The first time I saw pornography was at a public school playground during summer break when I was 8. I had ridden my bike over to the school to play, when a couple of teenage boys called me over and said they wanted to show me something.
The next thing I knew, they had put a magazine in front of me with a picture of a naked man and woman. And I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it all. Most confusing to me was why there seemed to be a closeup of a hotdog randomly placed on the page.
“That was weird,” I thought. And then I rode away.
Almost 30 years later, I experienced the surprise of my kids discovering porn for the first time. One of the neighbor boys had just been given a new cell phone. And within a day, he was holding his phone while surrounded by my kids for porn on the porch.
“And within a day, he was holding his phone while surrounded by my kids for porn on the porch.”
My kids were understandably curious and wanted to learn more. They also had no idea what words to search and were convinced that the word “boobs” was actually “booms.” So one of them came up to me and said, “Dad, I was curious what booms looked like. So I googled it. But all I found were explosions.”
Sure enough, there in my search history were a couple of Google searches for “booms.”
We decided not to panic, but instead told our kids that Google was not the best place for 8-year-olds to go when you’re curious about human bodies. Then we bought them a book titled It’s So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families by Robie H. Harris. It’s a really fun and informative book that follows two characters as they ask questions about human bodies, sex and the various kinds of love and families. It’s illustrated with full nudity to show how human bodies grow and develop throughout life, yet it does so in ways that are appropriate for a range of children.
We’ve made it through various portions of the book with our older three kids, depending on their level of curiosity. And now they know what they want to know without being traumatized by panicking parents.
Families can have especially challenging relationships to porn because not only do parents have to work through their own history and relationship to it, they also have to navigate how to respond to their children engaging with it. With so much of today’s educational and social experience happening online, many kids have been given phones or computers over the past two years. Due to increased access to the internet, even on school-issued computers, teachers and parents have reported that pornography use among teenagers has definitely increased since COVID began.
“Not only do parents have to work through their own history and relationship to it, they also have to navigate how to respond to their children engaging with it.”
If we’re going to develop a sexuality of wholeness that flows from our true cosmic story that’s evolved us into who we are today, we’re going to need to discuss how to approach our awareness of and relationship to porn both for ourselves and for our children in spiritually healthy, holistic ways.
The growing popularity of porn
A recent poll by Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institution and the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture talked with individuals and couples to discover how gender-specific behavior with men and women related to pornography is changing and affecting relationships.
While pornography of the past often was seen as taboo, it is becoming increasingly more popular today, even among couples. According to BYU’s polling data, more than 50% of married men and 65% of dating men “agree that pornography can enhance foreplay. However, less than 40% of married women and less than 50% of dating women agree.” Even despite the gender gap, those are significantly high numbers, especially considering that using pornography during married or dating sex implies that it’s not being kept secret from the other partner. How many more individuals are engaging in it secretively?
In response to this study, The Gospel Coalition pointed out that “almost half of those surveyed (47.6%) self-identified as Christian, which means a significant number who claim to follow Christ not only use pornography but think it’s beneficial.” They went on to lament that pornography “appears to be turning into an acceptable sin — a sin that is tolerated within certain boundaries. For instance, as this poll shows, far too many Christian men and women seem to believe pornography is acceptable when viewed together, as a sexual activity within their relationship.”
The complexities of porn and capitalism
One of the more mind-blowing realities of porn is how complex the world of porn is.
One complexity has to do with pornography’s relationship with capitalism. Kassia Wosick, who was an assistant professor of sociology at New Mexico State University in 2015, said the porn industry was worth $97 billion worldwide, with the United States accounting for close to $12 billion. However, with capitalism also comes power dynamics — including piracy and changes in technology — that have presented a variety of abuses and challenges and has led to a diversification of options.
“In 2015, the porn industry was worth $97 billion worldwide.”
Websites such as Pornhub offer free content that includes professionally produced videos, pirated videos, as well as abusive and violent videos against women. Allegations have been made that Pornhub also includes child sexual assault content, which prompted the company to remove millions of videos from its site.
