What is the state of the current debate over the morality and legality of pornography? Is porn really harmful? Can pro-porn and anti-porn groups find common ground? In this episode, Sean and Scott discuss these questions and the recent book "The Pornography Wars" by sociologist Kelsy Burke. They also offer some practical advice for parents and church workers to help young people think biblically about sex and pornography.



Episode Transcript

Scott: What is the state of the battle over both the morality and the legality of pornography, and how have they changed over the past few years? And what might parents, teachers, schools, churches do better to address our pornography pandemic here in this country? We explore these questions today and a few more as we discuss the recent book, The Pornography Wars by the sociologist Kelsey Burke. Welcome to Think Biblically, a podcast of Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Sean, I know you've studied this a lot more than I have. You've written on it, been lecturing on it for years and years. I know this was a big deal for your dad, too.

Sean: That's right.

Scott: He spent a lot of his career talking about this as well. So I think you have a good grasp of how the issues have changed and where the debates are today that maybe they weren't 20 years ago or so. So tell it, just tell our viewers and listeners a little bit first, how has the landscape of the debate changed over the years that you've been involved in this conversation?

Sean: Yeah, one of the interesting things about her book is she starts off and gives a couple chapters on like the history of pornography in America, which I frankly had never thought about. I always thought this is a modern phenomenon, basically since magazines and VHS. She takes it back all the way to like the Civil War and walks through how this has been and a constant source of conversation in American history. Now we don't have to rehash that, but really on a popular level, it was the '80s that she argues, and I was born in '76, so I grew up in the '80s, where magazines and VHS really kind of exponentially grew the accessibility of pornography within culture. Now in some ways, that was literally the tip of the iceberg until the internet comes along and now social media and smartphones. It has just grown obviously, you know, just exponentially since that point. But I think there's four A's that are often used that are kind of memorable. And actually she quotes three of them in here, interestingly enough, to help people understand how much this has shifted. Number one, kind of the obvious one is pornography is now accessible in a way it hasn't been before. You either had to order something in the mail and they tried to hide it, but it's physically coming in the mail, you know, the package or walk to a store and get it. Now, in a sense, it's accessible anytime, anywhere for anybody. And no filter can totally block it. So really within this generation, Gen Z'ers are experiencing accessibility to pornography, unlike any generation.

Another one is anonymous. It used to be somewhat of a public element, go to a store, you know, to get X-rated products, go to a theater to watch, go buy something. Now in the secrecy of your own life, wherever you may be, you can watch it anonymously. Third is aggressive. Now she does say going back, you know, hundreds of years in American history, there was just as aggressive and racist filled misogynistic kinds of pornography decades and centuries ago. But now there's so many more people doing this and that people look back on that and say well how much more aggressive can we get it? There's a high percentage of studies have been done about this that you just find incredible amounts of aggressiveness within porn and we'll talk about that, and the last one is affordable. There’s going to be a higher cost to this. Now a lot of people pay for it still but there is really unlimited amounts of virtually free pornography for people. So in a sense, as my dad puts it, we literally have a perfect storm of accessibility, anonymity, aggressiveness, and affordability. No wonder we have a porn pandemic today.

Scott: Yeah, I think the other thing that I think is noticeable is that the boundaries keep getting pushed farther and farther as to what people do and what people will show in the pornographic arena. So I think things that she points out in the history that around the Civil War when she started tracing this, I don't think anybody at that point envisioned the kinds of things that were the kind of boundary pushing that we'd be doing today and the kinds of things that would be available for viewing today. That just wasn't on the radar at all at the beginning of this.

Sean: And I think that's right. She talked about how decades ago there would be these public kind of showings of pornographic films, but police would show up, people would be arrested. There was laws against it. Now with like Fifty Shades of Grey and Game of Thrones, I mean, those are virtually pornographic, and they're read and they're watched en masse and talked about, even amongst Christians many times. That level of like what's acceptable, maybe that's another way I should add, is acceptability is really how the conversation has shifted.

Scott: Yeah. And I mean, what she points out is that it wasn't that long ago that the police would raid X-rated movie theaters and arrest people. And they would arrest people for viewing it, not just for making it.

Sean: That's right.

Scott: And it wasn't, you know, I grew up in the 60s and 70s when there was aggressive legislation. I remember the Nixon administration, one of its goals was to do away with, in fact, they called it smut at the time, to eliminate smut just from the whole scene. And I think what they realized eventually is that the more they tried to eliminate it, the harder it got and the more difficult it became to do that. So tell us, for our viewers' sake, I think it's important that they recognize that Kelsey Burke's work is out there. She approaches this as a sociologist. She's not making hardly any moral judgments. She says a little bit about porn when it comes to children. But there are very few moral judgments. It's more descriptive about the battle lines in the various debates that have gone on over the years. So her purpose, it seems to me, is to just lay out the landscape for people and to show I think what she's trying to do, it seems to me, is to debunk the certainties on both sides of the issue. On one side is the pro-porn people, for lack of a better term, and the anti-porn. Both have levels of certainty that I think she puts it in some sense approaches something similar to religious views and faith positions. So tell us a little bit, how do you understand what her goal is here and what she's trying to accomplish?

