Religion and Porn Addiction

The first thing to remember in all of this is that both the issue of porn addiction and the identity as Christian or not is a matter of self-identification. No one has followed the subjects in the study to see if they are actually addicted to porn by some measure or another. Neither has anyone followed these men to see if the are Christians or not. I self identify as a Christian but I can assure you that there are any number of people that would beg to differ on that point.

In my humble opinion, it would be virtually impossible to conduct a study of this sort that could be considered truly scientific because of any number of factors. Before such a study could be conducted to scientific standards it would be necessary for an agreeable definition to be reached regarding the definitions of what is a Christian as well as an accepted agreement on the definition of porn addiction. I’m not holding my breath on either. The term Christian has been around for roughly 1,980 years and the vast number of denominations claiming to be Christian is enough to convince me that a consensus is far from at had. Likewise, porn addiction is a point of contention in scientific circles and I’m not holding my breath until that it resolved. The other issue is the sampling method involved. In order for a study to have meaning it has to sample a substantial number of people from the target demographic of the study group. Sample 18-25 year old men and you will get a different result than if you study 45-55 year old men. If all of your subjects are from one geographic area that would make a huge difference as well. A study conducted of Los Angelinos would yield a different rate of Internet porn use than a study of Amish people in a community that didn’t allow Internet use. That’s an extreme example, but it serves to illustrate the point that the results of a study are highly dependent upon how the study is conducted. If one puts up a sign asking people to volunteer to participate in a study regarding porn use the study group would be significantly different from a group that was chosen in a truly random manner.

With the foregoing in mind, it is still possible, in my opinion, to glean some useful information from the study, as long as everyone remembers that this is a study of self identification and self reporting. For what it’s worth, this is, in my opinion, the operative phrase.

I find it most interesting that self-identified Christians use porn at a similar rate as non-Christians. What the statistics regarding addiction suggest to me is that the Christians are more likely to see porn use as a problem than non-Christians and therefore are more likely to report addiction. Non-Christians, IMO, are more likely to see porn as not being an issue, morally, and therefore are less likely to be concerned about their porn use unless/until it causes sexual dysfunction.

Without the moral issue the excitement level is less too. Excitement, adrenaline, must play a role in all of this. Before the reboot, the very thought of porn brought a sensation in my chest which I have since learned was adrenaline. These days I approach porn as a morally neutral issue and that has helped considerably because the sensation of excitement is now gone.

I think it’s important to note that in Don Jon, the main character assuaged his guilt through confession and penance of saying a relative handful or prayers that he worked into his exercise routine. I never saw one iota of guilt portrayed by that character regarding sex or porn and his withdrawal was fairly uneventful. I see that movie as being a very accurate portrayal of people in his age group in our day. They grew up in an era when porn was accepted as part of the backdrop of life. They didn’t get hooked because of guilt, they got hooked because of the reward center being compromised. In my case, I think that the reward center was the top layer of the problem, but the guilt, forbidden fruit and related factors were the root causes.

But that is not the case for many porn users, especially the younger people that grew up in a social environment far different from the one that existed in my youth. The fact is that guilt regarding sex is not as prominent as it used to be. When I was in grade school, way back in the sixties when we used to have to fight our way to school uphill through blizzards and T-Rex attacks, many children did not use, and in many cases did not know, the proper terms for their sexual anatomy. Sex education seems to have done a lot towards improving that situation and removing shame from the subject of sex. I just think that parents not passing this information to their children directly is tragic. Undoubtedly ignorance plays a role here, but shame and guilt do as well. Being able to talk about sex freely and openly is very important and goes a long way in removing the stigma and shame from the subject of sex.

Another factor that has changed over the years is the nature of pornography. When I was just reaching puberty the ads for pornographic movies were quite exciting to my adolescent brain. The interesting thing is that movies shown only in seedy porn theaters back in the late sixties are pretty tame by today’s standards. Movies that shocked people 45 years ago would probably be rated R these days, in some cases PG-13. Back then even partial nudity was scandalous and relegated a movie to the status of porn. What was seen as purely pornographic 45 years ago would hardly raise an eyebrow these days.

The significance of that is that young people growing up in today’s world are far more likely to be exposed to explicit sex scenes than I would have been in my youth. If I wanted to see true hardcore porn I had to venture into a part of town in which I felt unsafe. I had to park in a place I was afraid to leave my car and risk being observed as I walked into a porn shop. This was a huge deterrent and is one of the chef reasons I didn’t high-tail it off to the closest porn merchant as soon as I turned 18. I was literally afraid to do so. My point here is that my porn problem, as serious as it was in my youth, is characteristically different from the porn problems of today’s youth. Mine was fueled by speculation and a sense of the unknown. My 18 – 25 year old self could only imagine what was going on in porn movies. Many of today’s youth know by the time they reach middle school. I was hooked on masturbation after seeing hardcore print pornography at the age of 14. Many of today’s kids have seen hardcore videos from day one. The only sense of anticipation comes from the virtually unlimited supply of porn in our age which is in stark contrast to the very limited amount of porn I had access to as a kid growing up in a second tier suburb of a major city. As much of a problem as porn caused in my life I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be growing up in today’s world.

But, closing the circle, so to speak, we come back to the very valid question of whether porn addiction is a byproduct of religiously generated guilt. Speaking for myself, I think that while porn addiction may stand out more sharply in the lives of religiously active people the overall problem is not one of guilt so much as it is one of access and availability. It is no stretch to imagine that people will react to things according to their culture, beliefs, etc. Someone that was raised in a household where alcohol flowed freely may be less concerned that their drinking is problematic than a person that drinks a similar quantity and frequency but was raised by teetotalers. This has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the person is, in fact, an alcoholic; addicted to alcohol. The person raised as a teetotaler may be more likely to self identify as having an alcohol problem and may even become unduly alarmed at their own drinking well before it becomes a problem, but that does not invalidate the concept of alcoholism. Likewise, the fact that Christians are more likely to self identify as having porn problems does not invalidate the concept of porn addiction. It merely could be that their perception of the problem is more sensitive.