OUR CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE

Catholic tradition has always recognized the unity of the human person in body and spirit. It is the whole person who is uniquely created by God with intellect and freedom of will, who is called to friendship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, and who is formed in holiness through a life of virtue and participation in the Sacraments of the Church. Because of the interconnection of physical and spiritual attributes in the person, human health depends on the right ordering of both the body and the soul. This includes, of course, one’s emotional life and desires. Our Lord tells us that if some part of our body causes us to sin, we would be better off not to have that part. This suggests that it is not the health of the body that leads to salvation, but rather the right ordering of one’s relationship to God. Though we may think that such an ordering depends only on spiritual qualities, such as one’s strength of faith, it also owes a great deal to one’s mental health. Having compulsive tendencies or a distorted view of reality (among other possible problems) can severely diminish a person’s ability to perceive and respond to God’s call.

Sexual relations have always been an arena in which the disorder and confusion of our fallen state make themselves obvious. The secularization of our time has deprived many people of sound doctrine, either because they were not raised with it, because it was not reinforced by the surrounding culture, or for other reasons. Our public discourse resounds with statements about sexual behavior that are troubling, if not alarming, to people of faith. In some cases, these statements are made by people who simply do not know better, and are ignorant through no fault of their own. Perhaps they were raised to believe falsehoods, or were never evangelized properly (or at all). In other cases, these statements are made by people who know better, but are morally compromised and, rather than repent of their ways, reject authority and guiltily seek to justify themselves. In other cases, one may hear these statements from those who consciences have been all but deadened, and whose view of reality is upside-down: sexual sin, for them, appears genuinely right.
Whatever the cause of these views, the views themselves must be rejected inasmuch as they fail to conform to the truth about human sexuality that is passed down from revelation and confirmed by science.

The human body was created to be a gift fully expressed in exclusive marital union that is open to new life. Our psychology and bodily chemistry is built for relationship. Whenever we have sex, our bodies produce hormones that lead women to bond with their partner and lead men to be protective. When sexual activity occurs within a stable and loving marriage, these biochemical processes strengthen the relationship. When people have sex without such a commitment, however, it leads to jealousy, hurt feelings, and a diminished sense of self-worth, as the biochemical processes have no reliable object.

Mature sexuality involves freedom from lust, abstinence until marriage, continence when not having sex with one’s spouse, and total self-giving in the spousal relationship (including during sex).

No one needs pornography or masturbation in order to be sexually healthy. The effort to relate to other people, whether one is single or married, is difficult and can take considerable effort. Yet the rewards of good friendships and a good marriage are the most satisfying things in life, which fulfill us at our deepest levels and open us to greater opportunities for growth and maturity. By contrast, the fleeting pleasure of masturbation is limiting and isolating, and closes one off from others.

Reasons Not to Use Pornography

What is pornography?

The word pornography comes from a Greek phrase meaning “writing about prostitutes.” Pornography is essentially a consumer product whose aim is to create sexual arousal on demand. As with soliciting a prostitute, using pornography to gratify lust is a way of enjoying the pleasure of sexual activity without having to accommodate the needs of one’s spouse or anyone else. It takes many forms: electronic images, video clips or films, magazines, printed writings, audio recordings, chat room messages, telephone calls. What unites these varied forms of media is the desire on the part of those who created them to titillate their consumers. Yet many things that were not intended to arouse, such as a catalog of ordinary clothing worn by models, can nonetheless have that effect. Those who have a problem with lust may return to those things repeatedly as they would to more explicit material. In this way, the sexually addicted person essentially turns innocuous materials into pornography by using them to get aroused when he wishes.

Why do people use pornography?

People use pornography to fuel sexual fantasies, during which they most often masturbate to orgasm. The biochemical effect of orgasm on the brain is similar to the experience of taking a cocktail of stimulant, sedative, and narcotic (pain-killing) drugs simultaneously. Thus orgasm is a powerful reinforcer for the behaviors leading to it, and makes it very likely that anyone who masturbates will do so again. Those who become dependent tend to use it as a form of reward or a way to soothe their anxieties, much like a drug addict uses a drug.

Many psychologists consider compulsive masturbation to pornography a form of sexual addiction or compulsive sexual behavior. In some cases, addicts may be individuals who are socially isolated due to their living conditions, disability, shyness, or other problems that cause them difficulty in forming relationships that would lead to marriage. In other cases, they may be individuals who are married or in sexual relationships but are under intense pressure, have extreme anxieties, or are undergoing conflicts with their spouses that lead them to seek other sexual outlets.

Internet pornography is especially appealing to many because of its three qualities of accessibility, affordability, and anonymity---what psychologists call the “Triple-A Engine” that drives internet pornography consumption. Because it is ubiquitous, internet pornography is easy to find and often difficult to avoid. Though it can lead to enormous expenditures (as well as secondary costs such as lost productivity at work) among those who become addicted to it, internet pornography is inexpensive and often free. And because it allows the user considerable control over his identity and self-presentation, it tends to be a private activity. On account of these factors, internet pornography and masturbation may simply become temptations that, despite one’s best efforts, one is unable to resist. This becomes especially likely in a society such as ours, in which advertising and entertainment media use the techniques of seduction in order to gain market share for their products.