Sean: By the way, in that anti-porn are many conservative Christians, Latter-day Saints, etc. and some feminists are in that. And she really cites, for lack of a better metaphor, kind of strange bedfellows, so to speak. Now she is a good academic. The feminist community is quite divided. Yeah, I agree. Fair enough. You see them on both sides of that. Yeah, that's true. She's a professor at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and she's a good academic. She's just studying, showing both sides. Now the first line in her book is what got me, and I thought, "Oh, this is interesting. We have to talk about this in the book," because she starts it by saying, "When I was 15, I became a born-again Christian." That was her first line. So her parents were not evangelicals, but she grew up with experiences at camp, experiences at church, aware of this Christian background. She also describes kind of feeling like an outsider growing up, and she says, "Part of my feelings of isolation had to do with being a sexual outsider. Queer without yet having the label. She describes Kona Koss, Playboy magazines that were her father's when she was a child and she just felt drawn to them. But then this really is interesting. She said, "Looking back at my life as a teenager, I can say that both Jesus and Playboy saved me." In other words, there's something about this religious concern surrounding there's value to it. But Playboy, there's a sense of like the shame that's often put maybe from conservatives and unnecessary boundaries. Playboy helped her get a joy and maybe a pleasure and understanding of sexuality in some sense. So that's where she's coming from. Now ultimately...

Scott: Yeah, she does say that in Christian circles, viewing pornography as sin, in her view, can be counterproductive. And she doesn't, she sees that as a problem. Which I think we have a bit of a different assessment of that.

Sean: We would.

Scott: Because of the guilt and shame that it causes.

Sean: Exactly.

Scott: And I think we would suggest that there are some things that ought to produce guilt and shame. Yes. And not that the person is being shamed. Right. but that there are things for which we ought to feel shame and we ought to, it's a bad sign when we lose the ability to blush. Right. So this is an important point because she writes, "The dividing line of anti-pro-porn is a false dichotomy, one in which there appears to be only two mutually exclusive options, when in fact overlap and alternatives do exist." So she's trying to find common ground, lower the temperature of some of the wars taking place culturally and see if we can move together forward. But with that said, it's clear she's coming from a certain perspective in this case, where if you feel guilty about pornography, that's kind of a problem. And we're thinking, no, there are things you should feel guilt and shame about. And spoiler alert to the end of the book, the areas of common ground between the two sides in my view are a little thin. There's not a lot, but that's coming.

I think one of the points I think she makes that is well taken throughout the book is that pornography is not the central issue in this. It's a manifestation of a deeper view of sex and sexuality that is widespread in the culture where we've sort of progressively moved away from any kind of moral norms and any judgments about sexuality unless it's done without consent. And consent seems to be the only ethical norm that governs sexuality in the broader culture today. And I've even seen some of that called into question because the age of consent is actually being debated now. So what do you make of that as the tip of the iceberg is the pornography stuff? But the stuff underneath is, I think, are the things that we really need to be addressing and I think we haven't adequately to this point.

Sean: Yeah, I think in some ways it's sad that our ethic has shifted to just merely having consent is how we approach sexuality. We've moved away from, is there a design and purpose for marriage? How do I love my neighbor? It's this minimalistic, simplistic ethic. Now how do I approach it? I say consent is necessary but not sufficient. So you should never have sex with somebody if there's not consent. But consent alone doesn't mean that you should have sex with somebody. So I should not have sex with somebody who's not my wife. Of course, Christianally speaking, and this is a separate topic, I should not ever have sex with somebody who is of the same sex. I should not have sex with someone who is a child. Now many in our culture will push back and say, "Okay, kids can't give consent. Fine." But what happens is if you just start taking these extreme cases and say, "Is it okay to give consent for somebody to beat me and to perform torture porn, the kind of details we won't go into? Is it okay if somebody says, 'Go ahead and rape me for this?'" Well, based on consent, you would have to say those kind of behaviors are acceptable. But I think even the most extreme people at least have to give pause and say, "God, even the person, if they said it's okay, that's not how we should treat another human being."

Scott: Yeah. And I would add to that, even within marriage, consent matters. Well said. And so...

Sean: Well said.

