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Date: May 05, 2019 09:47AM
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/04/watching-porn-is-bad-for-conservative-christians-because-they-feel-more-shamehttps://www.newyorker.com/culture/q-and-a/a-sociologist-of-religion-on-protestants-porn-and-the-purity-industrial-complex"Pornography is becoming more widespread, more prevalent. More people are viewing it than ever, and it’s becoming more mainstream than ever. And so there’s this big debate about whether or not pornography has consequences in people’s lives: whether it can be addicting and whether it can affect us in negative ways; make you chronically impotent or make you a sex monster. What I found is that, whatever we think pornography is doing, those effects tend to be amplified when we’re talking about conservative Protestants. It seems to be uniquely harmful to conservative Protestants’ mental health, their sense of self, their own identities—certainly their intimate relationships—in ways that don’t tend to be as harmful for people who don’t have that kind of moral problem with it.
The effects of pornography aren’t just about watching images on a computer screen but what that activity means to your community. It’s what that activity means to you. And so, with conservative Protestants, you have this fascinating paradox of a group of people who hate pornography morally. They want to eradicate it from the world. And yet, statistically, they will view it slightly less often than your average American. And so you have this paradoxical situation of a group of people who collectively hate it, and yet, as individuals, they semi-regularly watch it. Especially the men. What are the consequences of that kind of incongruence in their lives?"
"Well, in terms of individual consequences, what we find is that, more often, there’s a connection between viewing pornography and experiencing depression. But we found it’s really only for men who are violating their own moral beliefs when they’re viewing it. In other words, it’s not necessarily that porn makes you depressed. It’s watching porn when you’ve already said that that’s an immoral thing and you don’t want to do it. That can lead to guilt and shame that makes you feel crappy about yourself, that you are immoral, that you’re violating something that’s deeply held and sacred."