America Is #1 In... ???

This Sunday at Redeemer will be a "freedom from porn" Sunday. Note: not a guilt and condemnation Sunday, but a Freedom Day.

I'm preaching on Revelation chapters 17 and 18. (We'll complete a year of preaching through Revelation in February.) The word porneia is in them. So we're not going to avoid it, OK?

Rome (Babylon) is "the great prostitute." “Prostitution” in the OT refers to both immorality and idolatry. The image is about not only sexual sin…, but leading other people to engage in sexual sin. GO – “That is the thrust here in Rev. 17. Babylon/Rome has become a prostitute, lading other nations into immorality and idolatry.” (Grant Osborne, Revelation, 608)  “The prostitute is clearly Babylon/Rome, depicted in all her alluring depravity.” (Ib.)

Many nations are under the control of Babylon/Rome. The “kings of the earth” commit adultery with the great prostitute, Rome. God’s judgment falls on the nations because – 18:3, 9 – “the kings of the earth committed adultery with” Babylon.” The rulers have led the nations astray. And all the people have also participated in it. “The people of the earth have joined the rulers in their actual and religious adultery.” (Ib.)

Jer. 51:7 – Babylon is condemned for making “the whole earth drunk” so that “they have now gone mad.”

The woman represents the blasphemous religion that seduces the nations and the economic system that draws them into its earthly luxury. In 17:4 she is described in terms of her incredible luxury and moral corruption. Only royalty and the very wealthy would be “dressed” in purple (the color of royalty) and scarlet (the color of wealth).This represents the incredible commercial prosperity of the Roman Empire. These were very expensive dyes and so typified the rich and powerful.

⁴ The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. 

Grant Osborne says that "all her wealth is an abomination to God, as it is coupled with her immorality" (the Greek word here is porneia).

I went online to look for something I thought was true. I was correct. America is the world's leading exporter of porn. I wonder how God views this? Seems like we hold a golden cup in our hand (we're making lots of money on porn), and the cup is filled with porneia.

See this graphic from The Blaze - "America Is #1 at Something - Unfortunately, It's Porn Websites."

"As evidenced by the above graphic, the USA hosts 60 percent of all the porn websites online. That figure translates to 428 million webpages. The next closest on the porn hosting list, with 187 million pages and 26 percent of the adult content, is the Netherlands." (Ib.)

Here is some data from stoppornculture.comhttp://stoppornculture.org/about/about-the-issue/facts-and-figures-2/. I'm cutting and pasting the entire page.

Our Culture is Porn Culture (U.S. and International Figures)

• There are over 68 million daily searches for pornography in the United States. Thats 25% of all daily searches (IFR, 2006).
• The sex industry is largest and most profitable industry in the world. “It includes street prostitution, brothels, ‘massage parlors’, strip clubs, human trafficking for sexual purposes, phone sex, child and adult pornography, mail order brides and sex tourism – just to mention a few of the most common examples.” (Andersson et al, 2013)
• In 2010, 13% of global web searches were for sexual content. This does not include P2P downloads and torrents. (Ogas & Gaddam)
• Pornhub receives over 1.68 million visits per hour. (Pornhub, 2013)
• Globally, teen is the most searched term. A Google Trends analysis indicates that searches for “Teen Porn” have more than tripled between 2005-2013, and teen porn was the fastest-growing genre over this period. Total searches for teen-related porn reached an estimated 500,000 daily in March 2013, far larger than other genres, representing approximately one-third of total daily searches for pornographic web sites. (Dines, 2013)
• The United States is the top producer of pornographic dvds and web material; the second largest is Germany: they each produce in excess of 400 porn films for dvd every week.
• Internet porn in the UK receives more traffic than social networks, shopping, news and media, email, finance, gaming and travel. (Arthur, 2013)
• Several recent studies have found that teenagers around the world report using porn to gain information about real life sex (Lauzus et al, 2007) (Wade et al, 2005) (Flood, 2009) ( Giordano & Ross, 2012).
• Many studies have reported various findings, but across the board it has been found women watch less porn than men.
• Condoms are only utilized in 10.9% of top rated scenes (Bridges and Wosnitzer, 2007).
• 10% of adults admit to having an addiction to online pornography (IFR, 2006).
• Every 39 minutes a new porn film is created in the United States.
• 20% of American men admit they access pornography at work.
• 70% of all Internet porn traffic occurs during workdays (9am – 5pm) (Sex Tracker, 2012)
• In the U.S., 2/3 of human resource professionals have found porn on employees’ work computers. (Paintbottle, 2013)
• A recent study found that seven out of ten youth have been unwillingly exposed to pornography in the United States (Carroll et al, 2008).
• Children as young as 11 years old are regularly accessing hardcore gonzo pornography (IFR, 2006).
• Following first exposure, the largest consumer group of internet pornography is boys between the ages of 12-17.

88.2% of top rated porn scenes contain aggressive acts. 