Scott: I do think it has reduced morality to procedures rather than substance. And we've seen this throughout the culture. We've seen this in business ethics, we've seen this in medical ethics in general. That what we're after is a procedure for coming to a conclusion as opposed to giving it moral content that governs what that conclusion ought to be. And it's assumed that if you follow the right procedure, you'll end up in a good place, which is clearly not true given it's not worked in business ethics, that's for sure, because we still see dozens and dozens of ethical scandals on a regular basis. Just check your newsfeed. But the reduction of ethical reflection on sexuality to consent, I think is what I would call a bare minimalist view of ethics and morality. We've seen this in other areas too. And that, I think that reducing morality to just that procedural component is, I think, that's the big part of the iceberg that's submerged under water that I think is so important that we point out. Yeah, and you're right. Consent is the moral minimum. But it's the floor and the moral ceiling is a lot higher than what we're looking at. So let's just sort of cut to the chase here. What are your biggest concerns about pornography?

Sean: So this is not really the focus of her book, but she talks about certain studies and she's He's trying to kind of give both sides and just saying, "Well, scholars disagree." Of course, if I'm looking at this Christianly, I'm going to assess it very differently. And I do think the weight of the evidence supports a broad Christian ethic as it comes to sexuality. So I would say a couple things. It devastates marriage, devastates self-image.

Scott: Which she acknowledges that it really impacts marriage.

Sean: Yes.

Scott: It especially impacts teenagers' ability to form healthy relationships.

Sean: It does, yeah. There's a lot of things she cites in there that surprisingly should give anybody huge pause about it. Now, I know you've written a book, Body and Soul, so in some ways when I was thinking about this I thought what pornography does is it affects the body and it affects the soul. We are embodied souls, so to speak. So there's a lot of brain research that shows how looking at pornography physically shapes and affects the pathways of the brain. Now the younger somebody is, because their brain is forming more, the deeper those pathways can in fact be affected. In ways like what we look at forms certain pathways about how we react and become habits. Even if it's as simple as basketball, which you watch somebody shoot a certain way, you practice it and then over and over again, that becomes a habit. That's a pathway you naturally operate down. When it comes to pornography, when anybody looks at it, in particular, somebody younger, they're building certain pathways in their brain to respond to a doctored image with an artificial view of sexuality. And then they bring that into the real world, so to speak, and they've actually shaped their brain to operate a certain fashion. And many have made connections between certain kinds of drugs and the effect that they have on the brain as looking at pornography. So that's a huge component.

Scott: I think for our viewers, we probably need to be clear about this too. I think the point she's making, she's not disputing the fact that, and the pro-porn people do not dispute the fact that viewing it affects the brain like she's describing.

Sean: That's right.

Scott: The debate is whether that's harmful or not.

Sean: That's exactly right.

Scott: And the pro-porn side, I think is clear that, yeah, it does impact the brain, but it's a case of no harm, no foul.

Sean: Right.

Scott: And the other side, the anti-porn side, says no, it's a big problem. And especially the point you made, the younger people start viewing it, the more imprinted it becomes.

Sean: That's right. And that's a huge conversation itself, but you could also make the case, my concern is that it affects the soul. So we all have certain scripts that shape how we act and behave in different settings. So how you behave in an elevator is different than how you behave at a football game, which is different than how you behave.

Scott: Let's hope so.

Sean: Yeah, right, yeah, let's hope so. Versus a live rave versus church. Now, no one sits us down and tells us how to behave there, really. We just kind of look and see and fit in, even in many ways subconsciously. Well, where are people getting their idea and their script, so to speak, about sexuality? Well, the primary way, especially with the younger generations, is pornography. And it has a very different script than a biblical script. Now, of course, the pro-porn side would say, "Great, this is the script we want them to have." So arguing that a biblical script is right is a separate topic. But the script, there's racist scripts that are embedded within pornography still. There's power imbalances. There's just artificial view of how to treat somebody. Pornography's not about married couples. The idea of marriage is just antiquated, boring. A lot of pornography, in fact, some of the original term for pornography means writings, grafé writings about prostitutes, which by definition is a one-night stand, not a committed relationship. So bottom line, Hebrews 13:4 says, talks about holding marriage, sanctifying the marriage that keep it pure. Pronography mocks that and gives a script that the more people watch it, whether they realize it or not, it affects their worldview in terms of objectifying people. It affects their worldview of beauty and their expectations, how to act and how to be treated when it comes to pornography. So last thing is there's an epidemic of a lot of teen boys in particular who have seen this and the way they treat other girls sexually. They don't know any different. And the girls have been taught to think, "I'm supposed to enjoy this and smile." And it's affecting their body, it's affecting their soul. It's devastating.

