Catholic Answers: furnishes this horrendous picture:
Pornography kills the soul because using it is a mortal sin.
It kills marriages because it’s a form of unfaithfulness…
It turns love into lust…
And it often leads to extra-marital affairs and divorce.
And it kills the innocence of children who unintentionally stumble upon it when they’re on the Internet.
Today, pornography is the #1 most downloaded and most viewed category of material on the Internet. According to the Internet Filter Review, the worldwide Internet porn business is a $97 billion-a-year industry—and growing. It’s no wonder. At last count, there were 4.2 million pornographic Web sites, with 420 million pages of pornographic material. (These numbers grow by the hour—because thousands of new sites come online every week.) 43% of all Internet users view porn sites while they’re online. The estimate is that 72 million people visit porn sites each month.
According to Media Metrix, more than 70% of men ages 18 to 34 visit a pornographic site each month. 2.8 billion pornographic e-mails are sent every year. Because of the Internet, laws against pornography and obscenity have become virtually impossible to enforce. No longer can local communities effectively control the influx of filth in their midst, as they did in days gone by.
Today, it’s spread from computer to computer in the blink of an eye. In the old days, a man had to risk being seen walking into an adult bookstore. But not anymore. With the Internet, he doesn’t even have to leave his house.
And the number of children being exposed to pornography has skyrocketed due to the Internet. According to research conducted by the London School of Economics and Political Science, fully 9 out of 10 children from ages 8 and 16 have seen Internet pornography—usually without even intending to.
The Internet Filter Review reports that the average age of a child when he is first exposed to Internet pornography is 11 years old. Of children 15 to 17 years old, 80% have multiple exposures to hard-core Internet pornography. 90% of 8- to 16-year-olds have viewed pornography online—most while doing homework.
In 1996 while battling the ACLU (a major supporter of Internet porn), the United States Department of Justice stated… “Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions” (U.S. Department of Justice, Post Hearing Memorandum of Points and Authorities, Reno v. ACLU, 929 F. Supp. 824 [1996]).
Internet pornography is truly a plague that has infested our land—and it’s infecting our homes, our families, our churches, and our entire community. Sexual sin has always been the #1 way the devil takes people away from the practice of the Catholic faith. ...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I would add that in addition to overt pornography, porn has so totally invaded our culture that we don't even notice it anymore. Walk past Abercrombie and Fitch in SF and you will see two-story nearly naked models cavorting with each other, and people walking by totally oblivious. Street underwear ads show life-size men suggestively pulling down the top of their skivvies. Bus backs have public service announcements with a man lying in bed regretting that his gay lover raped him. We are inundated by explicit sex everywhere we go, to the point where we don't even notice it. This is all the slippery slope that started with the tearing down of obscenity laws under the ridiculous premise that pornography constitutes speech in the context of the First Amendment. It's ironic that we have been made slaves to sex in the name of freedom.
I was at the SF Borders a year or two ago, and on Valentines Day, a day named after a Catholic Saint, they had a bunch of sex manuals on display. People's kids were playing in front of these displays. I wrote them a letter and got back some nonsense about free speech. As a book store they have a right to enforce standards for the type of material they will carry. They don't have a "white supremacy" section, why should they have an "erotica" (porno) section?
As bad as the "Pride" Parade and Folsom St. Fair are, at least you can try to keep your kids away. But porn is now so pervasive you would have to lock them up to keep them away from it. Regardless, I'm not at all convinced that "adult" fare is any safer for adults than it is for kids...
Sadly, I must agree.
:(
It's horrible the way everything is turning out for us.
I'm curious: have you heard of the Covenant Eyes accountability program? What makes it unique is that it gives you the option to simply monitor your Internet surfing, filter it, or both. A good filtering program is very helpful for children and families, but a good monitoring program is great for adults and children alike who want to be accountable to others about where they go online.
We offer a unique “accountability software” program for those who are ensnared by Internet pornography. The software isn't a filter; it simply monitors where someone goes online, scoring websites for objectionable content, and sending a regular report to accountability partners of that person's choosing. Tens of thousands have started using our software in the last 8 years and have testified to how building deeper, more vulnerable accountability partnerships has set them free from the grip of pornography. The software has been a helpful for many to build self-control with their online use—the software is a constant reminder that their choices online will affect them and others they love.
If you want more info about it check out my blog post “Is Filtering All There Is?” - http://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/2008/06/12/is-filtering-all-there-is-introducing-accountability-software/
Post a Comment