The Power of Porn

The social and spiritual destructiveness of this problem is coming to full light.

Opposition to pornography holds a high place on the Christian agenda of responsible citizenship. The reasons are simple enough: (1) The Bible clearly condemns pornography; (2) It is provably detrimental to the health of society; and (3) It is an evil a concerned citizen can do something about.

It is hardly necessary to adduce evidence to prove that the Bible condemns pornography. Neither of the two most popular editions among evangelicals, the King James Version and the New International Version, mentions the word, but the whole Bible condemns lust and lewdness.

That does not mean we err in appreciating the beauty of the human body. And sex is not dirty; after all, God made the bodies of both men and women, and pronounced his creation very good. Sex itself is a good gift from God, intended for both procreation and enjoyment.

What the Bible condemns is not the human body or sex or the enjoyment of sex. Rather it condemns obsession with sex, and its perversion. C. S. Lewis notes the moral sickness of obsession with sex. Drawing a comparison with the enjoyment of good food, he notes, however, that “if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent half their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips,” we should consider them pitiable perverts.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead—not known either for her prudery or her evangelical Christianity—defined pornography as “words or acts or representations that are calculated to stimulate sexual feelings independent of the presence of another loved and chosen human being.” And it is this perversion of the sexual appetite that the Bible tells us will corrupt the soul and endanger society.

Further, in the Sermon on the Mount our Lord declares, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Pornography is the first step to adultery, and it starts a chain that feeds on itself.

Socially Destructive

Pornography is a personal and social evil. As a personal evil, it corrupts the morals and destroys a healthy attitude toward life for the person who indulges in it. As a social evil, it brings immense harm to innocent people who are not personally involved with pornographic material; and as a business it is socially destructive because it lures many unsuspecting people into its web—especially children.

Prof. Victor Cline of the University of Utah’s psychology department traces a pattern he identified in his study of the psychological effects of pornography:

1. Addiction. Pornography is analogous to heroin or morphine. Those who avail themselves of pornographic material “keep coming back for more and more—to get new sexual highs.” Studies by Dr. James L. McGough of the University of California (Irvine campus) tend to corroborate this: “Experiences at times of emotional or sexual arousal get locked in the brain by the chemical epinephrine and become virtually impossible to erase.” (See the helpful article by Dr. Cline in the N.F.D. Journal, Nov./Dec. 1985.)

2. Escalation. Sexual highs become ever more difficult to attain and are sought with ever stronger and usually more brutalizing levels of stimulation.

3. Desensitization. What was initially shocking and disgusting and repulsive becomes commonplace. The creating of pain and the degrading of others become trivial matters.

4. Acting out. People do what they have seen and found pleasurable. Pornographic materials have been proved to serve as effective “sexual manuals,” showing “how” to do it and providing encouragement for the viewer to do what he has seen portrayed.

Unfortunately, the much-publicized 1970 report of the U.S. Commission on Obscenity and Pornography has left many people who have not read it with the impression that pornography is harmless. Yet the published document really contained two reports: One was based on a philosophy of secular humanism that viewed humans merely as biological. The second was based broadly on a religious view of life. Of the first, John H. Court has written, “With the benefit of hindsight and additional evidence, it now appears that most all the major findings of the [majority report of the] Commission can be challenged as either inconclusive or wrong” (Pornography, published by the World Evangelical Fellowship).

The socially destructive effects of pornography upon human behavior are abundantly evident both from clinical case studies and from highly controlled laboratory experiments. Few areas of modern psychology have been so closely documented as sexual attitudes and pornography. Scientific journals are redundant in showing its harmful effects upon sexual appetites, values, and overt behavior.

It is no wonder, then, that the feminist movement has been especially aggressive in its condemnation of pornography. Women are the primary victims of it. Pornography not only degrades and dehumanizes women, but it leads to outward aggression and violation of their personal rights.

Denmark As A Trial Case

It is often claimed that opponents of pornography, and particularly those who wish to make laws against it, are actually creating the problem. If we would only forget about pornography and not seek to make an issue of it or pass laws against it, the problem would go away, so we are told. This position says we are part, not of the solution, but of the problem.

