# The Porn in America Epidemic --- Author: Greg Baker Index: [[CAN White Papers]] Word Doc: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kvc9m0uoy924izq41n5uf/The-Porn-in-America-Epidemic.docx?dl=0&rlkey=0y83w2hgge1gpuhjmej47krtv --- “Your eye is the lamp of the body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is also full of light. But when it is bad, your body is also full of darkness” Luke 11:34. In the Church Ambassador Network, we work to help free people from bondage. Bondage is when people find themselves captured, unable to escape. There are many behaviors in our culture that begin as a choice, but become addictions that lead to bondage. Pornography is one of those behaviors that leads many into bondage. Most American men, and a growing number of women, are addicted to pornography. Many desire to stop, but do not know how. For some it will lead to even more severe behavior, even criminal. It is the Network’s desire to raise awareness of this growing epidemic, as well as seek to help people be set free. **Porn in the United States:[**\[1\]**](#_ftn1)** · 12% of all internet sites are pornographic. · 39% of all internet activity is pornographic. · Every 30 minutes a new porn film is made in the United States. · The United States creates 89% of all pornographic web pages. · Porn is a $13 billion industry. · Every year 1.5 million hours of porn videos are uploaded, equaling 173 years of video. · Every second 30,000 people are viewing porn. · America’s largest porn website has 91 billion video views a year with 10 million new videos being added each year. · Men account for 72% of porn use and women 28%. **Porn is addictive.** • 200,000 of Americans are considered porn addicts.[\[2\]](#_ftn2) · Addicts are defined as watching 11 hours of porn per week. • Porn is addictive because it impacts your brain similarly to drug abuse. · Porn causes a “high” that releases chemicals in your brain including: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and epinephrine.[\[3\]](#_ftn3) · Frequent expose to these chemicals leads to a rewiring of the brain that will cause dependency. This leads to shrinkage of the frontal lobe of the brain, where our situational thinking occurs.[\[4\]](#_ftn4) • 1 out of 3 Americans seek out porn at least once a month.[\[5\]](#_ftn5) · 6% of Americans daily. 14% weekly, and 13% once or twice a month. · 8% of teens, 12% of young adults, 8% of older millennials, 7% of Gen Xers, and 2% of Boomers will seek out porn daily. · 18% of teens (13-17), 26% of young adults (18-24), 17% of older millennials, 16% of Gen Xers, and 7% of Boomers will seek out porn weekly. • 46% of adult men seek out porn at least once a month.[\[6\]](#_ftn6) · 9% seek out daily and 18% weekly. **Pornography sexualizes minors and promotes child sexual abuse:** · 27% of Americans age 25-30 began viewing pornography before puberty.[\[7\]](#_ftn7) · 49% of minor teenagers “come across” pornography at least once a month while 37% of minor teenagers intentionally seek out porn at the same frequency.[\[8\]](#_ftn8) · “Adolescents’ pornography use is also related to the occurrence of…more sexual aggression, both in terms of perpetration and victimization” according to an analysis of 73 peer-reviewed articles.[\[9\]](#_ftn9) **Pornography promotes violence against women:** · “Pornography consumption was associated with both verbal and physical sexual aggression according to a survey of 22 studies.[\[10\]](#_ftn10) · 88.2% of pornographic scenes contain physical aggression and 48.7% contain verbal aggression, according to a survey of top selling pornographic videos.[\[11\]](#_ftn11) o “Across all acts of aggression…94.4% were directed toward women…Even when women were perpetrators, their targets were frequently other women.[\[12\]](#_ftn12)” **Pornography damages relationships and family stability:** · A 2017 study found that persons who begin watching pornography while married “are roughly twice as likely to be divorced” in two years as those who do not.[\[13\]](#_ftn13) · 62% of family lawyers reported the internet had been a “significant factor in divorces” in their cases, according to an informal 2002 survey.[\[14\]](#_ftn14) o 56% of the divorce cases involved one party having an obsessive interest in pornography.