"I will set before my eyes no vile thing. The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me." ~Psalm 103:3 Today 68 million people will use Yahoo, Google and other search engines to search for "free porn." Unfortunately a very small number of people will search for something that will help them to become "Porn Free."
Pornography has become a powerful addiction that Satan uses to lead men, women and young people astray. And unfortunately, too many churches, families and parents have turned a blind eye to the dangers of pornography in their very own homes. Whatever you do, don't ignore the following statistics.
Pornography Industry Statistics
- Size of the Industry
$57.0 billion world-wide - $12.0 billion US
Adult Videos - $20.0 billion
Escort Services - $11.0 billion
Magazines - $ 7.5 billion
Sex Clubs - $ 5.0 billion
Phone Sex - $ 4.5 billion
Cable & Pay Per View - $ 2.5 billion
Internet - $ 2.5 billion - Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.
- US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC (6.2 billion)
- Internet Porn Statistics
Pornographic websites - 4.2 million (12% of total websites)
Pornographic pages - 372 million
Daily pornographic search engine requests - 68 million (25% of total search engine requests)
Daily pornographic emails - 2.5 billion (8% of total emails)
Average daily pornographic emails/user - 4.5 per Internet user
Monthly Pornographic downloads (Peer-to-peer) - 1.5 billion (35% of all downloads)
Worldwide visitors to pornographic web sites - 72 million annually - Children's Exposure to Pornography
Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography - 11 years old
Largest consumer of Internet pornography - 12-17 age group
15-17 year-olds having multiple hard-core exposures - 80%
8-16 year-olds having viewed porn online - 90% (most while doing homework)
7-17 year-olds who would freely give out home address - 29%
7-17 year-olds who would freely give out email address - 14% - Adult Internet Porn Statistics
Men admitting to accessing pornography at work - 20%
US adults who regularly visit Internet pornography websites - 40 million
Christians who said pornography is a major problem in the home - 47%
Adults admitting to Internet sexual addiction - 10%
Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites - 72% male - 28% female
Suggestions for Safe Internet Viewing:
- Teach your children to never give personal information over the Internet, such as real name, birthday, address, telephone number, password, parents' names, the name of any club or team he/she is involved in, name of his/her school, or after school job.
- Supervise Computer Use: Keep your house computer in an open area of your home. Placing the computer in an area, such as the kitchen or family room, gives spouse, parents and guardians the ability to supervise one another. My boys and I hold one another accountable by allowing each of us to look at the others "browsing history." It's a good idea to check the history of your home computer often to see where people have been looking.
- Consider a filter for your Internet to block pornography. There are many available.
Here are some links that might provide help in overcoming pornography:
“With her many persuasions she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter...” ~Proverbs 7:21-22
It's your choice today ... look for "free porn" or look to be "porn free."
Labels: Porn
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24 Comments:
Those numbers are truely sad. I wonder, of those numbers, how many are self proclaimed Christians? Not to persecute them, we all at times, may give in to the temptations of the mind, but wow, those numbers are scary.
I am not merely a statistic. I am a red-blooded American male awash in temptation on the one hand and insecurity about my manliness on the other. Porn is in the air I breath: the checkout stand at Wal-mart boasts photos that are very suggestive, Vic's Secret ads on TV or at the mall, and hundreds of junk emails teasing me. And that is just the start. With the slightest slip in judgement swim suit issues get blown away fast! I stumbled across the WRONG channel at a motel recently totally by accident! And I mean WRONG in all caps!
Gone are the days when you had to hunt porn. Now days it hunts YOU! The cards are stacked against me. I have a predilection for pretty girls and sex which in and of itself is not bad, but needs to be taken care of with sensitivity and godly wisdom. I live in a sex saturated culture that objectifies men, women, children and animals. I am not immune to those gravitational forces (well maybe some of them, but if I let my passions run amok, who knows where it would lead?)
Porn is a coping mechanism. Men tend to abstain from emotion, but indulge in sex. We, especially in the West, are wired for conquest. This has a lot to do with our passion over sports. Men can turn any activity into a competition or conquest of sorts ("We don't need a map, honey, we are not lost!") Lack of emotion, plus conquest, plus the fact that we are visual about our sex too, means porn is the perfect drug.
A picture of a beautiful naked woman has advantages over the beautiful naked woman herself. Models all the time claim they cannot compete with their own photos. She looks better in pictures. She does not fight or complain, and merely lives as an object of my fantasy. She does not require emotional involvement. And she can never know my inadequacies! I can treat her without regard to her humanness, and she will return the favor.