Scott: And I think, I mean, even the way somebody looks at another woman, you know, you mentioned objectify, but you can't help but that be part of the script that comes as a result of this. And I think our teenage women are growing up thinking and feeling like it's okay to be objectified, or maybe it's even a good thing to be objectified in ways that I think are really harmful to their soul because they sense that that's how they're being viewed. And I think part of the difference, and this is I think one of the differences between men and women in this particular area is that I think women, I think, recognize that for men, the next logical step after viewing this is how women are treated. That's right. And that men generally don't fear being sexually assaulted by women. Not so much with the converse of that. I think it's understandable why a woman who's seeing somebody viewing this, that would make them feel like, "I wonder how he's looking at me when he puts this down." That's, I think, the part that impacts your soul.

Sean: Yeah, I think that's right. I think what's interesting is we've seen this Me Too movement the past few years, but few people have said, where do we get the idea that it's okay? Well, a huge amount is in pornography. A huge amount is in pornography. Yet a lot of people don't want to talk about that because it hits a little too close to home. So some of the scripts that people have complained about rightly so. I don't even mean to complain as if it's negative. I mean bring to the surface to show the injustice of it are regular scripts within pornography. So you portray it as pleasurable, portray it as good, and then you turn around and say, "Wait a minute, this is actually happening." And I'm sitting there going, "Well, of course."

Scott: Yeah. And that's, I think, another part of the debate, is it's also happening to the people who are the actors and actresses in the production of porn. That's right. Because the one thing she points out is that many of the things that I think women, especially fear are, you know, they're almost rites of passage to be accepted into the adult entertainment industry, which reflects on the business side of it. But some of the things that women are being asked to do, is it really consensual? If they are motivated by being in dire straits financially and not having a lot of other options to make a living, to what degree is that really consensual? Is that, are they really informed about what their options are? And I think, on the other side of that, the pro-porn side said, "well, we don't call them prostitutes. We call them sex workers. We don't call them porn stars, we call them sex workers in a way to sort of neutralize the stigma of that.” But I think they often experience some of the same things in the industry itself that we fear others will be experiencing as a result of viewing it.

Sean: Now what is interesting, there certainly are some cases that she raises where there's people in the pornography industry who are middle to upper class, women choose to do so. How do you explain that? Fair question, at least seem to choose to do so. But there's also many examples she gives of people that would say there was consent, but motivated by money. And she just gives some harrowing examples of people's bodies, especially women, just feeling just degraded and in pain for days because of the way they were treated and didn't really feel like they could say, no, they've traveled so far and they've seemingly committed, might as well go through with it. So when you have story after story, example after example, and some of these women, the way they've been treated, have been motivated to go out and start ministries and organizations to try to help others, which tells us minimally that there's a whole lot of people behind closed doors who feel this way and need someone to give them a voice within the porn industry right now.

Scott: Yeah, I think to be fair, there probably are women who do this entirely consensually.

Sean: There are, yeah.

Scott: And I'm pretty sure there are some guys who do this entirely consensually too. But I think where the debate is, how small a minority is that? Because it seems to me, this would be one of the dirty little secrets of the industry, is to present this as being this thing that people engage in entirely voluntarily just because they want to, because the money's good, and that nobody's actually coerced. Nobody's putting a gun in anybody's head to say, "Come and do this." Well, that's a pretty little narrow definition of coercion because financial dire straits in lots of other arenas are seen as, I think, legitimately very coercive types of things.

Sean: Agreed.

Scott: So, the business side of this, she points out that there's this sort of symbiotic, uneasy relationship between pornography and market-based capitalism. And you know, they have, let's just say, I think it's fair to say that porn producers have excelled at their marketing and their branding and their money making endeavors. Although I think it probably doesn't make as much money as it did, you know, 10, 20 years ago because there's just so much more accessibility now and competition drives down prices. But the business side of this, it has been a very, very profitable industry for a very long time.

Sean: Yes, it has.

Scott: And Kelsey Burke raises questions about what kind of economic system do we have, really, that would accommodate something like this being such a significant industry. And so I'm sort of curious, I've got a take on this too, but I'm sort of curious about your take on the business side of this. What do you make of that?

Sean: Honestly, Scott, the first time I was reading this, I was like, I want to know what Scott thinks. That's my first thought. But I'll say a couple of things. When I was in high school, I remember my dad, I don't remember the context, but he said, you know, democracy is a great form of government, but it doesn't fix everything because what if we elect somebody who is immoral and who's bad and who's evil. You could make the case that even Hitler was elected in some fashion. So it's good, but it has a downside. I think capitalism, I think there's no doubt in terms of economic systems that there is no system that has risen more people out of poverty and given more opportunity than capitalism. Now, with that said, a whole lot of capitalistic endeavors have come out of pornography. In fact, a lot of technology, I wish I could say it was driven by Christians trying to do evangelism and reach the world, but a lot of it is driven by pornographic makers. And I thought a point she made that's interesting was, I think she said it was back kind of in the 80s, like the laser disc and VHS. In part, VHS won out because the laser disc makers would not make pornography. And that was one of the key factors that shifted that technology. So we've got coaches who are coaching people how to get over being in porn. There are people on the anti-porn side. There's those on the pro-porn side coaches, how to be better porn stars, how to make love like a porn star. Like there's all sorts of money making endeavors. And it just seems to me the big takeaway is that there's limits of what capitalism can and should do. This isn't a critique of capitalism. It tells me we just need more than capitalism alone to have a good, just moral society.

