allinarow brought up, in an interesting comment to the previous post, a great point on which i’d like to expand. why is this subject talked about so little when it is such (sadly) a big part of the world around us? is there something more fundamental inside us that shys away from acknowledging porn? i’ll throw out a few more questions: do you think that 42.7% of the people you know look at porn on the internet? do you know anyone who contributes to the $13 billion porn industry? if not you or your friends then who?
discussion
- 11 February 2008 – 10:40 pm
- Posted in a hard look..., questions...
5 Comments
This is the first time I’ve commented, but not the first time I’ve visited the site. As for the last post, I have an idea of why we shy away from acknowledging porn…or at least why I have. The pleasure of porn is so closely associated with doing something I feel is wrong in every way. Whether it’s spiritual convictions or something human/innate in my wiring, I know porn is wrong on so many levels. I have physically shaken when viewing porn because I know I shouldn’t be doing it. Something that has this level of leverage and control on me is monstrous, which might be why I don’t want to own up to it. Who wants to admit they are controlled, manipulated, and foolish all because of their own desires, especially when we know those desires are based on something perverse?
yes, i think half of the men i know look at porn on an occasional if not frequent basis. otherwise the statistics just don’t make sense. i really hate that. i hate how it affects the way men look at and interact with women. in porn, women are objects and a means to an end–yuck yuck yuck. it just seems hopeless sometimes. it also makes me wonder how the men i interact with regularly view me.
clark, you are definitely not alone in your feeling of shame. it is shameful, and i think that is why there is such a lack of dialogue about it, especially in the church. i am sad that you are stuck there, hating yourself. i am thankful that i don’t have to fight this particular battle. when i consider the difficulty of it, it makes me glad that i don’t have a son.
your point about desires is interesting. do you believe God made you with those desires, but they have been perverted by sin/the world we live in? i would love to hear more.
I think this is a great forum and is doing a great thing. But I think we need to be careful when we apply the numbers that teason has put forth. Frenchgirl has stated that the statistics don’t make sense unless she considers that half the men she knows look at porn at least on an occasional basis. I would like to try and clear that up for her.
The numbers that teason quotes are based on large samples, thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. That is so they can get a good cross section of the population. The numbers then speak of the averages or the for that cross sectional sample.
We have to be careful when we then try to apply those numbers to the various populations that we each know. The population that each of us knows is not a cross section of the population as a whole. How many people do each of us know? 25, 50, 100? Those numbers are not large enough to be an accurate cross section. So all of our populations are skewed in some way. Non of us knows a cross section.
So to take the numbers and then in a way reverse extrapolate them to our smaller populations may introduce tremendous error into what we are deciding by applying those numbers. It may be that of the 50 people I know, only 4 of them look at porn. Or it may be that of the 50 you know, 49 of them look at porn. The numbers that each of us knows are just two small to directly apply those stats. So to answer teason’s question directly, no, I do not think that 42.7% of the people that I know look at porn. I think it is less than that.
But the numbers are still useful. They do tell us that we have huge problem in our society. They do tell us that men hold the large burden for that problem. They do tell us that there are likely some people we know who look at porn. And it would likely surprise us to know who. And so I finish as I started. This blog is a great place for people to begin to acknowledge that they have a problem, begin to open up about it, receive understanding and acceptance despite it, and start the healing process. Thanks again for having the courage to get it going.
thanks for the perspective, freestyle. there are a number of problems in obtaining statistics on this topic–people don’t always tell the truth, varying definitions of porn, etc. the other thing that causes difficulty is that those who struggle with this can’t imagine how anyone might not have their same desire/shame/guilt while those who don’t struggle with porn can’t see how/why so many people around them do.
i’m going to throw out two more stats and then i’ll try to leave the numbers behind. first, a 1996 Promise Keepers survey at one of their stadium events revealed that over 50% of the men in attendance were involved with pornography within one week of attending the event. second, 51% of pastors say cyber-porn is a possible temptation. 37% say it is a current struggle (Christianity Today, Leadership Survey, 12/2001). (and 14% of pastors say lying is a possible temptation–just kidding). i fear the problem is much worse with the continually increased access to broadband internet service as these studies are 11 and 6 years old, respectively.
i really feel the church is doing a disservice to its members by not accurately presenting the depth to which this issue is prevalent–both in the church and in the world around us. but when the subject comes up, illuminating such a large, secret thing, it gets harder and harder to justify the thought that the stats aren’t true in “my” church–it must be higher in all of the other churches to balance the numbers out.
You are right. It is hard to say that the stats aren’t true in my church. In fact, it is probably self-deception to say that the stats are not true in my church. Because they are at some level. We can at least know that the problem is huge, probably larger than we realize, and that it takes brutal honesty and willingness to tolerate increased pain for a short while to be released from long term pain. Thanks again for your courage.