Thus, the women are not the only ones objectified by the pictures. The man is dehumanized too.
And I struggle with this stuff. Its not a losing struggle, not today anyway, but it is a struggle. I will have to face my own inadequacies TODAY just like any other day. It will be hard to share any of them with another real human. It would be so much easier to channel that into a fantasy conquest with a womans picture who my wife cannot compete with for my attention and hand my imagination over to a graven image!
I am not a number. I am a man. A man of God. And while this was not my driving concern today, particularly, it surprizes me that way sometimes. Your post is a good example. I am just glad it is the good kind of surprize that calls me to wholesome godly wisdom and living. It could have been the other. But it is important to not let it all be just a bunch of statistics. Down in the nitty gritty, it will be me and the devil just a click away.
I went on a trip to KY a couple of years ago. On the way there, I kept passing "sex super stores" along the highway near truckstops etc. I visited a Christian bro in Nashville on the way home. I discussed it with him. These places are temples to the goddess Aphrodite. You can worship her in there. She has one of the most exciting worship services around (not a fad -as discussed in your previous post).
My wife was with me on that trip, but the next night we were in Texarkana on the way home and she was exhausted. She went to sleep fast. However there was a storm brewing and the radio had warned of possible tornadoes. So I waited for the 10 pm news to come on. As I flipped through the channels to catch the weather, I was enticed by a new concern. One I had just talked to my bro in Nashville about the day before.
There she was! Aphrodite! And looking good! I could not believe how fast and thorough her grip was on me. I was stunned. I sat there looking curiously at the images that quickly turned freekish in amazement. Suddenly I saw things I had never imagined. My curiosity was in the driver's seat. My thumb tried to reach for the off switch but it was like massive G forces holding it back.
Suddenly I realize that I was moving into idolatry. My chest began to hurt. My eyes still glued to the image FOR ALL I WAS WORTH, I was stuck. My wife was sound asleep. I was alone in Aphrodite's grip. I suddenly prayed, "Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord!" I think it was about the 7th time I said that when my thumb found the off switch.
I laid back in the dark. The hotel room was a tomb. It was cold. Outside a howling wind raged against the glass. I felt soooo alone. So sorry for what I had looked at.
Then I prayed some more. Thank you Jesus. I had been in the grip of a monster. Jesus had saved me. The whole incident lasted less than a minute. But I had come sooooo close to selling my soul. That name had saved me. I called for the shepherd, and he had found me. He won my battle for me. I went to sleep under his watch.
I won that battle. I have lost others. But that one stays with me. Gods did battle in that room that night. I was in the middle. It was titanic and techtonic. I was exhausted by it. I praised God as I fell asleep.
I tell it to you and your readers now, to inspire hope. There is a way out. Mere resolve by itself is not enough. We need to talk about it. We need to talk personally about it. We need to pray about it. Thanks for the post.
Many blessings...
Messianic Gentile ...
I appreciate your note, your openness and your honesty. Temptation is something everyone struggles with. I think if more people would admit it's a temptation, more people could find help. And the accountability is what we need.
We just don't seem to want to talk about it much. We want to "pretend" its everyone elses problem.
I try to remember that every one of those statistics represents a face. A husband, dad, mom, Christian, teen or child out there.
Thanks for dropping by and thanks even more for sharing your heart with us. It was very well said.
Trey,
I cannot tell you how timely this is. I work at a nursing home and yesterday we were on the internet looking for a stromboli recipe to make for our residents. The recipes came up but on the side where all the advertisements usually are, there were graphic, lewd pornographic pictures. It was horrible!!!! I know that many innocents look for recipes and other harmless things only to have pornography shoved in their faces. It is awful.
Keep up the good work.
Neva
Trey, great post ... a topic that is a giant elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge.
Messianic Gentile...thank you for your powerful testimony, your startling vulnerability, and your gentle willingness to serve others in this way. I admire you.
Everyone who has owned a computer for any time at all has been tempted, has fallen, has been forcefed images they did not want, or has cried after looking at things that they looked for and that brought shame.
Our world is full of broken people, and so are our churches ... hanging on to Jesus is the answer. Important subject.
I meant to mention the exceptional eyebrow-raising work of www.xxxchurch.com ... amazing folks.
Neva ... nothing funny about that, and I feel your pain about pictures popping up.
