By Jack Rigert
Today, Pornhub, one of the leading porn websites–and there are thousands–will have 100 million visitors viewing hardcore pornography. Millions of those viewers will be between the ages of twelve and seventeen. Pornography addiction is an epidemic in America and we are “approaching 100% exposure to pornography for males between ten and twenty-nine years of age.”[1] Yet only 12% of parents are even aware that their children have been exposed to it. As a parent you can no longer hide from your responsibility to talk to your children about their sexuality and pornography. If they don’t learn about it from you, Mister Google, Pornhub, and their friends all stand ready to teach them.
Dan Spencer who specializes in Internet Pornography states that, “While anyone can fall prey to pornography addiction, youth are most at risk. The largest single population of Internet Pornnography users is teens between the ages of twelve and seventeen. The average age when children are first exposed to hardcore Internet Pornography is eight. This has devastating long-term effects on individuals and society as a whole. Pornography is warping young people’s view of sexuality and relationships. It’s teaching boys that its okay to use women for their selfish sexual pleasure. It’s teaching girls that in order to get and keep a man, a woman must look and act like a porn star. In addition, pornography leads young people to believe that the physically dangerous and emotionally degrading sex it portrays is normal and healthy.” [2]
When the parents of a 13-year-old boy found out that he and his friend were viewing pornography they reached out to see how I might handle the situation. Should they ground him and take away his computer and phone? Perhaps. But I also suggested that their son, a sensitive young man, was probably feeling enough guilt and embarrassment and to use this incident as a teaching moment. “Tell me,” I asked the parents, “before this incident, how have the discussions with your son about sexuality gone?” They sheepishly admitted that they had never discussed sexual issues at home. I replied, “Well to start with that is going to have to change. There is a natural curiosity about sex and if you don’t talk about it at home he is going to turn to the Internet for sexual information and that is a recipe for disaster. Instead of hearing about the beauty of God’s plan for love, marriage, and human sexuality from you, he is going to be introduced to the very enticing and dark world of pornography. So may I suggest that you start with the beauty of Gods plan for love, marriage, and sexuality!”
Initially these parents, like many others, don’t feel equipped to have these conversations. That’s because they never heard about God’s beautiful, glorious plan for love, marriage, and human sexuality. If that sounds like you, it’s time to get educated. You are missing out on the most beautiful love story ever told. Fortunately Pope John Paul II provided us with the vocabulary to speak the language of the heart. Allowing us, perhaps for the first time, to answer the big questions of our lives. Who am I? What’s my purpose? Why were we created male and female? How do we find happiness here on earth? How do we find love that satisfies, forever?
As one who has facilitated small group discussions with young and old alike, I have learned that we are wasting our time if we are afraid to discuss the elephant in the room…pornography. I am amazed by how few parents have discussed this all-important issue with their children. Sometimes it is because they are struggling with pornography themselves. The resulting legacy of needless pain and confusion will be felt for generations.
We are already at a point where most of the young men our daughters will meet, date, and even marry, will have spent a considerable amount of time viewing pornography. While that is a bleak reality, I am encouraged by the fact that we not only have the antidote for this darkness in Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, but experience has shown me that when young men and women understand the truth behind their sexual desires, many willingly and courageously embrace the challenge to live a life of chastity and authentic love.
Speaking to young people John Paul II declared, “Be not afraid! True love exists! Do not be dispirited by those who are disillusioned with life and have grown deaf to the deepest and most authentic desires of your hearts. You are right to be disappointed with hollow entertainment and passing fads, and with aiming at too little in life…You see young people yearn for meaning, beauty, freedom. In their bodies they feel love stirring and seek it. They want to break away and use their freedom to love, yet how often are they lead to a counterfeit, a lie. And it is sad how often their freedom leads them away from love, so away from God Himself, and they can get themselves into no small amount of trouble attempting to unravel these mysteries of life and love.”
Lower the bar? That’s the world’s job, not ours. John Paul II continued, “Young people, you can use your freedom to seek the easy life, but you will find it to be an illusion…and insulated by your own value system of subjective moral values and opinions, you cannot find the beauty you seek.”
The darkness, that Saint John Paul II often called the culture of death, can be overcome only by winning the battle raging in each individual human heart. He often called it “the battlefield of the heart between love and lust”. Winning this battle begins by acknowledging that our deepest yearning, burning desire for love and happiness, has been twisted and distorted by sin.
It is not enough to just say no to pornography. Young people, really all of us, need to know the ‘why’ behind the rules. I have met and worked with young men and women who show incredible courage and a willingness to fight the war raging on the battlefield of their heart once they know the why. I cannot overstate how important it is for today’s men and women, struggling with purity while being bombarded by images of women’s bodies used to sell products, to find that the solution lies NOT in pushing down or ignoring their passions and desires, but by redirecting their passions and desires to the beauty of authentic love.
I have worked with porn addicts. It is a beautiful thing to see these men years later, including those who have since married, no longer addicted to porn. They picked up the sword and with grace, are winning the battle to “see” the women in their lives not as objects to be used, but as person’s, with beautiful tender hearts, that desire and deserve to be loved! This includes the women and men, our sisters and brothers in Christ, who are being used as objects in the pornography industry.
Dan Spencer states, “Pornography is not an easy topic to discuss. That is why so many parents and even clergy avoid discussing the topic at all. It just seems too ugly, too dark and shameful. But this reluctance has taken a terrible toll on our society, and especially our families. Parents like you must deal with this issue head on. That is especially true given that the scourge of pornography has become a nearly universal threat to our marriages and children. It is part of an enormous multi-pronged attack on the family, and there is no opting out if you love your family–and I know you do.”[3]
Where to start? The number one action is to take up a study of Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. It is the most beautiful, powerful, and practical way to protect your marriage and family. To assist you in this life-changing work, the John Paul II Renewal Center, in addition to giving presentations, is helping to facilitate book studies. Email me if you would like help getting one started in your Parish. To begin I suggest Christopher West’s “Theology of the Body for Beginners”.