Denmark is often held up as an illustration of the advantages of a policy of “benign neglect.” In 1967 it legalized pornography. In the immediately succeeding years it also made sex education compulsory (without accompanying education in moral standards), eliminated all “age of consent” laws, legalized abortion on demand, and removed from the statute books former sexual crimes such as homosexual practice, sodomy, and indecent exposure.

This revolution in sexual legislation has been widely advertised in some quarters because it brought an immediate reduction in sex crimes. That is hardly surprising. If sodomy, homosexual practice, statutory rape, and other forms of sex crimes are no longer prohibited by law, then by definition they are not crimes and sex crimes will disappear.

(In quite the same fashion, if first degree murder were removed from the law books, we would have no more crimes of murder. But people would still be murdered.)

What is not referred to is the real denouement of this great “reduction” of sexual crime: assault rape has increased by 300 percent; venereal disease, by 200 percent for those over 20, 250 percent for those between the ages of 16 and 20, and 400 percent for those 15 and under. Yet that is only the beginning. The abortion rate is up 500 percent. Divorce rates doubled in six years. Illegitimate pregnancies were up 50 percent, and sexual activity by the very young increased significantly.

And there is more evidence: Countries that have relaxed laws on pornography showed a marked increase in rape, according to a study made over the period 1964 to 1974. Australia was up 160 percent, the U.S. up 139 percent, New Zealand up 107 percent, and England up 94 percent. By contrast, a country like Singapore, which continued to limit pornography, showed only a 69 percent increase, and Japan, which does not permit pornography, actually showed a 49 percent decrease in rape during the same period.

How Pornography Is Defended

The social effects of pornography are so overwhelmingly documented that few even try to contest the matter. The defense of pornography usually follows a different line. The strongest case for it rests on the necessity of protecting freedom of speech. No evangelical dares be indifferent to the importance of this issue. Freedom of speech is one of our most basic rights. It lies at the heart of our religious freedom. But freedom of information and freedom of speech are one thing, while pornography is quite another. No evangelical objects to a careful study of human anatomy in a laboratory or medical textbook. The evangelical supports wholeheartedly the freedom of information. But where the dispensing of information is socially destructive without a compensating socially constructive purpose, we no longer have a simple question of freedom of speech. The issue becomes the license of one person to destroy another.

This leads to a second line of defense for pornography as “innocent pleasure.” Why, it is asked, should puritanical standards of one person give him the right to say what others may enjoy? Let each be free to enjoy what he pleases. Yet we cannot let everyone do anything he enjoys. Some people—sadists—enjoy causing pain to others.

A moment’s reflection, moreover, is enough to convince us that not everyone should be permitted to do what he wants when only the perpetrator of the act is immediately hurt. We do not let an adult who wishes to kill himself proceed to commit suicide unhindered. Nor do we let a child suck a stick of strychnine, even though he may find pleasure in doing it. Clearly we may, in certain instances, seek to protect people against themselves.

This is especially true of immature children, for we believe we have a special duty to protect them from their own ignorance or short-sightedness. Children are more defenseless; and we naturally, therefore, seek to hedge them against making mistakes, especially irremedial mistakes, that we trust they themselves would not make if they were capable of a mature and adult decision. And it must be remembered that, according to a government study based on over 200,000 pieces of pornography, nearly three-quarters of all pornographic material is prepared for children under 18.

Moreover, the suggestion that pornography is an “innocent” pleasure in the sense that it harms only the individual himself is fallacious. As we have already seen, the statistics are overwhelmingly against this. Pornography is socially destructive and leads inevitably to the harm of others. At best pornography is not innocent pleasure. It is short-sighted pleasure because it disregards the long-term effects upon the person who indulges in it. And it is selfish pleasure: it seeks a perverted pleasure without regard to the injury it may cause others.