[\[15\]](#_ftn15) **The struggle is real** Porn has impacted so many people. Perhaps you know of someone who is addicted to pornography and cannot stop viewing it. God’s Word gives us hope and guidance to addictions like pornography and many others. **“Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him. If we say, “We have fellowship with Him,” yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” 1 John 1:5-9.** · God wants us to experience life. · Our God is a loving God, and He points the best way for us to live, so that we may experience life, and experience it abundantly. · But there are some things we do that do not bring life. In fact, there are things we do that cause us a lot of pain, guilt, shame, and regret. Pornography is one of those things. It promises pleasure and joy, but after viewing it we find out it was not what it marketed itself to be. After viewing pornography, we feel regret and shame. This is why it is not viewed in the open, and the habit is often kept in secret. · God wants us to walk in the light. · God wants us to bring everything into the light. Bring forward the things that cause us shame and regret and confess it before Him. He is faithful to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of our wrong deeds. · When we walk in the light, God meets us with grace and mercy. · As we repent, God meets us with grace and mercy, and helps us walk in the light. · **It has nothing to do with what you and I do. It is everything about what Christ did for us.** · God forgives our sins through Christ’s death of the Cross. · Jesus Christ lived the perfect life we should have lives, never breaking any of God’s laws, yet He paid the price that we deserve on the Cross as a lawbreaker. Jesus was not paying the penalty for any wrong thing He had done, rather He was paying for the wrongdoing you and I have done. · God the Father took our consequence of wrong-doing and put the punishment on Christ. Jesus paid that price on the Cross, and God considers our debts satisfied through Him. · God commands that we repent and believe, by confessing what we have done wrong and by believing in the Son. So, whether it be pornography or another wrong-doing in your life, step into the light by bringing these things before the Lord. Place your hope in Christ. Put your hope and faith in His death and resurrection. This is where true freedom and healing is found. It is where we have found it. **“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.” James 5:16.** **HCR 8** The Church Ambassador Network, an initiative of The Family Leader Foundation, encourages a yes vote on HCR 8. **What does HCR 8 accomplish?** · Educates Iowans and their families about the dangers of pornography. · Helps Iowans see pornography as a public health issue. · Insists prosecutors recognize legislatively enacted law. · Recognizes the struggle faced by children and adults addicted to pornography. · Illustrates the harm caused by pornography and calls for state and federal enforcement of existing law. **Laws regulating pornography are openly ignored:** State and federal law prohibits hard-core pornography: · Federal law prohibits selling obscenity, producing obscenity with intent to transport or distribute it,[\[16\]](#_ftn16) or even possessing obscenity with an intent to distribute or sell.[\[17\]](#_ftn17) · Iowa Code makes selling or renting “hard-core pornography” an aggravated misdemeanor for a first offense and a class “D” felony for repeated offenses.[\[18\]](#_ftn18) Current federal and state laws regarding pornography are openly ignored: · The US Department of Justice “has not commenced new adult obscenity cases against major commercial distributors of ‘adult’ obscenity for nearly a decade.[\[19\]](#_ftn19)” o The most recent federal obscenity case not involving child pornography ended in 2014.[\[20\]](#_ftn20) · In 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder dismantled the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force.[\[21\]](#_ftn21) · Los Angeles County issues permits to produce pornography, publicly recognizing the production of materials contrary to federal law.