Scott: Right. And Adam Smith knew that when he wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, because he had also previously, most people don't remember this, but he had written The Theory of Moral Sentiments before he wrote the Wealth of Nations and he intended the Theory of Moral Sentiments to provide the moral boundaries around capitalist pursuits. But there are two general comments on this relationship between pornography and markets. One is that values determine what the market values. The culture's values determine what the market... Markets reflect the values of the general culture. This is why we pay rock stars and professional athletes way more than we do college professors. No self-interest intended on that. But it's why we have some of the screwy things that we do, that markets just reflect the crazy values that are predominant in the culture. So it shouldn't be a big surprise that we have pornography utilizing market systems to make a lot of money at it. That raises another question. Are there things that should not be available for purchase and sale on the open market? And we've said this about a whole lot of things. You can't sell your organs, for example, for purchase and sale. Living kidney donors can't sell their kidneys because we don't want dire straits financially to induce people to do things that they would otherwise never even consider doing. We don't, you know, prostitution is still illegal in most states. The degree to which that's enforced varies widely, of course. And there are several, there are lots of other things that we don't allow. We don't allow–

Sean: Like making bombs and how to – information on that.

Scott: We don't allow heroin and cocaine to be sold on the – that's why it's all underground. And there are lots of other things that we don't – we just say should not be market commodities. But I think the idea – I think we learned a good lesson from Prohibition back in the '30s when we prohibited – when we said alcohol shouldn't be one of those products that should be available as a market commodity. It just went underground. And prices went up, crime became involved, much like the drug trade today, which is why some are actually arguing for the decriminalization of drugs on strictly economic grounds. But anyway, that's another subject. But I do think there are some things that should not be available for purchase and sale. I don't think women should be able to rent their wombs. Or to sell their eggs.

Sean: By the way, everybody would agree with you on that, that there's some things that shouldn't be. The question is what?

Scott: What those things should be. Now, my view of pornography is that driving it underground is worse than having it available like it is today. So yeah, I think if I have my druthers morally speaking, and we'll get to this on the law in a minute, but morally speaking, I wish it would all disappear from the market.

Sean: Amen.

Scott: But I think that the cost of that economically would be similar to what the cost was for prohibition. And that was eventually repealed.

Sean: Well, just give your thoughts on this right now, and then we'll jump back to the other questions legally.

Scott: On the law? Yeah. Here's what I'm afraid of. If we passed a law tomorrow that said all pornography, all production of all pornography should be illegal and will be prosecuted. Primarily that would be done because of the offense that it causes and the harm that it causes. We need to protect ourselves, I think, from what I call the boomerang effect. We've already seen this in part already because people have and will say the same thing about religious books like the Bible and the Quran. I don't want people to say that because the Bible contains sexually explicit material, which it does in the Song of Solomon, and it contains all kinds of violence, which it does, that we should prohibit people from reading the Bible. We should prohibit production of the Bible. So I'm willing to let pornography be available because at the end of the day, I don't want the argument that we would use for prohibiting pornography to come back and boomerang back on the Bible. Now, I think there's a caveat to that is, of course, for children, I think all bets are off for that. And of course, we ought to prosecute the possession and the making of child pornography because children can't, they can't consent to hardly anything under the law. And this shouldn't be any different.

Sean: So it's less of a moral position as opposed to is the effects and the lesser of two potential evils.

Scott: Yes, it's definitely the lesser of two evils.

Sean: A strategic move.

Scott: Yes.

Sean: So we're better off as a whole in your eyes trying to battle this, so to speak, since she uses the language of battle from a worldview, cultural, relational perspective.

Scott: Right. On moral grounds.

Sean: Although some laws, I don't want to get too lost to this, some laws are like when people release not only children, but release things of which maybe there wasn't consent, or which that maybe a certain level of a kind of pornography, you know, that's racist, etc. We can nuance some of those particular ones, but it's a general principle. That's how you approach it. Okay.

Scott: One of the things that I found particularly interesting in this is how she points out how the COVID pandemic changed both the production and the consumption of pornography. I'm curious to see what you what you made of that.

