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Porn, and the way it is shaping our individual and collective cultural mindset, has moved on dramatically since I last wrote on the subject for this title six years ago.
Sexually explicit material is no longer on the fringes of our culture; it’s in the mainstream.
Yet while the ‘dirty secret’ about porn is well and truly out, Christians still haven’t made much of a dent in the problem. In fact, porn use is rife among Christians and Christian leaders.
In putting this article together I conducted a simple online survey of British Christians (see the box for more details) and, even knowing what we do about the prolificacy of porn, the results make for surprising reading.
The survey suggests that more than half of Christian men and around a fifth of Christian women in the UK are using porn on a regular or semi-regular basis.
Pornography isn’t just something unpleasant going on in the world; it’s right at the heart of our churches.
Why, when the Church has apparently woken up to its porn problem, is its use even more prolific than we perhaps imagined? What has enabled this? Is it time to respond in ways other than the existing, and seemingly flawed ones?
To answer these questions, let’s take a step back and look at how society’s relationship with adult material has shifted in recent years.
Blurred Lines
The lines between pornographic and mainstream culture have become increasingly blurry; a slow creep in a more ‘liberated’ direction seems to have reached a tipping point.
When poorly written publishing phenomenon Fifty Shades of Grey (Random House) made the transition from Kindle to paperback in 2012, pre-existing shame barriers simply disappeared.
People were happy to discuss how much they enjoyed the sexually explicit book. They were proud to sit and read a copy on the train.
Without any announcement, the boundaries of acceptability had shifted. I recently noticed a dad reading a copy as he sat poolside at our children’s swimming lesson. Continue reading
- Martin Saunders is Youthscape Store’s director of creative development, which means he spends his time devising new youth work resources, training and events.
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