The complexities of ‘ethical porn’
Awareness of the abuses in the industry has been growing. And with that awareness has come efforts within the industry for reform. “Ethical porn“ is a term used within the industry to communicate that the performers are given working conditions that are legal, consent-driven, respectful and diverse, without falling into many of the patriarchal power dynamics that have permeated porn for decades.
Even Playboy brands itself today as “ethical porn.” Since the Hefner family sold their shares in the company in 2018, Playboy has taken steps to differentiate its image from the patriarchal power dynamics of the past, changing its slogan from “Entertainment for Men” to “Pleasure for All.” Additionally, the company claims that “more than 90% of Playboy’s photographers, more than 75% of our workforce, and 50% of our e-commerce customers identify as women.”
Still, some researchers — such as Meagan Tyler at RMIT — believe “ethical porn” is merely another expression of capitalism’s “industry propaganda … corporate whitewashing … (and) a selling point.”
The complexities of porn content
BYU’s study distinguishes between hardcore pornography that “features detailed depictions of actual sex acts that display full nudity,” and softcore pornography that “depicts simulated sexual acts with limited nudity.” But the study did not include more general erotica, such as literature that describes sexual activity or art that depicts nudity.
Professional porn often uses the supernormal stimulus of highly attractive models performing stunts that virtually no one else could ever do. While this increases sexual excitement, it also can produce body image and self-worth issues for those who consume these products and try to measure up to what they see portrayed.
One growing response to professional porn has been the rise of amateur porn, in which more average-looking people — often couples in real life — with a variety of body types engage in more realistic and relational sex. These videos tend not to be monetized as much. But they also have been used without people’s knowledge as well as to blackmail people who participate in them, especially when couples break up.
“Use of this and similar websites skyrocketed during the pandemic, as more people stuck at home alone sought distraction and stimulation online.”
Yet another variation on amateur porn is the website OnlyFans, where anyone can create their own interactive space for e-commerce, displaying as much or as little flesh as desired. OnlyFans is like the flea market of porn where anyone can sign up for a booth and sell whatever they want.
The company, founded in 2016, claims to have more than 150 million users and 1.5 million “content creators” who to date have earned more than $5 billion.
Use of this and similar websites skyrocketed during the pandemic, as more people stuck at home alone sought distraction and stimulation online.
The complexities of engaging with porn
Some people have utilized “ethical porn” in order to begin dealing with lifelong patterns of suppressing their desires. Some disabled people have utilized it as a way of connecting with someone when they may not have the opportunities to do so in person. Some people who grew up in the purity culture of conservative evangelicalism have experimented with “ethical porn” in order to learn more about their own sexual orientation within the safety of their home prior to engaging in physical relationships with people. And some people have utilized it to help them learn to achieve orgasm.
However, the blurred lines of fantasy and reality can especially lead young people to have unrealistic expectations for sex. Then when they eventually engage in sex with another person, they struggle to be themselves. So for many people, porn also has become a substitute for real relationships, which increases isolation.
“For many people, porn also has become a substitute for real relationships, which increases isolation.”
Because porn engages the primal urges that we have evolved with for billions of years but that many of us have suppressed, it is understandable that so many of us are curious about it. But due to the complexities of capitalism, power dynamics, supernormal stimuli, unhealed insecurities, and the human capacity for revenge, it creates a power moving within our minds and bodies that many of us are unaware of.
The reality of porn is that there are many complexities to the way it’s produced and received. These complexities permeate our society and our bodies in many different ways. So it’s not enough to simply treat porn as a singular, uniform concept that is either “good” or “bad.” Instead, we need to become aware of these complexities and learn to respond to them in healthy ways, especially if we as parents desire for our kids to feel sexually whole as they grow.
A healthy, holistic response to porn
Cindy Wang Brandt has been one of the leading resources for progressive Christian parents who have come out of the purity culture of fundamentalist evangelicalism. On her Parenting Forward podcast, she recently released an episode titled “Sex Positive Parenting w/Melissa Pintor Carnagey.”
Carnagey founded Sex-Positive Families, which “provides education and resources that help families raise sexually healthy children using a shame-free, comprehensive and pleasure-positive approach.”
