The Industrialized Porn Complex

It’s been a minute since we addressed the elephant in the room, PORNOGRAPHY. This behavior has a deep hold on our society and on the way that men view and treat women. This is a long, overdue post.

Some of the content in this post should by now be common knowledge. We will raise a couple critical points that have almost become a type of buried lead in the story, as ‘narcissism’ and ‘trauma’ have taken over the social media public square. 

If the topic is triggering to you, consider reading when in a safe space to do so.

Legislating Human Behavior

Laws and rules can only do so much to influence human behavior. Direct change, especially on issues of morality, is less likely to have successful outcomes through a legislative process. 

Legislating pornography is a complex matter due to the protections of free speech and First Amendment laws. Pornography involving children is not protected by the same laws as adult use. 

Filters and blockers add a degree of safety for content, but as most of us know, there are ways around most of these options. 

When we cannot legislate or block the explicit content, we are in a boat without a paddle for any of the needs we may have for the effects of pornography on women and children. Protecting women and children violates rights that protect men. 

This whole topic leaves us all scratching our heads at the ridiculousness. We can protect people from theft, even though a robber might think he has a right to steal. The logic doesn’t work here when we see laws that protect possessions versus people.

Pornography Use, a Quick Look at the Numbers

For a quick look at the numbers, Pornhub, a known leader in site traffic, generates over two million visits per month. This is just one site, and this number is not reflective of repeat visits to Pornhub, the length of visits, or the type of content viewed there. 

Taking this with a grain of salt, considering we are unable to verify the actual source of collection (the data is from PubMed, not the collection source), it is still a staggering number, from just one site. 

The Great Porn Debate

One of the biggest problems we’ve dealt with over the years is the various pro/con camps on porn use. These camps view the problem through different lenses, and all want credibility for the positions they hold. 

To those who stand on the side of porn use having dangerous outcomes for both the user and the partner, look primarily at the impacts on the user’s spouse or life partner. It is this lens that we wish legislating bodies would use to help with rules and laws to protect the innocent.

Increase in Dangerous Porn Acts and Accessibility

One of the biggest concerns we’ve held at Center for Peace is the increase in dangerous behaviors male consumers act out upon their targeted victim. Whether this is a wife or a hook-up date, the use of potentially life-threatening acts is on the rise. 

In addition to the acts themselves, there is an ever-increasing risk to younger users through gaming platforms, such as VR. A quick Google search reports that minors are present in areas where sexually explicit scenes take place when on this platform.

AI is also taking a foothold as another area of concern with bot-type interactions being used as an alternative to porn or other explicit ‘relationship’ engagements. I’ll leave this topic here for the reader to consider all of the dangers this brings forward.

Hiding in the Headlines

Aside from these talking points, one important concern Center for Peace is raising is with the ever-increasing amount of content available online dealing with narcissistic behaviors and the trauma this causes, we may be losing sight of one of the biggest contributors to abuse of women and children, which is porn consumption (and other sexual deviancies) of the husband. When the chatter on social media platforms is loud in one or two categories, we find ourselves redirected to those topics and concerns. This type of smoke and mirrors, intended or not, is a dangerous problem for women experiencing abuse and betrayal.

We’ve labored mightily to move the frame around porn use from addiction to abuse, only to lose it in the quagmire of popular social media influencers’ content.

Impacts of Porn Use

Porn use has a serious impact on the way men think about women as products and possessions, rather than as human beings. Many of the men in my programs deal with the long-term effects of re-coding their brain to see a human being when they pass by a woman in the store, at work, or even at church. Long-term porn use takes a toll on the way predictive brains code this experience. 

Even though a coding change is possible, once a person makes an agentic choice to view women in a degrading manner, those attitudes inform the brain coding. It can take considerable time to address. The important point is, this type of decision-making process cannot be faked. 

A man can stop using. He can choose simple statements to tell himself when he makes eye contact with a female to help him not allow his mind to wander to violating thoughts of that woman. However, he will be hard-pressed to convince himself he doesn’t see her as a potential for objectifying, when he is unwilling to look at that component of the process of correction. Attitudes and beliefs are more powerful than experiences stored as ‘memory’ in our minds.

Safety First

Dignity and safety are primary concerns for our clients at Center for Peace. We are concerned about the care each of you receives, not only from our services, but from what is accessible from the various models, books, and influencers that speak to all of us. 

As we bring topics forward on the blog and in our own social media posts, we acknowledge our place in the chatter on the public square. We also acknowledge that all should be afforded the respect to formulate beliefs through their own trial and error experience. If, at any time, you have questions about our content or would like to address concerns you have, please reach out to us at www.cenfp.org. We all walk together through the messy spaces of our shared human experience trying to find safety and peace within our own lives and with one another.