Sean: Yeah, I think my thoughts are pretty quick on this in the sense that it really created a perfect storm. People at home, people, many were depressed, people are lonely, needing to fill time, people are isolated. There's also a lot of people who are starting to think since porn production was stopped at least for a while, depending on what state you were in, that a lot of people said, I'm just going to use one of these sites I won't mention and start creating my own pornography. Capitalistically speaking, you could say in some ways it's not unlike–

Scott: YouTube for porn.

Sean: Yeah. What YouTube happened for me is I've wanted to do it for years, dabbled in it, and I'm like, I don't know if I'm ever able to speak again. I want to build this and grow this and reach and equip people. It kind of forced my hand to do something new. Well, there's a lot of people who are at home part-time saying, I'm not only going to view this, but I'm going to use this. And certain sites that I won't mention, they just skyrocketed in the number of people that are starting to look at it.

Scott: Yeah. Now let's, let's move this discussion a little bit to how the church is addressing porn.

Sean: Okay.

Scott: And what your assessment of that, and, you know, what should our churches—I mean, I think we both agree our churches should be doing more to address this. But let's be a little more specific, because I suspect we have pastors and elders and church leaders listening in who all of a sudden got very interested about what their church should be doing about this.

Sean: Good. Now, before we get too far, I do want to make sure we get back to talk about ethical porn. I think that's a really interesting dynamic. But I would say first off, how well are churches doing? I think it's hit and miss. I think there's some churches where I go and they have support groups for people who are struggling with this. That is absolutely an unmistakable, necessary kind of group. I think at Saddleback a while ago, they started it because they saw people struggling with all sorts of alcoholism, gambling, sexuality, and they're kind of like the 12 step kind of groups in which you just come around and you see, tends to be a lot more men than women, but there are some women who struggle with this. You have to have a group where people are not ashamed, where they feel seen, where they're shown grace, they have support. Any church that's not operating that is just simply not helping and meeting people where they are at.

Scott: Although the interesting part of what she raises in the book, there's serious debate over whether viewing porn can be labeled an addiction.

Sean: Yes, agreed.

Scott: I think at the end of the day what she acknowledges is that anything, any behavior that is so dominant that it disrupts the normal rhythm of your daily life can be considered an addiction.

Sean: Yes. Now, fair enough. She did say that it's, I think it's evangelical Christians who are most like it, they look at porn to say they're addicted. And I think I stopped using the term addiction for pornography often. I'll say habitually looking at pornography because there is a leg-, not a legal, there's a very, my sister's a psychiatrist and she could walk through the steps of what addiction is, how many times you look at it, how it disrupts your life. And there's some people who just look at it a few times, but aren't technically addicted and have this overwhelming sense of guilt that I've gotten. It's like, okay, there's some different steps we could take for you than we could to that person. I don't want unnecessary guilt and shame in that sense. So I think there's something fair.

Scott: She does describe this as self perceived addiction.

Sean: Yes. And I'm not saying looking at it once is fine. That's not my point. Right. But I think that language itself might not be helpful and as accurate as it's been. So let's talk about it habitually. But one big step of churches is to have these kinds of support groups. That kind of accountability is huge. Gets rid of the shame, gets rid of the stigma, builds in a brotherly or sisterly kind of love and care. One thing is just talking about it. There's a lot of churches that don't talk about it. I'm telling you, this is one of the biggest issues in the church today. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had, Scott, where people who said, "My dad as pastor, I was in church and nobody talking about it. So I felt afraid when I had any struggles in this area discussing. And I just figured the Bible really doesn't have anything substantive to say about this.” Now, most people know what the Bible would say. But if you don't know why, there's no conviction behind it. So the first thing is it's a win if you literally just talk about it. So talk about it, have support groups. and you got to equip parents. I would encourage churches to have seminars on like how do you use technology and put blocks on technology and very practical things. Parents don't know what to do, they're lost, they don't know how to fight these battles. My daughter was the last one to get a smartphone in eighth grade at a Christian school and a lot of parents just don't wanna fight those battles and they don't know how. So you've got to have practical resources for families in particular.

Scott: Well, I mean, should you get your take on this part too, because one of the things she points out is that in many Christian responses to pornography and helping people overcome that, a double standard's created. That men and women are treated differently because with men, it's assumed that it's sort of a normal thing for men to look at this. Whereas for a woman, it's viewed as somewhat an outlier for a woman to look at porn. And so, but I thought it was very interesting. And I think, you know, this is the way I've heard it talked about in churches where they actually do address this, is to treat it as, in order, I think, to escape some of the stigma and some of the shame, to treat it as something that is just a normal part of being a guy and being more visually oriented. But what do you make of her assessment of that? That creates a double standard that we need to be careful of.

