In the runup to the last presidential election, an ad was posted to X by DemCast founder Nick Knudsen. DemCast is an advocacy-based 501(c)4 nonprofit that was created to “amplify & maximize the impact of grassroots digital media, bolstering blue electoral and policy victories at all levels of government, across America.” In other words, it is a group that was created to support the Democrat party in the election using social media.
This particular ad shows a young man in his room alone watching pornography on his phone. He is suddenly interrupted by a man who introduces himself as a Republican congressman. This congressman informs him that he is breaking the law. He says, “I’m your Republican congressman. Now that we’re in charge, we’re banning porn nationwide.”
First, let’s put aside the fact that the ad does not represent the truth regarding republican legislative intentions. The use of lies to promote oneself or one’s personal preferences – particularly political preferences – is sick. Let’s also put aside the partisan political dig. A person’s use of porn is not a political policy issue in American society. Rather, it is a social/moral one, and its use is just as prominent on one side of the political divide as the other. No one is looking to take away the porn privileges of adults who want to indulge sin in that manner.
Research on porn use concerning its prevalence varies widely depending on who is doing the research. That said, it is estimated to range between 75% to 95% of the population. One study found that 73% of women and 98% of men viewed porn in the six months prior to the survey. (Daspe M, Vaillancourt-Morel M, Lussier Y, Sabourin S & Ferron A (2017): When Pornography Use Feels Out of Control: The Moderation Effect of Relationship and Sexual Satisfaction, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, DOI: 10.1080/0092623X.2017.1405301).
It used to be that accessing porn was much more difficult, so it was not viewed nearly as much as in our current day. However, since the advent of the internet, it has become pretty much ubiquitous. Virtually anyone can gain access to it in the privacy of their own space.
There are people who advocate the position that viewing porn can actually be healthy. They say it can relieve stress, enhance a couple’s sex life, and provide a temporary distraction when feeling overwhelmed.
On the other hand, for many it is addictive and can “mis-wire” a persons reward circuits and cause sexual dysfunction, as well as lower relationship satisfaction. It also has a positive correlation to crime and violent behavior toward the opposite sex.
But our purpose here is not so much to look at the personal and social effects of porn usage. That is bad enough, but there is a spiritual side to it that is infinitely worse.
A legitimate evaluation of this topic begins with a person’s worldview beliefs about man. To get at that, we must answer the question, “ What is a human being?”
For the most part, those who are all in on porn and see it as a right they don’t want taken away, adhere to a naturalistic worldview. Naturalists are Atheists, and believe that there is no God who is able to give to mankind a moral code that can be considered objectively true. If there is no objectively real moral law giver, the only option left is that human beings make up morality for themselves. Based on that scenario, the person, or demographic, who is able to somehow impose their moral preferences on society gets to decide what is moral and immoral. Obviously, the person who created the porn commercial mentioned above does not see the viewing of porn as morally wrong.
Based on a biblical worldview, the consumption of porn is objectively a sin. But as we make that evaluation, we must be careful not to look at it from a legalistic perspective. For the Christian, our view of sin, any sin, goes way deeper than any act itself. We must drill down to the reason for the acts we perform.
God created man for the purpose of relationship with Himself. The act of sinning breaks fellowship with Him and is not a sin merely because someone does something that God has revealed to be wrong. Rather, sin is rooted in our heart. When we rebel against God’s reveled truth, the act of sin is merely the outward expression of the sin in our heart.
When it comes to sexual sin, we need to realize that God created sex as a good thing. That said, it is to be practiced exclusively within the bonds of marriage between one man and one woman. God established that part of human life as a way to complete a couple’s marriage relationship. When sex is used contrary to God’s purpose (including porn), it is not only disrespectful rebellion against Him, but is also the objectification of the human person that He created for relationship. Objectification is the rejection of relationship.
Those who don’t believe in God, or reject Him, don’t see any reason to set aside their lustful personal preferences concerning sex. They see no reason why they can’t be all in on porn. Those, on the other hand, who love God and want to live in a relationship with Him are fully invested in setting aside the things that God has revealed to be sin, and they do it because they love Him that much.