[\[22\]](#_ftn22) **States are now recognizing the public hazard of pornography:** 15 states have passed resolutions recognizing pornography as a public health crisis since 2016: · Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia.[\[23\]](#_ftn23) --- [\[1\]](#_ftnref1) [https://www.dailyinfographic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/internet\_porn-640x2590.jpg](https://www.dailyinfographic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/internet_porn-640x2590.jpg) [\[2\]](#_ftnref2) [https://www.josh.org/resources/apologetics/research/](https://www.josh.org/resources/apologetics/research/) [\[3\]](#_ftnref3) Negash, S., Van Ness Sheppard, N., Lambert, N. M., & Fincham, F. D. (2016). Trading Later Rewards for Current Pleasure: Pornography Consumption and Delay Discounting. The Journal of Sex Research, 53(6), 698-700. doi:10.1080/00224499.2015.1025123; Nestler, E. J., (2008) Transcriptional mechanisms of addiction: role of DeltaFosB, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 363(1507) 3245-3255. doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0067 [\[4\]](#_ftnref4) Park, B. Y., et al. (2016). Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports. Behavioral Sciences, 6, 17. doi:10.3390/bs6030017; Nestler, E. J., (2015). Role of the Brain’s Reward Circuitry in Depression: Transcriptional Mechanism. International Review of Neurobiology, 124: 151-170. doi:10.1016/bs.irn.2015.07.003; Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books, 108 [\[5\]](#_ftnref5) Barna Group. The Porn Phenomenon. Josh McDowell Ministry, 2016. 41. [\[6\]](#_ftnref6) Barna Group. _The Porn Phenomenon_. Josh McDowell Ministry, 2016. 43. [\[7\]](#_ftnref7) Barna Group. _The Porn Phenomenon_. Josh McDowell Ministry, 2016. 115. [\[8\]](#_ftnref8) _Ibid.,_ 41. [\[9\]](#_ftnref9) Jochen, Peter & Valkenburg, Patti M. (2016) Adolescents and Pornography: A Review of 20 Years of Research, The Journal of Sex Research, 53:4-5, 509-531 (525), DOI: [10.1080/00224499.2016.1143441](https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1143441) [\[10\]](#_ftnref10)Wright, Paul & Tokunaga, Robert & Kraus, Ashley. (2015). A Meta-Analysis of Pornography Consumption and Actual Acts of Sexual Aggression in General Population Studies. Journal of Communication. 66. 183-205 (195). n/a-n/a. 10.1111/jcom.12201. [\[11\]](#_ftnref11) Bridges, A. J., Wosnitzer, R., Scharrer, E., Sun, C., & Liberman, R. (2010). Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis Update. _Violence Against Women_, _16_(10), 1065–1085. [https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801210382866](https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801210382866) [\[12\]](#_ftnref12) _Ibid.,_, 1076. [\[13\]](#_ftnref13) Perry, Samuel & Schleifer, Cyrus. (2017). Till Porn Do Us Part? A Longitudinal Examination of Pornography Use and Divorce. The Journal of Sex Research. 55. 1-10 (6).1080/00224499.2017.1317709. [\[14\]](#_ftnref14) _The Impact of Internet Pornography on Marriage and the Family: A Review of the Research,_ 14 (2005) (testimony of Jill C. Manning, M.S.) [https://s3.amazonaws.com/thf\_media/2010/pdf/ManningTST.pdf](https://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2010/pdf/ManningTST.pdf) [\[15\]](#_ftnref15) _Ibid._ [\[16\]](#_ftnref16) 18 U.S.C. § 1465 [\[17\]](#_ftnref17) 18 U.S.C. § 1466 [\[18\]](#_ftnref18) Iowa Code § 728.4 [\[19\]](#_ftnref19) “Obscenity Law Fact Sheet.” _Obscenity Law Fact Sheet_. National Center on Sexual Exploitation, October 2, 2017. http://endsexualexploitation.org/wp-content/uploads/Obscenity-Law-Fact-Sheet\_updated-10-02-2017.pdf. [\[20\]](#_ftnref20) Ira Isaacs was convicted in 2012. The conviction was upheld in 2014 by the Ninth Circuit. _Ibid._ [\[21\]](#_ftnref21) Gerstein, Josh. “Holder Accused of Neglecting Porn.” _Politico_, April 16, 2011. https://www.politico.com/story/2011/04/holder-accused-of-neglecting-porn-053314. [\[22\]](#_ftnref22) Agrawal, Nina. “L.A. County Approves New Fees for Adult Films.” _Los Angeles Times_, August 22, 2017. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-porn-public-health-fees-20170822-story.html. [\[23\]](#_ftnref23) “These 16 U.S. States Passed Resolutions Recognizing Porn as a Public Health Issue.” Fight the New Drug, May 9, 2019. https://fightthenewdrug.org/here-are-the-states-that-have-passed-resolutions/.