What is the definition of pornography? Pornography comes from two Greek words, porne (prostitute) and graphein (write). Pornography was originally stories about prostitutes. What began as sinful writings about prostitutes with the intention of arousal, has led to pictures, movies, internet and a major industry of sin.
Studies show that the pornography industry is more lucrative than all the major sports industries in America combined. Yet, when one who partakes of the pornography industry is confronted, they become silent, quiet, and reserved. The Catholic Church always has and always will be against pornography. Before you continue to read this, please pray one Hail Mary for yourself, your purity, your family’s purity, and for all those involved in the pornography industry.
What is Pornography? “Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties.” [1] Another way of putting it, pornography is watching someone do sexual acts to themselves, another person (guy or girl or multiples), object, or other.
Why do people look at pornography? In a way, a person looks at pornography to find love. It is a warped fantasy in which a person seeks out another as entirely their own, when in fact the person is not theirs. The other actually becomes the object of countless people’s desires. Those involved in pornography reduce the person, to an object.
Why is pornography wrong? Pornography harms all those that are around it. From the person watching it, to the people who are involved in it. Blessed, John Paul the Great said that the problem with pornography is that is does not show enough. Pornography does not show the soul, it does not show the gift of self. Instead the gift of self and the soul is masked, distorted and perverted. “It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, and the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.” [2]
What’s the big deal about porn? Who is pornography hurting? Many people will say that pornography is okay because it’s based on consensual adults who want to do it, and the people want to see it. They aren’t contracting STD’s and not having babies outside of marriage. It’s just good harmless fun. Sadly, this is far from the truth. When men learn what “love” and “sex” is from pornography, it can warp their minds reducing and perverting sex into recreation, entertainment, and use of a person. “No” can really mean “yes” and the person becomes an object for sexual pleasure. Sadly, this can lead to rape. Consider, for example, a study done in the Oklahoma City area. When 150 sexually oriented businesses were closed, the rate of rape decreased 27 percent in five years, while the rate in the rest of the country increased 19 percent. In Phoenix, Arizona, neighborhoods with porn outlets had 500 percent more sex offenses than neighborhoods without them. [3]
Ted Bundy raped and killed dozens of women. Sentenced to die in the electric chair, he requested that his last interview be with Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family. In that meeting Bundy talked openly about pornography and told Dr. Dobson that his struggles all began there. He explained that all his fellow inmates had an obsession with pornography before going to prison. Porn magazines and videos lay at the root of innumerable rapes and murders. Countless victims of child molestation also report that their abusers exposed them to pornography as an attempt to desensitize and seduce them. No one can tell the husbands, siblings, children, and parents of those violated and deceased women that pornography is harmless. Besides, it would infuriate us if a man simply looked at a woman we care for (mother, sister, daughter) in the same way that he looked at pornography? The reality is that every so called actor or actress in pornography is someone’s son or daughter and maybe mother or father. In deed that are a child of God, a person with dignity and the dignity or the human person can never be reduced to a mere object.
ABC News “Porn: When the Camera Stops” In this news piece, they tell the story of how getting into porn is easy but leaving can be very difficult.
[1] CCC 2354
[2] CCC 2354
[3] U.S. Department of Justice, Child Pornography, Obscenity, and Organized Crime (Washington, D.C., February 1988).