Closely related to both the preceding arguments is the pro-pornographic charge that we ought not legislate morality. We are told this is a violation of the principle of separation of church and state. Now it is true that we cannot legislate moral conviction. But it is not true that we do not legislate moral practice. We have laws against murder, theft, and rape. We even have laws that restrict the rights of religion to do certain things when a religion advocates socially destructive practices. It is therefore necessary in a good society to legislate both public and private morality when they become clearly and seriously destructive of public health.

The real ground for the defense of pornography is the greed for money. Many purveyors of pornography frankly confess that they do not like such material. They would not sell it if the choice were theirs. But they claim that, against their will, they are forced to do it in order to survive in the financial market.

Even Christians get trapped in this sort of rationalization. In answer to an inquiry, Mrs. Elizabeth P. Hester, general manager of the News Center Stores in Enola, Pennsylvania, responded: “I am a born-again Christian and I love the Lord with all my heart, so while I don’t condone these sales, it is my job; and I can only pray for those who purchase these magazines.”

No question about it, pornography is big business. It now amounts to over eight billion dollars annually in our country. According to N.F.D. Journal, the following important companies or their subsidiaries are among those with a sizable interest in pornographic material: CBS, RCA, Coca-cola, 7-Eleven stores, and Time Inc. Every year the 7-Eleven stores post a $30 million-dollar profit (note: profit, not sales) from pornographic materials. And we must remember that, generally speaking, children under 18 are the main purchasers of pornographic material in America.

It is the financial aspect that makes pornography so very difficult to eliminate from our culture. The problem lies less with individuals who demand pornography than with those who wish to sell it and expand their market because of the immense profits involved.

We Can Make A Change

Evangelicals can do something about the evil of pornography—if they are willing to exert themselves. Courts have drawn a line between what is educational and socially constructive, and what is pornographic. The legal phrase “having no socially constructive purpose” is inadequate, of course, if pleasure is recognized as such a purpose. It is conceivable that what gives some people a perverted pleasure may, under that interpretation, have some small socially constructive purpose. On balance, however, it is a socially destructive force, and with right it can be eliminated from our society. The Japanese did it, and their society lays no claim to Christian faith or Christian heritage. In any case, the legal guidelines generally are fairly clear between what is educational and what is pornographic. And legislators are increasingly able to write laws that will stand up in the courts against the charge that they violate freedom of speech.

Recent court decisions, moreover, following the lead of the U.S. Supreme Court (Miller v. California, 1973) have supported local standards. This has greatly aided the process of getting laws passed in local communities where traditional values still have a strong foothold. Carefully worded laws have proved to be very effective in eliminating or restricting pornography, especially child pornography.

The refusal of Christians to patronize firms that support pornography has also done much to lessen the problem. 7-Eleven stores in particular have been the object of boycotts by evangelicals and other morally concerned citizens. According to Advertising Age, single copy sales in such stores as 7-Eleven account for 93 percent of all sales of Penthouse, and 40 percent of Playboy. It appears that partly because of the boycotting by concerned citizens, both magazines have suffered serious drops in circulation in recent years.

So far the action of righteous-thinking people has not seemed to affect national television programming in any significant way. Yet in local communities, progress has been made against pornographic cable channels when franchises have been denied those seeking to merchandise pornography.

In Oklahoma City, Cox Cable Television dropped its Playboy channel at the end of September 1985. A grand jury had refused to arraign the broadcasting company, but widespread protests of local citizens led the company to drop the pornography channel. Earlier, a grand jury in Virginia Beach, Virginia, indicted the same company for showing pornographic Playboy films. Concerted action by alert citizens pays. Local governments can keep their communities free from the worst of such evils.

Firm and courteous confrontation likewise has had its effect with many companies. The pocketbook nerve is always tender. Business seeks to maintain a good public image. A clear presentation of exactly what a company is doing will frequently shake decision-making executives into changing policy.

Here is an area where every evangelical has a moral duty to be socially active in protecting our society, and particularly our children. After all, they are most susceptible to pornography, and their moral health determines the moral health of our society tomorrow.

What evangelicals can do about pornography depends mainly on the depth of their love and courage. Change is possible, but only with concerted action.

KENNETH S. KANTZER

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