It’s Time for a Better and Smarter Alliance Against Porn

Feminists and Evangelicals united once; they can unite again.

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Last month I read a story that gave me a surge of cultural hope. No, strike that. It gave me another surge of cultural hope. And it made me ask a key question that afflicts more homes and more hearts than virtually any political issue that dominates the news. Is America ready for a culture change on pornography? 

And that leads to a second question. Is America ready for a new alliance between feminists and Evangelicals, between left and right, to achieve that change? 

The story that gave me hope came last month from New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg. It begins with two powerful paragraphs. Forgive me for quoting them in full:

In her new book, “The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century,” the philosopher Amia Srinivasan, who is quickly becoming one of the most high-profile feminist thinkers in the English-speaking world, describes teaching Oxford students about second-wave anti-porn activism. She assumes her students, for whom porn is ubiquitous, will “find the anti-porn position prudish and passé.” They do not. Rather, they’re in complete agreement with assertions that could come straight from Andrea Dworkin.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    At the very least, we can hope for a reversal of the narrative that porn is “healthy.” It’s not. For anyone. It’s even leading to some cases of early onset erectile dysfunction in addicts.

    Count me as someone who fully believes in the immorality of porn and yet believes it should be completely legal. I don’t think regulating porn (other than child pornography and a few other cases) is a legitimate purpose of government. But I absolutely believe people shouldn’t watch porn.

    “ this time focused not on blanket bans that defy court precedent, won’t work, and can’t pass, but rather on technically feasible and reasonable age-access regulations”

    I agree with the thrust of your article David, but I don’t think that’s really technically feasible. When I was a kid, Facebook had an age requirement that everyone circumvented. A friend of my was in his 80s according to Facebook. Smart kids can get around even very complex parental firewalls, so I think enterprising individuals will always have technical access to porn.

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    Julie from Texas

    I'm late to this discussion, but AMEN to all of this. In my ministry involving sex in marriage from a Christian perspective, I have seen over and over the damage that porn has inflicted on individuals and marriages. Too many were robbed of understanding genuine intimacy, and they are struggling now to discover it.

    In addition, the connection between porn and sex trafficking has been well-documented. I feel ill at the thought of how many women and children have been abused for the selfish gratification of porn users, even as those porn users are often victims in their own way. What a mess! If we value people, the Imago Dei, we must speak up and clean up this mess where and how we can.

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  3. Vic

    I've been a Reagan Republican since 1976 (I was very young then) and still consider myself one. As a one-time rebel against what I perceived as a "moderate" Republican establishment, I completely get the idea of a conservative third party. However, as I mentioned in a comment to Jonah's article, third parties in modern U.S. politics have had exactly ZERO success and there are reasons for that. Third-parties have typically grown out of episodic movements based on circumstances existing at the time or were candidate-centric, or both. Think Henry Wallace, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, or the Libertarian Party in general. Once the moments passed, or the specific candidates moved on, that was the end of those "parties." Our two main political parties may not be great, but third parties have never been able to sustain a coherent ideology or reason for being. In this particular case, it appears that the motivation for the third party would be "anti-Trumpism." That's fine, but once Trump is off the stage you're back in the same place as the third parties that came before. Intellectually the idea is appealing, but as a practical matter it won't fly. For me, the best bet is to stick with the Republican Party, vote for the best candidates in the primaries, and work it that way. We have a perfect example of this in our current Alabama primary for an open Senate seat. We have one candidate, Mo Brooks, who postures as a lunatic, and another candidate, Katie Britt, who is totally qualified and is a strong conservative. I'm taking the latter.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Frank Lee

    Feminists and Evangelicals got together for something similar around 1919. It did now work out well then, that this won't either.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Frank Lee

    I was against such easy porn until #MeToo and the 4th wave feminism movement and noted that many young men had decided they would just give up on dating, marriage and a family.

    I wonder if this rage against porn has something to do with the wokeists recognizing the same? Hard to hold power against the other gender if the other gender is no longer interested.

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  6. Mike

    Only fans helps women monetize and control the one thing that drives porn their bodies. It is much safer than studio porn

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  7. Mike

    Banning only fans will force women to not make money on porn that is something they are comfortable doing and instead drive them to male dominated corporations that a by far worse offenders

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  8. Mathew A

    no, no and no. Some people when they drink beat their wives? So should we outlaw drinking?

    Some people have addictive personalities that have a hard time with certain activities. Whether that activity is drinking, drugs, gambling, extreme sports or any other really fun activity. That doesn't mean it's any of the governments business.

    For the small part of the population that have a hard time with them, give them help.
    churches, and families can continue to preach about how to live a better life , but government should leave the rest of us alone.

    Also quit trying to tie porn to child porn. They aren't the same thing. You're better than that.

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  9. Avatar photo
    KAM

    Women, too, watch porn, and in increasing numbers. But especially if they are Christian, they face a danger to which David French seems to be oblivious here.

    No, not just oblivious. He even unwittingly contributes to it here:

    Conservative Christian women who use porn are not just at risk of toxic shame from the sexual sin of porn. Evangelical circles have convinced them that only men have such temptations. Women shouldn't even face those temptations. Women who have those temptations are weird, perverse, not even normal women.

    (See Samuel L. Perry, "Addicted to Lust," for a broader treatment of this issue, for men and women.)

    That's a lie.

    To all my sisters in Christ who struggle with pornography: You are not alone, you are not weird, you are subject to temptations common to many others. There is forgiveness and healing from shame. Do not let misguided Christian standards of what temptations are "normal" to women convince you otherwise.

    God loves you and can deliver you from shame and sin that are quite common to men AND women.

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  10. NVS

    I found David's article this week disturbing and enlightening. I am old enough to remember comments from adults about their teenage sons' porn inclinations as being relatively harmless--and the "positive" sign of their not being gay. Am I alone in this memory? May be one reason why it has been allowed to exist in the norm all this time.

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