Recently I was working on a "lesson in pictures" for some kids at church. I going to tell the story of the sower sowing his seed among the weed, rocks and good soil. I thought the pictures would be helpful. So I sat down one afternoon to look for pictures on Yahoo. Myy wife and my 10 year old son and one of his friends were going to help me. We typed in the word "garden" and got a good picture of soil and then looking a picture of weeding your garden I typed in the word "hoe." I didn't get what I was looking for. As we were all huddled around the computer I got something I WASN'T looking for.
May I just say that the word "hoe" has changed since I was a kid. I'm obviously getting old because last time I checked a hoe was a wooden handled instrument that you weeded your garden with.
I guess we all learn to be careful one way or another.
Trey,
Thanks so much for this post. It is so needed. I believe that the only way to really resist temptation is to be held accountable by a fellow believer.
It has to be someone you trust. While pornography is a huge problem in the church it remains, in many circles, the unforgiveable sin. I think this holds some guys back from getting the help they need.
Messianic Gentile, I salute you. I appreciate your candor and you summarized everything so well.
I salute you too John, for what you said.
I received porn pictures from a text search of Noah's ark for a VBS class. It was a horrible virus that we had to work hard to get off of our computer.
I feel the pain and appreciate the honesty of messianic gentile. I know one of the new leading help groups in larger churches deals with porn addictions for Christians. We have not been vaccinated against this virus. But I love repeating the prayer to Jesus to help conquer the illness.
The reminder that it is someone's daughter, Mother, sister... is a good thing to remember.
As a wife, I would think it would be very hurtful to be replaced by an unknown peice of paper or screen image. I also think it would be hard to have trust when the adultry's other party is so easily available. This requires a lot of God's assistance for everyone involved.
Kathy
Kathy
Kathy ... thanks for speaking out on behalf of the women.
I sat for a number of minutes trying to sort through what I wanted to say. Kathy's comments are a great place to start. Think about the girl/woman. Really think about them. Pray for them if you have impure thoughts.
I almost sound like a broken record at times mentioning the negative messages coming from the tv, movies, radio etc. in sermons and classes. I was raised in a different time. Girls did not swim with boys and shorts were long etc. But then came the revolution. I remember my great aunt talking about swimming pools and talking against mixed bathing. It was a time of legalism in many courts.
We moved from legalism to freedom and gace as churches. I think we took in too much culture into the church, or our faith in the process. How do we stress holiness?
Accountability is a good thing but there are several parts to that. I have taught Kathy how to erase temporary files to free up memory space. You can erase the history the same way. There are software to help with that.
But let's talk about where the rubber meets the road in small town america. Wade is right. If I share an experience (such as the site that came up when I was looking for a black and Decker part number ... saw)with a member of my congregation what will they say. The two that I shared that with remarked in different ways but neither was supportive. One smarted off and the other was curious. Like I said, sometimes I feel like a broken record. Nobody wants to hear me talk about blushing.
That is really part of the problem. We have lost the ability to blush. That was the problem in Jeremiah's day and looked what happened.
May we blush, may we be genuine Chrisitans, and may we grow in grace & in His image.
James
"pray for me and I'll pray for you"
Last year John Bentley conducted a survey regarding Christians and Pornography. I couldn't find his results on the web but here is a link to an article in Chronicle.
http://www.christianchronicle.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=242
Sadly, Satan will stop at nothing.
Trey,
Very well done. I have tackled this subject a few times on my blog and I don't think in the times we live in we can tackle it enough. It is a very real problem that so many turn a blind eye towards, yet it sits beside them in the churches it works beside them the problem is all around us.
Great Job,
Bobby
James, I will pray.
Paula & John ... thanks for the links and the added information on the subject. I think we've all found that it touches a need that MUST be addressed.
Trey - great post - much needed.
I am reciprocating the visit to my blog earlier - I'm glad I did.
I preached for six years in Vernon, TX, just up the road from you (1987 to 93).
Thanks again for the visit, I'll be back!
Through Christian Chronicle I also learned of this ministry for teens in sex addictions:
www.ultimateescape.org/home.htm
JD ... thanks for another good link. I think this will be an excellent "reference" blog when needed. There have been a lot of good links added.
Blessings
I have seen these numbers and they are frightening.
Thanks to Messianic Gentile...the fact that it doesn't take much in our culture is real.
Some men should really consider not having cable TV. I had my wife get off the Vic Secret Mailing list, she can still buy stuff if she wants, but no need to have that in the house.
R-rated movies are risky.
another part of the problem is our definitions of "grace" and "legalism". Some think that sanctification should be easy, and getting rid of cable, or getting an internet filter is extreme and unnecessary, and legalistic. It's not in many cases, if we would be honest.
