An author and theology professor has identified six reasons porn is “cruel,” pointing specifically to the exploitation of women and children, and condemned the adult film industry as a “destructive, enslaving system.”
Justin Holcomb, an Episcopal priest and a theology professor at Reformed Theological Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, recently wrote a column published by The Gospel Coalition titled “Porn Is Not Harmless. It’s Cruel.”
In it, he laments that there’s a pervasive myth that pornography is harmless — but in reality, it’s “deeply destructive.”
“Porn is much more than an individual decision—it’s part of a system that preys on women and children, and its viewers are participating in, contributing to, and being shaped by that destructive, enslaving system,” he charges.
Holcomb then identifies six reasons pornography is “cruel,” the first being how it directly fuels the sex trade.
“The primary way porn fuels the sex trade is by building the demand,” he says. “After all, the sex trade consists of supply and demand. The supply is women and children either forced into exploitation at home or lured away from their homes with promises of jobs, travel, and a better life. The average age of girls who enter street prostitution is between 12 and 14—even younger in some developing countries.”
“Traffickers coerce women and children through a variety of recruitment techniques to enter the commercial sex industry in strip clubs, street-based prostitution, and escort services,” he adds. “Thousands of children and women are victimized in this way each year…The trafficking industry wouldn’t exist without demand.”
Pornography also “shapes the appetites of men, women, and children to accept and even enjoy the exploitation of women,” Holcomb says.
“Porn teaches its consumers that women exist for the pleasure of men and that their purpose is to be degraded and dehumanized for men’s excitement—and that they like it, even if they pretend not to,” he says. “But this is part of the lie: Countless women in porn are there against their will and are being exploited.”
He cites statistics revealing that most women involved in the sex industry are adult survivors of sexual abuse to argue that “pornography exploits child sexual abuse victims” and “supports ‘rape culture.’”
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SOURCE: Christian Post, Leah MarieAnn Klett
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