Pornography Devastates Children

Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast, comments on a USA Today opinion piece, “Pornography Is Hurting the Children of America: Eilish’s Experience Is Much Too Common,” January 20, 2022 (print edition), by Theresa Olohan. Billie Eilish’s fans were shocked by her recent condemnation of pornography. She had been “exposed to sexually explicit acts online when she was only 11 years old.” The article goes on to note that a study by the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire reports that “93% of boys and 62% of girls are exposed to pornography before age 18.” Children are exposed at startlingly young ages in an era when pornography is becoming increasingly acceptable—the norm rather than the exception. But the dangers have not changed. Pornography “desensitizes viewers”—one requires more and more degrading representations of sexual activity to be stimulated by them. And it is a precursor to increasingly dangerous sexual practices. In adults, pornography is known “to cause developmental problems, body image issues as well as erectile dysfunction.” It “normalizes sexual objectification and distorts healthy views of sex.” Consequences for children are incomprehensibly worse. Yet the portal to porn is often in the palm of the hands of young children in the form of smartphones. As a follower of Christ, you must “be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8 NIV). Our Lord warned, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). For further study, see Joe Dallas, “Darkening Our Minds: The Problem of Pornography Among Christians” https://www.equip.org/article/darkening-our-minds-the-problem-of-pornography-among-christians/. And a book by Joe Dallas, The Game Plan : The Men’s 30-Day Strategy for Attaining Sexual Integrity https://www.equip.org/product/cri-resource-the-game-plan-the-mens-30-day-strategy-for-attaining-sexual-integrity-yt/.