• In 70% of occurrences, a man is perpetrator of the aggression; 94% of the time the act is directed towards a woman.
• Only 9.9% of the top selling scenes analyzed contained behaviors such as kissing, laughing, caressing, or verbal compliments.
• Open-hand slapping occurs in 41.1% of scenes.
• Sex depicted in porn movies generally focuses on men’s sexual pleasure and orgasm, rather than equally that of women’s (Bridges and Wosnitzer, 2007)
• Porn scenes have sexist and racist themes through out. Websites often contain menus where users can select genres of women’s ethnicities, body types, and ages. There are also choices such as “amateur,” “interracial”, and the ever popular “teen” category. Men and women who are anything other than white are represented in stereotypical and demeaning ways.
• Approximately 20% of all internet pornography is child sexual abuse. (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2013).

Studies show that after viewing pornography men are more likely to:

• report decreased empathy for rape victims
• have increasingly aggressive behavioral tendencies
• report believing that a woman who dresses provocatively deserves to be raped
• report anger at women who flirt but then refuse to have sex
• report decreased sexual interest in their girlfriends or wives
• report increased interest in coercing partners into unwanted sex acts (Bridges, 2006) (Yang, Gahyun, 2012).

The porn industry makes more money than Hollywood.  (US Statistics)

• 13,000 adult videos are produced annually, amassing over $13 billion dollars in profit. By comparison, Hollywood released 507 movies and made only 8.8 billion (Bridges and Wosnitzer, 2007).
• They also make more than:

The National Football League, The National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball combined and more than NBC, CBS, and ABC combined. In addition, they have larger revenues than the top technology companies (Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix) combined (IFR, 2006).

• New Hampshire and California are the only two states in our country that allow for the production of hardcore pornography to occur.

Additional sources of facts on pornography and sexual violence
Porn and Sex Industry Statistics From Enough is Enough
PBS Documentary “Porn In America”
CDC Injury Center: Sexual Violence
FBI: Human Trafficking
Internet Filter Review
Statistics culled from numerous sources
National Juvenile Online Victimization Survey Publications (Crimes Against Children Research Center at University of New Hampshire)
National Institute of Justice: Rape and Sexual Violence information
National Sexual Violence Resource Center
Extensive online resource
The Porn Economy
A video on pornography statistics
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Criminal Victimization reports from the Office of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women
A component of the U.S. Department of Justice; provides federal leadership in developing the nation’s capacity to reduce violence against women and administer justice for and strengthen services to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking
Sources:
Bridges, A., & Wosnitzer, R. (2007). Aggression and sexual behavior in best-selling pornography: A content analysis update. International Communication Association.
Gahyun, Y., & Yang, D. (2012). Effects of exposure to pornography on male aggressive behavioral tendencies. The Open Psychology Journal, (5), 1-10.
Wade, L. D., Kremer, E. C., & Brown, J. (2005). The incidental orgasm: The presence of clitoral knowledge and the absence of orgasm for women. Women & Health, 42(1).
Pornhub. 2013 Year in Review. Pornhub, Web. .
Malamuth, N. (1986). Repeated exposure to violent and nonviolent pornography: Likelihood of raping ratings and laboratory aggression against women. Aggressive Behavior, 12(2), 129–137.
Carroll, J. S., Padilla-Walker, L. M., Nelson, L. J., Olson, C. D., McNamara Barry, C., Madsen, S. D., & , (2008). Generation XXX: Pornography acceptance and use among emerging adults. Journal of Adolescent Research, 23(1), 6-30.
Paintbottle. (2013). Everyone you know watches porn. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/03/internet-porn-stats_n_3187682.html
Andersson, B., Christenson, G., Christenson, G., Claesson, A., Eldinadotter, K., Gerani, F., Ström, S., & Wikman, A. (2013). Speaking of prostitution. The Women’s Front , Retrieved from http://prostitutionresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Speaking-of-Prostitution-2013-Sweden1.pdf
Internet Filter Review (2006). Internet pornography statistics. Retrieved from http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. (2013). Key facts. Retrieved from http://www.missingkids.com/KeyFacts
Lauzus, F. F., Kloster, A. O., Lauesgaard Nielsen, J., Boelskifte, J., Jorgen, F., & Rasmussen, K. L. (2007). Gender-specific knowledge on sex. Gynecology Department, Herning Hospital, 10
Sex Tracker. (2012). Stats. Retrieved from www.sextracker.com
Dines, G. (2013, August 01). A rare defeat for corporate lobbyists. Retrieved from http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/01/a-rare-defeat-for-corporate-lobbyists/
Flood, M., & , (2009). The harms of pornography exposure among children and young people . Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, 18.
Bridges, A. (2006). Pornograph’ys effects on interpersonal relationships. Department of Psychology, University of Arkansas.
Arthur, C. (2013, July 26). Porn sites get more internet traffic in uk than social networks or shopping. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/26/porn-sites-internet-traffic-uk
Ogas, O., & Gaddam, S. A billion wicked thoughts. Penguin.
Giordano, M., & Ross, A. (2012, June). Let’s talk about sex: Young people’s views on sex and sexual health information in australia.
If this information has made you curious about the issue, consider reading Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked our Sexuality, by Gail Dines. We recommend numerous other titles on our Books page.
Please go to our Activism & Projects page to see what you can do to challenge and end porn culture in your community.