Sean: I think it's a disservice to guys, and I think it's a disservice to girls. It's a disservice to guys to say this is normal. Now we are wired biologically to be attracted sexually. That's normal. I don't want to downplay that. These are beautiful, good attractions God has given us to express in the right time, with the right person, and in the right way. So those attractions are good. But looking at pornography and we say, well, guys will do it. It's understandable. That lowers the bar for guys. I think we're capable of much more, but I think it also adds double shame to women in the sense that– in fact I was doing when I first started guys, this was before I worked here, I was doing a presentation at Biola on millennials. You know, now we're well into Gen Z. I'm gonna use an example about how pornified many in that generation have been or how available pornography is. And I use the example of a guy and a girl came up to me afterwards and said, “if you just talk about guys, you don't see the many women who struggle with this as well.” That was probably 12 years ago. That shifted my approach. So I'll say it's not a guy issue, it's not a girl issue. It's a human issue because of all the A's that we talked about earlier. Now there are some differences, generally speaking, about the kind of pornography that might be appealing to guys as a whole versus girls. There are some differences there, generally speaking, not in every case, but as a whole, I think she's right to point out that double standard and it does a disservice, especially within the church.

Scott: Yeah, and I think, yeah, your point, I think, is really a good one. That what we need to be really careful about is that we don't lower the bar so low that we give men an out for not dealing with this. And my guess is you could attend the vast majority of the churches that our viewers attend for a very long time and never hear anything that suggests that viewing pornography is morally problematic.

Sean: Thank you, probably, right.

Scott: And that to me, that's a dangerous silence that we dare not have in our churches.

Sean: The last thing I would say on this before we talk about ethical porn is it's not enough to just say we're against pornography, we're against divorce, we're against abortion. We have to give a robust, positive case in our churches of the goodness and truth and beauty of biblical sexuality. And what keeps a kid away is not just the rule that says, "Don't do this, it's bad." But it says, "Oh my goodness, God's design for sexuality is good. It's good for me. It's good for society." It's when that conviction is deep that you might say we've kind of safeguarded this generation, so to speak.

Scott: Okay, so what do you mean? You've raised it twice now. What do you mean by the term "ethical form?" Because my first reaction to that is it's an oxymoron.

Sean: I totally agree. So the reason I hit on this is because it's such a big trend that I think we need to talk about. I didn't come up with the term ethical porn. This is a term that's actually used in the book.

Scott: Yeah, it’s fairly widespread actually.

Sean: Yeah, exactly. Beyond the book. And there's some quotes in here that says, “some people want to make porn because they want to make the world a better place.” Now that's even true for some people who make what's called torture porn, which I'm not going to go into. That's a little harder to wrap your arms around. Even mentioning that, I hesitate to mention it, but the numbers here on that, I just got to read to you. It was like 56 million hits on one site per month, just on that site. Unbelievable. And the number of views. So this is what's going on and we have to talk about it. So the idea of ethical porn is that it's created by people who say, look, we just want you to enjoy sex. There's consent along the whole manner within itself. So this movement of ethical porn, as far as I understand it, is basically a recognition that there's been a lot of non-consensual sex, a lot of abuse. So the problem is not pornography per se. The problem is the lack of consent. So in this one, we let people take water breaks. take their time, I tell them to just be natural, you know, this is kind of what ethical porn is. Now of course you're right, it is an oxymoron on one level, but what also happens is a few things is number one is there's still cameras, there's still lighting, you're still performing. So there's a sense where people are saying, we want this just to be natural so you can see what sex is like, but it's like, no, this is not a couple that has any relationship. It's like telling an actor to be natural. You know that, yeah. So that's one issue that it's not all it's cracked up to be. But I would also say in some ways, and I'm curious your thoughts on this. I look at this, I go, okay, this is a welcome good movement. If we're going to have a pornography industry, I'd like to see these kind of steps taken. So to me, it's like, okay, that's less bad. I'm glad to see that. I almost feel bad saying that, but in a sense that's far better than the things that are often lacking and the clear explicit abuse that takes place in so much pornography. But the reality, last time I was saying, the new way is teenagers are not watching ethical porn.

Scott: No, they're not.

Sean: Nor do they care about that. So I'm glad to see awareness of certain issues, but it doesn't get rid of the issue of pornography itself and it's not gonna get rid of the damage that's still being done culturally speaking.

Scott: Yeah, I think the other part of this that I picked up from her description of ethical porn is the, not only the way it's done, but the intent for it. And it's, for one, they're very clear, the intent is for pure entertainment only. That's it. They have no other agenda. And I think what this counters is the anti-porn, in some cases, very tight association with pornography and human trafficking, which I think is right to make that association, in some cases, it's probably been universalized, I think, a bit too much by some parts of the anti-porn movement. The other part of the intention that I think that was brought out here is that some of the porn producers produce it in order to help couples who they've considered to be sexually repressed. And by viewing it, you can sort of get rid of some of the shackles of the sexual repression that you've experienced growing up or whatever the source might be. And we're not suggesting that there's no place for somebody to get help for dealing with some of those things that may inhibit them from the full sexual enjoyment in marriage that God intended. But pornography is not the way to do that because of what it intrinsically does as opposed to getting specific help from a qualified sex therapist who can help unlock the relational – because we've known this for a long time – that most sexual dysfunction is not physical. it's relational, it's emotional. And to get at some of those things requires oftentimes the help of a very skilled professional to do that. And so we would suggest that for couples who wrestle with that, porn's not the answer for that. It may be a much cheaper way to do that, but we would encourage, you know, go the route of a therapist who can help you get at that.

