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The connection is indeed real. (see this fine essay for one example: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/02/14470/ ).
However, I would urge evangelicals to resist temptations to overstate the connection between porn and sexual violence. Quick explanation: https://twitter.com/edstetzer/status/1275814211256532995
However, I would urge evangelicals to resist temptations to overstate the connection between porn and sexual violence. Quick explanation: https://twitter.com/edstetzer/status/1275814211256532995
Statistically, it's not very clear whether there's a meaningful connection between a society's consumption of pornography and the amount of reported sexual violence. Libertarian-leaning folks often leap onto this fact to gainsay social conservatives: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/porn-culture/477099/
The "sex recession" is one of the most important trends being discussed right now, and it would seem to point in the opposite direction: that porn consumption, while weakening inhibitions, also weakens motivation and desire for physical sexual encounters: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/
We've reached about 20 years worth of readily accessible online pornography and about 10 years worth of smartphone technology. The picture emerging from the research is one of apathy, sterility, impotence, and stagnation, rather than of surging violence.
I think this is important for evangelicals/conservatives to talk about for a couple reasons.
First, when we misreport facts, it makes activism all the more difficult. We lose credibility, and credibility matters a lot in issues that are tangent to "free speech" concerns.
First, when we misreport facts, it makes activism all the more difficult. We lose credibility, and credibility matters a lot in issues that are tangent to "free speech" concerns.
Second, an overemphasis on how porn could lead to sexual violence can unwittingly play into secular culture's all-encompassing "ethic of consent," whereby the only way to demonstrate true wickedness is to demonstrate that other people are being physically harmed.
Playing into this ethic is not only biblically problematic (we can sin against God without physically harming others), it creates an illusion of plausible morality. What if you could be *sure* that the other person isn't being trafficked (ie, sexting?) Makes it ok, right?
With robotic and deepfake technology rapidly growing, the Christian argument against lust has to return ad fontes. Even if what you are desiring is an AI bot and not a real person, the act itself grieves God and spiritually deadens you.
Lastly: this has pastoral implication. If a man comes to you confessing bondage to this, do you keep him away from other people out of fear of what he might do? Or do you give him community that can not just hold him accountable, but offer the friendship and love that lust apes?
