers, around 10%, report “feeling” that their sexual desires are hard to control, but it is very different to feel something, versus ACTUALLY being out of control.
So – if you are one of that 1%, then what’s going on? If it isn’t the porn, then it must be you. Something about you (more than one thing, usually) has led you to be a person who makes bad decisions about sex. Now in that, you’re not alone – it is in fact a universal truth that people tend to make poorer decisions when they’re turned on, whether it’s choosing not to wear a condom, or choosing to masturbate to porn when you shouldn’t. Call it “sex-goggles,” and recognize that human sexual arousal affects our decision-making.”
A professor of neuroscience at Concordia University, Jim PFaus, wrote an article entitled “Trust a Scientist: Sex Addiction is a Myth” in which he stated the following:
“Self-labeled sex addicts often speak about their identities very clinically, as if they’re paralyzed by a scientific condition that functions the same way as drug and alcohol addiction. But sex and porn “addiction” are NOT the same as alcoholism or a cocaine habit. In fact, hypersexuality and porn obsessions are not addictions at all. They’re not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and by definition, they don’t constitute what most researchers understand to be addiction.
Here’s why: addicts withdraw. When you lock a dope fiend in a room without any dope, the lack of drugs will cause an immediate physiological response — some of which is visible, some of which we can only track from within the body. During withdrawal, the brains of addicts create junctions between nerve cells containing the neurotransmitter GABA. This process more or less inhibits the brain systems usually excited by drug-related cues — something we never see in the brains of so-called sex and porn addicts.
A sex addict without sex is much more like a teenager without their smartphone. Imagine a kid playing Angry Birds. He seems obsessed, but once the game is off and it’s time for dinner, he unplugs. He might wish he was still playing, but he doesn’t get the shakes at the dinner table. There’s nothing going on in his brain that creates an uncontrollable imbalance.
…
Such porn-shaming isn’t all that different from the guilt conservatives attach to sex, even though conditioning men to feel bad about their sexual behaviors only leads to the kind of secretive, damaging behaviors evidenced in the Duggar story. What’s worse: when sexuality is labeled a “disease” like addiction, guys no longer have to own their sexuality — or their actions. It’s unnecessary to explain why they cheated because it’s beyond their control. And so, the “addict” stigma is preferable because it’s one they can check into rehab and recover from. Being considered an “adulterer,” on the other hand, is harder to shake.”
Porn Use Does Not Make Men Want Sex Less with Real Women
In the article we previously mentioned from Michael Castleman M.A, “Evidence Mounts: More Porn, Less Sexual Assault” he writes the following:
“English researchers gave 164 men standard psychological tests of interpersonal connectedness to determine their emotional closeness to—or distance from—the important people in their lives (spouses, family, friends). Then the researchers surveyed the men’s porn consumption.
Contrary to the critics’ assertions, as porn consumptions increased, so did emotional closeness to others. Far from providing an escape from close relationships, the researchers suggested that porn use may signify a “craving for intimacy.”
Those who feel offended or disgusted by pornography are entitled to their opinion. But they are not entitled to misrepresent its effects on men and society. Porn does not isolate men from significant others, nor does it contribute to rape and other sex crimes.”
Remember at the beginning of this fact sheet on porn use we cited the well-known statistics that at least 80 percent of men 30 and under look at porn on a regular basis? And even when we factor in older men it is still around 64% percent of men looking at porn on a regular basis?
Well if those who claim that porn use decreases a man’s desire for sex with an actual woman, then why does study after study show that men want more sex in their relationships, not less?
Richard Sine wrote an article for WebMD entitled “Sex Drive: How Do Men and Women Compare?” and in it he states the following:
“Birds do it, bees do it, and men do it any old time. But women will only do it if the candles are scented just right — and their partner has done the dishes first. A stereotype, sure, but is it true? Do men really have stronger sex drives than women?
Well, yes, they do. Study after study shows that men’s sex drives are not only stronger than women’s, but much more straightforward. The sources of women’s libidos, by contrast, are much harder to pin down…
The majority of adult men under 60 think about sex at least once a day, reports Laumann. Only about one-quarter of women say they think about it that frequently. As men and women age, each fantasize less, but men still fantasize about twice as often.
In a survey of studies comparing male and female sex drives, Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist at Florida State University, found that men reported more spontaneous sexual arousal and had more frequent and varied fantasies…
“Men want sex more often than women at the start of a relationship, in the middle of it, and after many years of it,” Baumeister concludes after reviewing several surveys of men and women.”
If 80 percent of men are looking at porn on a regular basis, and yet surveys consistently reveal men want more sex in their relationships than women do then we can conclude that men using porn does not decrease their desire for sexual intimacy with women.
Conclusion
The facts are in. Porn does not cause addiction. Porn does not cause men to want real sexual intimacy with actual women any less. Porn does not increase sexual crimes, but rather countries that have allowed the widespread use of porn have seen sizeable drops in sexually related crimes.
Now if you were to do search on problems that porn causes you would find pages and pages of studies purporting to show that porn is the cause of almost all our societal woes. You will find studies purporting to show porn rewires men’s brains making them need more and more stimulation, giving them ED problems and making them want sex with their wives less.
The studies I have shown you here are buried; you have to look for them because they don’t fit the narrative that porn use is bad for men.
But here is the truth about porn use. Porn has become one the biggest societal cop-outs and scapegoats we have.
Porn use is the scapegoat men and women run to when men have affairs on their wives. It is scapegoat for child molesters and rapists. The whole “porn addiction” narrative is a cop-out allowing some men to blame their compulsive behavior and bad decisions on a supposed “disease”.
Finally, we need to be honest about what unites Christian women and non-Christian women alike in their vehement opposition to porn use by men. And that is the feminine view of sex.
Women view the physically oriented masculine view of sex as inferior to the feminine relationally oriented view of sex. This is why women will often say to men “Why would you want to look at a woman naked or fantasize about sex with a woman whom you do not know or have any emotional connection to?”. In other words, most women, have a misandrist (man-hating) view of the masculine sexual nature whether they consciously admit it or not.
And then there is feminine insecurity.
Men primarily judge themselves by their intelligence, their talents, and their careers. Women on the other hand, primarily judge themselves by their beauty and thus their ability to attract intelligent, talented and successful men. And most women do not like their bodies being compared to other women even though they do it to themselves consciously or subconsciously every day of their lives.
It for these two primary reasons, the feminine relational view of sex and the feminine insecurity inherent in most women, that the overwhelming vast majority of women are vehemently opposed to porn. And as the West has become more secular and less Christian in its values, it at the same time has become more of a feminine centric society. Women now dominate not just interpersonal relationships and marriages, but also cultural and political narratives of the day.
It is the feelings of women and how they think men, sex and the world should be that dominate the day. And thus, this is one the biggest reasons for the continued narrative in western society that porn is bad for society.
Porn To The Glory of God 