{"id":886,"date":"2023-08-24T15:35:22","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T15:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/24\/is-the-porn-industry-suffering-from-a-devastating-blow\/"},"modified":"2023-08-24T15:35:22","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T15:35:22","slug":"is-the-porn-industry-suffering-from-a-devastating-blow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/24\/is-the-porn-industry-suffering-from-a-devastating-blow\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Porn Industry Suffering from a Devastating Blow?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Scripture makes clear that sexual immorality is an offense to God and harmful to those who engage in it. \u201cDo you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?\u201d asked Paul of the church in Corinth. \u201cDo not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God\u201d (I Cor. 6:9-10).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s quite a list. The apostle covers a lot of sin\u2019s ground, including sexual sin. He likens it to idolatry \u2014 the worship of a false god.<\/p>\n

Pornography is a form of just that, devotion to a master that captivates and lies. It is also virtual adultery, or as someone once put it, \u201csex without persons<\/a>.\u201d But adultery is adultery: Jesus said that to look on a woman in lust is to violate her sexually; this is the very nature of pornography \u2014 sexual arousal through the gate of the eye (Mathew 5:28).<\/p>\n

Not only is pornography sinful, it\u2019s also dangerous. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) has documented extensively\u00a0the harmful effects of pornography<\/a>. It distorts the way the brain functions, encourages prostitution and sex trafficking, and dehumanizes both participants and viewers. \u201cPornography contributes to the hypersexualization<\/a>\u00a0of teens and prepubescent children and may lead to low self-esteem, body image disorders, an increase in problematic sexual activity at younger ages, and increased desire among adolescents to engage in risky sexual behavior. Pornography may also impact brain development and functioning, contribute to emotional and medical illnesses, shape deviant sexual arousal, and lead to difficulty in forming or maintaining positive, intimate relationships, as well as promoting problematic or harmful sexual behaviors and addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet this last quote is not from NCOSE but a piece of legislation recently enacted in Louisiana. It was authored by freshman state legislator Laurie Schlegel, a certified sex addiction counselor who has witnessed firsthand the devastation caused by pornography. Her measure passed the Louisiana House 96-1 and 34-0 in the state senate and was signed by Democrat Governor John Bel Edwards, notorious for trying (thankfully, unsuccessfully) to veto a measure \u201cbanning puberty<\/a>\u00a0blockers, hormone therapy and elective surgery for minors.\u201d In other words, so-called \u201ctransgender\u201d procedures that include the mutilation of healthy teen bodies.<\/p>\n

Schlegel\u2019s bill \u201cholds<\/a> pornography websites liable unless the websites \u2018perform reasonable age verification methods\u2019 \u2014 in short, requiring users to show government ID to prove they are 18 or older.\u201d Its argument is that pornography has created a public health crisis. It has adversely affected millions of young Americans whose still-forming brains and behavior patterns are misshapen by exposure to graphic and often perverse sexual acts. The result? \u201cAccording to Ethical Capital Partners, the private equity company that owns Pornhub, (online pornography) traffic in Louisiana has dropped 80%.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louisiana is not alone. According to\u00a0journalist Marc Novicoff<\/a>, \u201cIn the other three states where the laws have been in effect for months \u2014 Utah, Mississippi, and Virginia \u2014 Pornhub did something even more unprecedented: It simply stopped operating.\u201d<\/p>\n

As might be expected, the pornography industry and its allies are litigating under the pretense of \u201cfree speech.\u201d Yet given the indisputable and extensive evidence that pornography does horrible things to, especially, its younger viewers, it\u2019s hard to argue that something as simple as proof-of-age-to-view is not needed.<\/p>\n

Moreover, this isn\u2019t about \u201cfree speech.\u201d It\u2019s about stopping the exploitation of the vulnerable, not allowing a corrupt and corrosive industry to captivate them when they are especially susceptible. It\u2019s about preventing addiction to something that enslaves the brain and erodes the soul, not freedom.<\/p>\n

It is a sad commentary on our culture that we need to use public health as a basis for limiting access to something so intrinsically debasing to those who bear God\u2019s image. No married man and woman can deny that when one\u2019s spouse draws sexual pleasure from someone else, whether through a physical encounter or from scenes on the internet, hurt and a sense of betrayal are natural responses. Nor can any honest person fail to admit that in the stillness of the God-given conscience \u2014 at least, until conscience\u2019s voice is repeatedly silenced \u2013 there is profound moral unease about watching sexual acts and nudity online.<\/p>\n

With that said, I\u2019ll take the hard scientific data on pornography\u2019s effects on physical, mental, and emotional well-being as a basis for keeping it away from young people. At the same time, I\u2019ll also keep teaching my students that the beauty of sex is found only in a lifelong commitment to one\u2019s partner in the covenant of one-man, one-woman marriage. That\u2019s what our good Creator and Redeemer has declared. To argue to the contrary is, ultimately, to contend with Him.<\/p>\n\n

Originally published at The Washington Stand.\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Rob Schwarzwalder is Senior Lecturer in Regent University\u2019s Honors College. Before coming to Regent University, Schwarzwalder was senior vice president at the Family Research Council for more than seven years, and previously served as chief of staff to two members of Congress. He was also a communications and media aide to a U.S. senator and senior speechwriter for the Hon. Tommy Thompson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For several years, he was director of Communications at the National Association of Manufacturers. While on Capitol Hill, Schwarzwalder served on the staffs of members of both Senate and House Armed Services Committees and the Senate Committee with oversight of federal health care policy. His writing has been carried in such diverse publications as the New York Times, U.S. News, Time Magazine, Christianity Today, the Public Interest, and the Federalist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Unsplash Scripture makes clear that sexual immorality is an offense to God and harmful to those who engage in it. \u201cDo you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?\u201d asked Paul of the church in Corinth. \u201cDo not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[]},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}