I always say a pray when I pass those isolated porn stores on the interstate, for me and those who are inside.
For many, it is not legalism, but life or death.
thanks for the great post
brian ... I hear you. I understand where you're coming from.
We don't get the magazines either ... We don't need them in the house with me or with 4 boys. We don't watch rated R movies, but we still have our struggles. It's everywhere. You can find sexuality at every corner, every store, and every channel.
As I've said before, I think it goes back to accountability. Finding someone that will hold us accountable. Someone that will ask the tough questions.
And, yes, it is a matter of life and death.
Blessings ... brother
Sexuality is something that comes in all shades and I think the two extremes are both wrong. Years ago a prudish and shame filled view of sexuality existed. I imagine this prevented people (probably mostly women) from enjoying what God created for a husband and wife to enjoy. I also imagine that there was a lot of underground sex especially for men.
Sexuality is a healthy part of who we are and not something shameful. On the other extreme from severe prudishness is pornography and I think everyone has commented a lot on how it can destroy people's lives. Both extremes seem to me to be rooted outside of truth and God.
Both involve shame and shame is far from grace. I think if people really had a healthy view of themselves and the sexual part of themselves that neither a fear of sexuality or pornography could find a place to perch.
I know a lot of damage can be done to kids when sexuality is treated as if it is dirty - perhaps not as great of a damage as the other extreme - but still not God's best.
The question seems to be: How do we as Christians find that gray area of neither extreme, where ones sexuality is not feared or shunned or is something shameful to have but it neither is it something to flaunt in a manner that would damage yourself or someone else.
What do you think?
Sexuality is something that comes in all shades and I think the two extremes are both wrong. Years ago a prudish and shame filled view of sexuality existed. I imagine this prevented people (probably mostly women) from enjoying what God created for a husband and wife to enjoy. I also imagine that there was a lot of underground sex especially for men.
Sexuality is a healthy part of who we are and not something shameful. On the other extreme from severe prudishness is pornography and I think everyone has commented a lot on how it can destroy people's lives. Both extremes seem to me to be rooted outside of truth and God.
Both involve shame and shame is far from grace. I think if people really had a healthy view of themselves and the sexual part of themselves that neither a fear of sexuality or pornography could find a place to perch.
I know a lot of damage can be done to kids when sexuality is treated as if it is dirty - perhaps not as great of a damage as the other extreme - but still not God's best.
The question seems to be: How do we as Christians find that gray area of neither extreme, where ones sexuality is not feared or shunned or is something shameful to have but it neither is it something to flaunt in a manner that would damage yourself or someone else.
What do you think?
I'm stuck. I keep stumbling and then I found that I have fallen all the way to the bottom of the hill. At least that's what it feels like. My dad is a pastor and that just makes me feel even worse because I have to live up to the standards of being a pastors kid. I don't want to get out because its looked down upon in society, but because I WANT to make God happy. I want to please him. But at the same time there's that ugly voice in my head that says that I don't want to quit looking at porn. I'm not sure how to get out of it. It's come and gone in spurts. I find a new way to stay out of it for a week or so but it keeps coming back. Even when I talk to my friends about it. I have no clue where to go now. The girls at my school, even the Christian girls, are revealing, and that can leave me gasping for breath. It makes me burn with rage to see those girls in school even though I just want to see them like I see the girls on my computer. I try to avoid them but then I read about Mr. Trey Morgan throwing the birthday party for Agnes and I don't know if I should be nice to those girls or condemn them. What do I do? I'm lost. How do I get out?
Anonymous,
I hope you check back here and read this. Hang in there. Seek help from a friend, elder or counselor. Someone that can hold you accountable. I know how hard it is to be a preacher's kid... so much is expected of you.
Please visit the links on the post. And stop by www.xxxchurch.com
I love Psalm 103!
Thanks for posting these stats about the porn industry. It is such a growing problem, even in the church.
I work for a ministry called Covenant Eyes (based on Job 31:1). We help people overcome the temptations and addictions surrounding Internet pornography. We do so with our "accountability software" we've developed. Tens of thousands of people use our software: it helps them find accountability for their Internet use and helps people bring their sins into the light.
We really want to help Christians who struggle in this area. If you're interested in hearing more about Covenant Eyes and how you can use your widely read blog to help change people's lives in this area, pleas let me know.
Thanks again for writing about this important subject. Keep blogging!
Luke Gilkerson
Internet Community Manager
luke.gilkerson@covenanteyes.com
www.CovenantEyes.com
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