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Culture

10 Startling Realizations About Porn in Your Household

Jessilyn Lancaster

Pornography is not new, but the digital age has made it more ubiquitous and accessible than ever before. The technological realities of smartphones and high-speed internet have fundamentally changed the landscape of pornography and ushered it into the cultural mainstream where it enjoys increasingly widespread acceptance.

In Barna’s landmark study, The Porn Phenomenon (now available to purchase online), commissioned by Josh McDowell Ministry, we interviewed thousands of American teens, young adults and older adults about their views on and use of pornography. Here are ten of the most compelling findings:

1. There is moral ambiguity toward porn, particularly among younger Americans.

Perhaps the most sobering finding from the study is the reality of how accepted viewing porn has become in our culture today, particularly among teens and young adults. Around half of adults 25 and older say viewing porn is wrong (54 percent), and among teens and young adults 13-24, only a third say viewing porn is wrong (32 percent). This posture toward porn among younger Americans is confirmed by how they talk about porn with their friends: The vast majority reports that conversations with their friends about porn are neutral, accepting or even encouraging. They generally assume most people look at porn at least on occasion, and the morality of porn is rarely discussed or even considered. Just 1 in 10 teens and 1 in 20 young adults report talking with their friends about porn in a disapproving way. 

2. There are varied opinions about what constitutes porn.

“I know it when I see it,” said Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously when he was asked to define pornography. His statement demonstrates a perennial problem: It is notoriously difficult to define pornography. What counts as sexually explicit material is both highly subjective and highly contested, and this was true of Barna’s study. When teens, young adults, and adults are asked an open-ended question about what makes something “cross the line” into porn, the responses are varied, and cover both form (content) and function (intention for use). The top four indicators are all within a 2 percent range, with the most popular being something sexually explicit (17 percent). Just as common is when something displays a sexual act (16 percent) or sexual intercourse (16 percent), followed closely by whether something intends to arouse the viewer (15 percent) or contains full nudity (11 percent).

3. 1 in 3 Americans seek out porn at least once a month.

Measuring porn usage can be difficult, because living in a hypersexualized and pornified media culture means catching sight of explicit images with little or no effort. People often come across images they never intended to see through multiple inputs. That’s why it was important to distinguish between those who “view” porn, and those who “seek it out.” In other words, intention matters a lot. When we look at it this way, focusing exclusively on intentional viewing, we find that between 6 and 12 percent of people aged 13 and older view porn daily; 14 to 21 percent view porn weekly; 13 to 19 percent view it once or twice a month; and 18 to 32 percent view it less often. Half (49%) say they never seek out porn, and 17 percent say they have never come across it.

4. Age, gender and faith practice are the three biggest factors in frequent porn use.

When looking closely at frequent porn users (those who seek out porn daily, weekly and monthly), we begin to see patterns emerge according to age, gender and faith practice. To begin with, men use porn more frequently than women by a wide margin. Twice as many male teens and young adults use porn than female teens and young adults (67 percent compared to 33 percent), and four times as many male adults 25 and older use porn than female adults (47 percent compared to 12 percent). Practicing Christians are more than three times less likely to use porn than other teens and adults (13 percent compared to 42 percent), and young adults (57 percent) are much more likely than both teens (37 percent) or adults 25 and older (29 percent) to be a frequent porn user.

5. Young adults use more porn—and are less likely to say it’s bad for society.

Among each of the generational groups, young adults 18-24 are the most frequent porn users. Almost 6 in 10 young adults (57 percent) seek out porn either daily, weekly or monthly. This is compared to a little over one-third of teens (37 percent), and almost 3 in 10 adults 25 and older (29 percent). They are also the least likely to say that porn is very bad for society (14 percent). The next closest are Gen-Xers at 24 percent, but the largest gap is a 23 percent differential between young adults and Boomers (37 percent compared to 14 percent). Like teens (16 percent), young adults (17 percent) are also the least likely to say porn is “somewhat bad” for society.

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