In her webinar with Brandt, Carnagey says parents should be “prepared, not scared.” She acknowledges: “There’s so much fear-based narratives around pornography and children’s easy access to porn these days. We do not have to approach this from a fear-based perspective. But a lot of the conditioning and the training has been sex negative that we’ve had.”
“We do not have to approach this from a fear-based perspective.”
Instead, Carnagey suggests: “If we’re creating households where it is safe for a young person to ask questions … and be curious,” then parents can “strengthen that connection, strengthen that relationship, break down taboos, and make it possible for them to be more comfortable coming to you with these topics.”
Carnagey recommends that parents utilize the resources page from her website, which allows parents to browse for resources by age, topic or type of resource. She also recommends Amaze, which gives “real info in fun, animated videos that give you all the answers you actually want to know about sex, your body and relationships.” She also mentions The Porn Conversation, which is a website for families run by Erika Lust, who is a producer of “ethical porn.” Through The Porn Conversation, Lust provides resources as someone who understands the industry from the inside so that the “misogynistic, racist and violent” messages that “leaves young people of all genders and sexualities with a misunderstanding of what sex is and what respectful relationships look like” doesn’t become your child’s sex ed, and so that parents and children can become aware of the messages that are received in porn.
Those who specialize in healthy conversations about sexuality suggest responding to your child’s curiosity about porn with conversations and resources that increase their awareness and help them become more holistically related to themselves, their neighbors and those whom they trust.
On the other hand, responding with shame, fear and threats almost always causes harm and fuels embodied trauma.
The Gospel Coalition’s response to porn
So how did The Gospel Coalition respond to the polling data by BYU about the growing popularity of porn among individuals and couples? With shame, fear and threats.
In a recent TGC article about the BYU polling data, Joe Carter responded by sharing “two relevant truths” about watching porn. The first is that “it puts your soul in danger of hell. Scripture makes it clear that engaging in sexual immorality — which includes sinfully allowing yourself to enjoy displays of sex acts or sexual body parts — will lead to eternal damnation.”
Andrew Naselli, who has been at the center of the abuse scandals at John Piper’s Bethlehem Baptist Church, threatened, “‘The sexually immoral’ includes people who indulge in pornography. … Don’t think that you can get away with an unrepentantly sinful lifestyle. Don’t think that you can live that way and still be a citizen of God’s kingdom.”
Carter continued, “Couples using pornography must repent. Now.”
According to Carter, the second “relevant truth” is that “you cannot truly love (your partner) and, for your own sexual gratification, lead them to do something that will send them to hell. … It’s a sin that will harm your relationship today and lead you to hell tomorrow.” Then he concludes, “Live in accordance with the truth you claim to believe — while you still can.”
In other words, their two relevant truths are threats of eternal damnation in the flames of a literal lake of fire and brimstone.
The Gospel Coalition offers no awareness of how apocalyptic literature about judgment in the New Testament would have been read by its original audience. Instead, they also literalize and use it as a fear tactic about the afterlife.
The Gospel Coalition offers nothing to engage curiosity, increase awareness and foster holistic, healthy relationships. Instead, once again, they use the ultimate threat of infinite shame by fueling incomprehensible fear of eternally embodied trauma.
There is a better way to have this conversation
Rather than fueling fear by furthering embodied trauma or repackaging purity culture in more palatable language, we need to remember that — as Ilia Delio says — “Love, sex and cosmic evolution are intertwined in a field of integral wholeness; to deny, avoid or negate any of them is to thwart the process of deepening life.”
For parents to process our own relationship with porn as well as help our children work through their growing curiosities, we need to move beyond the simple binaries of two genders with two choices between two moralities and two eternal destinies. Instead, we need to pursue healing toward an embodied sexual wholeness that is honest about a spectrum of sexual complexities, depth and union within our own minds and bodies.
And then we need to participate in calm, curious and informed conversations with our children that heal, embrace and deepen their lives as embodied, sexual, whole people as well.
Rick Pidcock
Rick Pidcock is a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He recently completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.
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