 WASHINGTON - The Family Research Council (FRC) has released a comprehensive study on the devastating effects of pornography, identifying its harms to countless marriages, children, individuals and communities. "Pornography corrodes the conscience, promotes distrust between husbands and wives and debases untold thousands of young women," explains the study's author Dr. Pat Fagan, Senior Fellow at FRC and Director of the Center for Research on Marriage and Religion.
While it is often said that it is harmless entertainment, the evidence shows, says Fagan that it is rather "relational and emotional poison."
Findings on Harm to Individual Users:
- 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."
Findings on Harm to Marriages:
- 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.
Findings on Harm to Children:
- Pornography engenders greater sexual permissiveness, which in turn leads to a greater risk of out-of-wedlock births.
- Child-sex offenders are more likely to view pornography regularly or to be involved in its distribution.
- Pornography eliminates the warmth of affectionate family life, which is the natural social nutrient for the growing child.
The study notes that 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.
The study found that traditionally, government has kept a tight lid on sexual traffic and businesses, but in matters of pornography that has almost completely ceased, except where child pornography is concerned.
It concludes with a sobering note about the costs of porn to society. " 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," says Fagan.
Click here to download the full study.
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