What is wrong about pornography?

There are several levels at which one can criticize pornography. In the first place, even if no one ever viewed pornography, the values it contains as a cultural artifact are false and contemptible. Before he was elected pope, John Paul II once described pornography as “a marked tendency to accentuate the sexual element when reproducing the human body or human love in a work of art, with the object of inducing the reader or viewer to believe that sexual values are the only real values of the person, and that love is nothing more than the experience, individual or shared, of those values alone.” (1994, p. 192) The view he described is a distorted one, which not only overemphasizes sexiness to the neglect of other human characteristics, but also presents another human being as a simple object without an inner life. That view is also wrong about love, which is properly not about gaining pleasure from another person, but rather is about willing the good of another person. Thus pornography, as a representation of human beings and a statement about the nature of love, denies the dignity that is rightfully each person’s as an intelligent and free child of God.
   
On account of the values contained in pornography, which its creators attempt to transmit to those who consume it, any contact with it exposes a person to ideas that are false and misleading. Because those ideas are imbedded in imagery or other media and often not explicit, however, it is easy to absorb them without realizing it. Thus, even if one were to view or hear pornography without being aroused by it (or participating in it), one would be exposing oneself to an intellectual and spiritual hazard. As a matter of formation, one should avoid exposure to pornography even in a detached way, as it is neither enriching nor edifying. Morally speaking, in many cases willingly looking at or hearing pornographic media would constitute either the venial sin of voluntary exposure to temptation, or that of failure to avoid a near occasion of sin, and would need to be confessed to a priest.

Even though pornography is objectionable in itself and corrupting even to observe, its most serious problem lies in its association with masturbation. Masturbation has, since biblical times, been considered gravely immoral, and in Catholic doctrine can be a mortal sin. [discuss here distinction from Fr. Harvey’s article between the seriousness of a behavior and the culpability of the actor] By separating sexual activity from its natural purposes of unity between spouses and procreation, masturbation is radically contrary to God’s plan for the human body and human relationships. It closes the person in on his own fantasy world, creating a preoccupation that impedes relational intimacy, and prevents him from growing in virtue through the self-mastery of continence. A person who masturbates will not be able to grow spiritually. Fr. Benedict Groeschel writes:

Growth as a Christian or, indeed, as a sincere believer of any kind, requires a constant effort. It involves an endless attempt to purify motives, improve behavior, use potentials more effectively, and become more and more sensitive to the rights of others….St. John’s Gospel most dramatically relates the moral law to the spiritual life with the relentless message, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (Jn. 14:15). [Spiritual Passages, p. 106]


What does pornography use do to a person?

Research prior to the advent of the internet found that exposure to standard, non-violent, commonly available pornography is linked to the following effects:
"Source: Manning, 2006"

A major meta-analysis (statistical combination of separate research results) of 46 studies found the following risks associated with exposure to pornography:
"Source: Oddone-Paolucci, Genuis & Violato, 2000"

In one study (Schneider, 2000), use of internet pornography accompanied by masturbation was present in 100% of cases of couples among whom an online addiction of some sort had led to marital separation or divorce.

An informal survey at a 2002 convention of the American Association of Matrimonial Lawyers found that 62% of those present (who represented the top 1600 divorce lawyers in the country) stated that the internet had played a role in divorces they had litigated in the preceding year. (Manning, 2006)

People who masturbate compulsively, like other addicts, tend to experience cycles of “sobriety” or abstinence and bingeing. Whenever they succumb to their compulsion, it can lead them to experience guilt and self-loathing, as they feel they are weak, corrupt, and worthless. For a time, they try to abstain, often in the face of severe temptation, out of a sense of determination to take control of their lives. Eventually, however, the guilt and temptation overpower them, and they seek solace in the one thing that brings them pleasure: the very behavior to which they are addicted.

 
“Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”

What does pornography use do to couples?

In one study of the spouses of cybersex addicts:
The following recurrent themes appear in relationships in which one partner is addicted to pornography:
"Source: Schneider, 2000"

What does pornography use do to children and adolescents?

Young people’s experiences of internet pornography are often negative:

A study of internet chat room communications identified several negative influences on the development of youth exposed to this medium:

Risks associated with youth exposed to erotica:

A Swedish study of high school students found the following results:
An Australian study examined the case information for children (under 10 years old) admitted to a Child at Risk Assessment Unit in Canberra, Australia for exhibiting sexually abusive or aggressive behavior. In addition to noting a more than 23-fold increase in the number of children admitted between the early 1990s and 2003 (a period coinciding with the advent of widespread internet use), the researchers also observed that almost all of the children had accessed the internet for pornographic material.

Children living in a home with a sexually compulsive or addictive parent can experience the following negative effects:
"Source: Manning, 2006"