STUDIES ON THE EFFECTS OF PORNOGRAPHY

THE EFFECTS OF PORNOGRAPHY ON INDIVIDUALS, MARRIAGE, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY

By Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Pornography is a visual representation of sexuality which distorts an individual's concept of the nature of conjugal relations. This, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behavior. It is a major threat to marriage, to family, to children and to individual happiness. In undermining marriage it is one of the factors in undermining social stability.

Social scientists, clinical psychologists, and biologists have begun to clarify some of the social and psychological effects, and neurologists are beginning to delineate the biological mechanisms through which pornography produces its powerful negative effects.

KEY FINDINGS ON THE EFFECTS OF PORNOGRAPHY

THE FAMILY AND PORNOGRAPHY

• Married men who are involved in pornography feel less satisfied with their conjugal relations and less emotionally attached to their wives. Wives notice and are upset by the difference.
• Pornography use is a pathway to infidelity and divorce, and is frequently a major factor in these family disasters.
• Among couples affected by one spouse's addiction, two-thirds experience a loss of interest in sexual intercourse.
• Both spouses perceive pornography viewing as tantamount to infidelity.
• Pornography viewing leads to a loss of interest in good family relations.

THE INDIVIDUAL AND PORNOGRAPHY

• Pornography is addictive, and neuroscientists are beginning to map the biological substrate of this addiction.
• Users tend to become desensitized to the type of pornography they use, become bored with it, and then seek more perverse forms of pornography.
• Men who view pornography regularly have a higher tolerance for abnormal sexuality, including rape, sexual aggression, and sexual promiscuity.
• Prolonged consumption of pornography by men produces stronger notions of women as commodities or as "sex objects."
• Pornography engenders greater sexual permissiveness, which in turn leads to a greater risk of out-of-wedlock births and STDs. These, in turn, lead to still more weaknesses and debilities.
• Child-sex offenders are more likely to view pornography regularly or to be involved in its distribution.

OTHER EFFECTS OF PORNOGRAPHY

• Many adolescents who view pornography initially feel shame, diminished self-confidence, and sexual uncertainty, but these feelings quickly shift to unadulterated enjoyment with regular viewing.
• The presence of sexually oriented businesses significantly harms the surrounding community, leading to increases in crime and decreases in property values.
• The main defenses against pornography are close family life, a good marriage and good relations between parents and children, coupled with deliberate parental monitoring of Internet use. Traditionally, government has kept a tight lid on sexual traffic and businesses, but in matters of pornography that has waned almost completely, except where child pornography is concerned. Given the massive, deleterious individual, marital, family, and social effects of pornography, it is time for citizens, communities, and government to reconsider their laissez-faire approach.

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Guide to Family Issues: The Harms of Pornograpy

Lacking in socially redeeming value, pornography represents a significant and growing menace to families, individuals, employers and communities. The price tag of pornography is crime, exploitation, sexual assault, child abuse, fractured marriages and families, addiction and compulsion, distracted and uprooted lives and tremendous social costs for the communities, employers and government agencies paying the resultant costs. Governments have proven incapable of protecting the public from the consequences of pornography. Too often, courts have undermined legislative remedies and community standards because they are unwilling to distinguish between freedom of speech and obscenity. Pornography is entrenched by its profitability and wealth.

Since the arrival of the Internet, cell phones and the DVD and video industries, pornography has become the most pervasive and immediate threat to marriages and families – adults and children. Addiction and divorce are the most recognizable social costs of pornography, but the costs run much deeper. United Families International’s “Guide to Family Issues: The Harms of Pornography” examines what is perhaps the most insidious threat to individuals and families around the globe today.

Daniel Weiss, media and sexuality analyst for Focus on the Family and project manager forPureIntimacy.org, offers the following perspective on pornography:

“Through much of our nation’s history, Americans have intuitively understood the danger to family and community posed by pornographic and obscene material. But things have changed. Starting in the early twentieth century, increased automation, communication and entertainment options brought about a more materialistic view of the world. Movements promoting eugenics became popular and influential. These developments set the foundations upon which our current fascination with pornography stands. Human beings began to be seen less as unique creations with inherent dignity and more as objects to be manipulated to further personal aims. These ideas of the mere utility of people blossomed during the sexual revolution and have steadily grown to reap their disastrous reward today. To win the battle against the consumption and disposal of human beings so common to pornography, we must rediscover what it means to be human—and live with the purpose of treating others—and ourselves—as such.”

History and research reveal the many harms of pornography:

• Pornography seeks out people from all walks of life, then poisons and corrupts them. The allure of substantial profits seduces corporations, hotel chains, cable television companies and Internet entrepreneurs – without concern for the well-being of families.
• Pornography has the propensity to deaden husbands’ attraction for their wives. The result is often heartache, alienation and divorce.
• Pornography is a perpetrator of family breakdown.
• Pornography demeans its participants. It is a form of prostitution, and porn subjects are frequently the victims of molestation, rape, coercion and blackmail.
• Pornography corrupts children and robs them of their innocence. Children have been raped and murdered by the producers of pornography.
• Organized crime is heavily involved in pornography, and crime rates are much higher in the neighborhoods where pornography is available.
• Pornography takes billions of dollars out of economies that could be much better spent on the needs of families.
• Pornography is not a benign phenomenon; it leaves a clearly discernible trail of victims.
  The scenes of sex crimes and the homes of those committing sex crimes are frequently littered with pornography. Pornography creates callous attitudes toward rape and causes users to develop distorted perceptions about sexuality.
• Pornography acts as a harmful “drug.” Physiologically, viewing pornography commonly triggers internal, endogenous drug production. An image in a person’s head acts as an electrical signal for no more than a few seconds can leave a trace that will last for years.
• Pornography distorts a healthy understanding of human sexuality.
• Pornography is pervasive, and no one is beyond its reach. One does not have to look for pornography; it will find you.
• Driven by greed and a disregard for families and consumers, businesses continually seek to expand pornography’s reach by creating new markets.
• Pornography contributes to the rising tide of sex trafficking.

The preponderance of social science research demonstrates how pornography harms men, women, children, families and marriages and poisons homes, work places, governments, communities and corrupts the mass media culture.

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