this reason there was article in Time
magazine that I found fascinating but
also deeply troubling had to do with the
prevalence of pornography in our culture
and the effect it's having especially on
young men in the present generation some
of the stats in the article were
absolutely staggering something like a
hundred and seven million adults in our
country use photography on a monthly
basis I mean think about that in terms
of the general population you see the
extent of the problem they say in Great
Britain something like fifty percent of
boys say they use pornography on a
regular basis I found this the most
disturbing that the average age for
beginning porn use is eleven in our
country see what's happened is is the
first generation that's had access to
really live action pornography through
the internet without going any kind of
dark shadowy places you can get
practically pretty much on demand well
the result of all this the article
argues is an entire generation that's
experiencing a lot of sexual dysfunction
so young men who can't perform sexually
with their wives or girlfriends because
they associate sexual arousal not with
flesh and blood human beings but with
flickering images of perfect you know
bodies on the screen and so it's led to
an awful lot of psychological
dissatisfaction the fact that it's not a
physiological issue is proven by the
fact that these young men can still be
aroused by pornographic imagery just not
by real human beings so what this has
led to the article furthermore argues is
a rise in our country in of self-help
groups for of pornography modeled after
a a and similar programs for addiction
so people in support groups and with
sponsors and with a mutual challenge etc
etc and I think that's all to the good
and I'm glad to see that but see what
struck me was nowhere in the article not
even once a lengthy article is the moral
dimension of pornography use even
mentioned
fact that has produced a lot of erectile
dysfunction that's led to the problem
into all the self-help groups but that
pornography is underneath all of that a
moral issue that's not even approached
well of course the church's perspective
is that that's our fundamental problem
here
pornography represents a deep distortion
of the meaning of human sexuality it
represents a keen objectification of
people who ought never to be objectified
I mean it anticipated Conte by many
centuries contra said that human being
should never be treated merely as a
means but always as an end in themselves
quite rights as the church is based upon
the biblical idea of a dignity of the
person we would argue that because
pornography is first and foremost a
moral problem it will give rise to a lot
of psychological and physiological
problems we're not surprised by that at
all but the fundamental problem is a
moral and ethical one here we come up
against it seems to me a real cultural
block when we try to talk about the the
moral danger of pornography the culture
block is grounded in Freudianism and
hatred I mean go back to Sigmund Freud's
from the founder of modern psychology
it's a bedrock principle of Freud that a
lot of our psychological suffering comes
from the repression of sexual desire
right Freud who saw sex is kind of a all
pervasive influence and the more we
repress those desires or suppressed them
the more we give rise to psychological
suffering and so what followed from
Freud now whether it's fair to Freud
himself but certainly in a popular
Freudianism which by the 1960s of 1960
to the last century had become the
dominant cultural view sexual liberation
was the key to human flourishing and
psychological health what what
flourished in the 60s I think now is in
practically every nook and cranny of the
culture it's my capacity to express
myself sexually in a freeway that will
lead to psychological flourishing if the
repression of sexual desire will lead to
psychological suffering
my point is I think Freud was dead wrong
on that point and I think most other
aspects of Freud psychology to be honest
about it had been largely repudiated I
think this one too has been proven over
and over again to be wrong sexual
liberation on this grand scale has led
in point of fact and is where the
article comes in has led in point of
fact to enormous suffering
psychologically and even physiologically
if Freud tends to reduce everything to
sex you see sex is the master principle
the kind of driving energy of
psychological life the church if you
want reduces everything to love now what
I mean by that is it tends to see
everything in relation to love love is
what God is love is the central command
of the Christian life what's love it's
willing the good of the other as other
everything does in fact revolve around
love everything in your life must be
related to love and then you will become
integrated that's the church's point of
view it's not sexual liberation that
matters it's the full flourishing of the
capacity for love now last point what a
frightening would tend to see simply as
a suppression or repression of the
sexual desire all these prohibitions and
laws and so on the turn to see nominal
those are the guarantee that sex which
is good I want to clearly emphasize that
the church is not puritanical about sex
everything God made including the body
and all of its desires are good indeed
very good we're not Puritans we're not
duelists we're not Gnostics the church
like sexuality but it wants sexuality
always to be in relation to love so what
a Freudian might take to be of
repression or the simply an old taboo
the Church of say no no these are the
means by which the connection between
sexuality and love is maintained and see
it's all in a it's all out of spectrum
as long as sex is grounded in love then
it will be something wholesome and
healthy
what is divorced from love
then we're going to see precisely the
psychological and physiological problems
the Time magazine article articulates to
me that's the deepest the most important
lesson around this theme