A Science-Based Case for Ending the Porn Epidemic, by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

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We know what porn does to the brain, because the medical science is solid. Because social science is much softer, we can’t know for certain what causal impacts porn has on society, if any. But once we realize that we have to be much more humble in this area, we can still make prudential judgments.

By Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, American Greatness, December 15th, 2019

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His writing has appeared in numerous publications. He is based in Paris.

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem. I think many readers of this article will respond with outrage, and many will see it says things they already knew to be true—and I think these two groups will largely overlap. The most powerful obstacle to confronting a destructive addiction is denial, and collectively we are in denial about pornography.

Since it seems somehow relevant, let me state at the outset that I am French. Every fiber of my Latin, Catholic body recoils at puritanism of any sort, especially the bizarre, Anglo-Puritan kind so prevalent in America. I believe eroticism is one of God’s greatest gifts to humankind, prudishness a bizarre aberration, and not so long ago, hyperbolic warnings about the perils of pornography, whether from my Evangelical Christian or progressive feminist friends, had me rolling my eyes.

Not anymore. I have become deadly serious. A few years ago, a friend—unsurprisingly, a female friend—mentioned that there was strong medical evidence for the proposition that online pornography is a lot more dangerous than most people suspect. Since I was skeptical, I looked into it. I became intrigued and kept following the evolving science, as well as online testimonies, off and on. It didn’t take me long to understand that my friend is right. In fact, the more I delved into the subject, the more alarmed I became.

The central contention of this article is that, however we might feel morally about pornography in general, a number of features about pornography as it has actually existed for the past decade or so, with the emergence of “Tube” sites that provide endless, instant, high-definition video in 2006, and the proliferation of smartphones and tablets since 2007, is fundamentally different from anything we’ve previously experienced. ….

Read more here  https://www.amgreatness.com/2019/12/15/a-science-based-case-for-ending-the-porn-epidemic/