Sean: That's great. The way I would frame it is porn is not the root of the problem. It's the fruit of the problem. So if you watch somebody, it's very performative. But is it getting at the root of the relational and psychological brokenness and hurt? Watching that, in fact, you could even argue that it does disservice to tell somebody, this will fix it, when it doesn't really get to the heart of the brokenness itself.

Scott: It puts all the relational stuff on hold.

Sean: Yeah, I think that's right.

Scott: So, all right, one final question. And let's talk about the areas of common ground, as she points out. What are those and what do you make of those? Because these two polar opposite movements, is there a common ground that's actually worth anything?

Sean: So I really appreciate this approach because whether I'm talking to someone of a different world view, different ethical system, I lead with understanding first, common ground second. I've never seen somebody try to do this on pornography. True. It seems much more calm, like, OK, Christians and Muslims. There's some serious historical theological common ground. OK, even though there's big differences, fighting sexual, you know, slavery or trafficking, et cetera. But on pornography, when she said she's going to find common ground, I was like, OK, I'm really curious. And she finds a few. And I think they're great insofar as they go. So there's common ground on the idea that hidden porn habits are bad. OK, good. Fair enough. Second, the importance of talk with the kids about porn and sex.

Scott: Sign on to that one.

Sean: Definitely one of the most important things parents can do is start early and consistently with their kids. Now, how you have that conversation, why you have it is completely different. But I'm on board with that. “Don't watch free porn.” I was like, OK, I mean, fine. The free is irrelevant to me. Don't watch porn.

Scott: Don't watch something that's intrinsically problematic because it's free.

Sean: Yeah, and her thing is if you watch free, you're not getting the funds to the sex workers. So if you're gonna watch porn, watch paid for porn. And I would actually disagree with that. I would say don't watch paid for porn. You are still funneling the system. But that shows me how far we have to go to get common ground to make that point. And then she says, “sex matters far beyond the private sphere in which it most often occurs.” Now that one was interesting to me because we're often told what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom. “Keep the government, keep your religion, keep your opinion out of my bedroom.” But she's saying, no, actually what happens in the bedroom affects society. And that is true. Namely because kids result and they live their lives out of the bedroom. STDs, how you're affected relationally and as we saw many people physically, that's a welcome point.

Scott: It just affects how you view women, just in general.

Sean: Totally affects, outside of the bedroom. So the other common ground area, she says, is this idea for “authentic sexuality.” For me, rather than saying, "Let's have some political activism on these things and partnering with porn producers on these,” these are more the kind of common ground I would use in conversation with somebody. Right. So as things pop up here, I'm like, wow, even people making torture porn think on some level they're making society better. Even people who are making pornography that's not as bad as that do care about its effects on society, even though they gauge its effects very differently. That's just going to give me a chance to say, "Okay, why should we care about how our sexuality affects others? Where does this moral code even come from? Why does it matter that we live authentic lives?" These are just hooks to me to get to deeper spiritual moral questions that whether you're pro-porn or anti-porn, humans cannot escape. I think they're most deeply found and satisfied. So in many ways, whoa, the last thing I'll say, I get excited about this, is I think some of the deep desires of even people who make porn in a sense, beneath that, our desires for authenticity, our desires to live a good, meaningful life, that's human. I want to suggest that those are good desires that they have, but there's a better way to to experience those and live those out when you know and understand what true biblical sexuality and relationships are for.

Scott: I think we'll let that be the last word. I feel like we could close in prayer and go for coffee and donuts after that. Hey, thanks for the conversation. We want to commend, sort of loosely commend, The Pornography Wars, Kelsey Burke. It's a good description of where the debate is. And maybe for some people who have really wrestled hard with pornography, maybe this is probably not the place you want to go to find out more about it.

Sean: Yeah, she doesn't write anything pornographic, but talks about what's going on. So if you need to steer away from that. By the way, it's a great book for what it's written for. Just know who and what the purpose of the book is.

Scott: We hope you've enjoyed this conversation on this challenging and tricky subject. We want to let you know too, if you want to ask questions or submit comments or to suggest topics or guests for us, you can now email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. That's thinkbiblically@biola.edu. Thanks so much for joining us. See you next time.