Mary Eberstadt weighs in at First Things with an outstanding essay on what she calls, following psychiatrist Mary Ann Laydon, an epidemic of "sexual obesity," i.e. the widespread gorging on pornography in our culture.
Here's an excerpt:
Pornography today, in short, is much like obesity was yesterday-a social problem increasing over time, with especially worrisome results among its youngest consumers, and one whose harms are only beginning to be studied with the seriousness they clearly deserve.
Parallels between the two epidemics are striking. Much like the more commonly understood obesity, the phenomenon of sexual obesity permeates the population-though unlike regular obesity, of course, pornography consumption is mostly (though not entirely) a male thing. At the same time, evidence also shows that sexual obesity does share with its counterpart this critical common denominator: It afflicts the subset of human beings who form the first generation immersed in this consumption, many of whom have never known a world without it-the young.
The data about the immersion of young Americans in pornography are startling and disturbing. One 2008 study focused on undergraduate and graduate students ages 18 to 26 across the country found that more than two-thirds of men-and one out of every ten women in the sample-viewed pornography more than once a month. Another study showed that first-year college students using sexually explicit material exhibited these troubling features: increased tolerance, resulting in a turn toward more bizarre and esoteric material; increased risk of body-image problems, especially among girls; and erroneous and exaggerated conceptions of how prevalent certain sexual behaviors, including risky and even dangerous behaviors, actually are.
In the essay Eberstadt tackles several commonly repeated myths about pornography use:
- That it's use is a merely private matter.
- That it only affects men.
- That it only involves consenting adults.
Eberstadt explodes each of these myths in turn and in doing so provides a great service. There are simply too few articles like her's that encourage men who are drawn to pornography to stop rationalizing their behavior and stop deceiving themselves into thinking that it's harmless.
We didn't have to ban alcohol or tobacco in order to convince most people of the harm done to themselves and others by smoking and drinking. Perhaps it's time to mount a similar campaign against pornography to persuade society that this stuff is the psychological and spiritual equivalent (or worse) of cigarettes and alcohol. We don't have to prohibit it in order to make people realize the harm it does to themselves and others. What we can not afford to do, though, is ignore the epidemic.
Read the whole article and read the comments as well.
RLC
