SCOURGE OF THE NATIONS

“Nobody should have anything to say about what I do in the privacy of my home. If I choose to watch porn who am I harming? Keep your morality to yourself.”

In truth there is no such thing as a private sin. And this sin reaches dramatically beyond the bedroom (or office) door. Here is just a partial list:

The person viewing is radically turning inward (as opposed to marriage which is to radically turn us toward “the other.”) When he is watching porn the man is not thinking of his wife and family, he is not thinking of the woman in the movie who likely did not grow up thinking that this was the lifestyle she dreamed of and is proud to tell her family about. Even if it is “free” porn he perpetuates the system that feeds on these women that it eventually throws away – who now turns to the very society that used her to help her. It is all about meeting the desires of the man.

It prevents the man from being leaders, providers, and protectors. Whether hours a day are spent or hours a week, this is time stolen from the very people the man loves. With companies installing monitoring systems there is good number of men losing their jobs daily. (Think Wiener.)  Whether he realizes it or not his attitude toward women is altered. He will pass this attitude (where it may become exaggerated) on to his children.

It ruins marriages. Men tend to compartmentalize. He can put porn into a drawer and pretend to separate it from the rest of his life. Women, according to Dr. Kleponis, see life more as a bucket of water and porn a drop of ink. It spreads and colors everything. That is why women tend to see it as something worse than men and why men, particularly those struggling with porn, sometimes do not register it as something as severe. So women see this as a betrayal and something against which they must compete and images against which they could never compare.

It perpetuates lying and deceit as the man tries to hide his porn use. (If you have to hide it, there is something wrong in a relationship where you are supposed to be one flesh.) This leads to damage in communication. All this together can lead to divorce which has a nasty effect sociologically and economically on the family, particularly the children, and on society in general. It ALWAYS harms marriage in some way.

It is ALWAYS damaging to faith. Faith calls us to see the dignity of the human person. All of them. Even those who voluntarily throw it away. To miss this is to miss out on one of the primary tenants of the faith that Jesus came here to teach as necessary to salvation. It is your sister (or brother) that you are turning into a commodity. As John Paul II said it is not that porn reveals too much of the person. It is that it reveals too little. It reduces a person to their organs and skin to be used and thrown away.

Porn is addictive. For some more than others. It is always a problem but for some it leads not only to hours a day being lost to fantasy but also to thousands of dollars on site fees and other materials. Worst of all are boarders starting to become fuzzy between reality and fantasy as men try to live out what they see on the screen. Loss of resources for the family at this point, while terrible, is not as devastating as the possibility of bringing home a disease that can seriously harm or lead to the death of himself and his wife.

For the man who is addicted it can seriously harm his feelings of self worth and his male confidence. The viscous circle being the thing that makes him feel better temporarily is the very thing that throws him deeper into despair. We do not have to wonder what it is like when men are no longer men in their families and neighborhoods. Weak, ineffectual, and/or absent husbands and fathers lead to a breakdown in our social fabric.




Finally it absorbs BILLIONS of dollars every year – not to mention loss of production of paid work time and loss of volunteer hours. (Who is available to be a scout master or a basketball coach?) $97 billion a year is spent on porn ($13 billion from the U.S.) That is more than to top tech companies combined and more than double the NFL. Every 39 minutes a new porn movie made in the USA causing us to spend over $3,000 a second on porn and the using of thousands and thousands of people including children. This is a terrible drain on our nation. What would you suggest $3,000 a second be spent on – education? Parks? Medical care? National infrastructure? Job creation?