The Uses of Porn

How often do people view porn?

This is not an easy question to answer. Living in a hypersexualized and pornified media culture means that catching sight of explicit images requires little effort. People often come across images they never intended to see through online news-feeds, pop-up advertisements, emails, texts, search engines, billboards and signs, and many more inputs. A constant stream of images vying for your attention means that “viewing” requires extra thought—an intent—to actually focus on and see the image. Without this kind of focused attention, sexually charged images are like driving by a forest: You know you’re passing trees but, if you don’t stop and take a look, your brain only registers a blur of green.

Consequently, rather than asking how often people “view” porn—a general and vague measure of porn use—Barna created a way to triangulate data related to seeing porn and a person’s intention to view porn. As previously discussed, the intent behind viewing an image is critical for determining whether an image is considered porn. Applying this reasoning to frequency of views, researchers parsed the data based on a person’s intent.

To measure frequency of porn use in the United States, Barna asked a nationally representative panel ages 13 and older 1) how often they “come across” porn, even if they are not seeking it out, and 2) how often they “actively seek out” porn. The first question ignores any intent to view porn and so returns the highest possible percentage of frequency. The latter question focuses only on intentional viewing and thus returns the lower percentage.

Between 6 and 12 percent of people ages 13 and older view porn daily; 14 to 21 percent view porn weekly; 13 to 19 percent view it once or twice a month; and 18 to 32 percent view it less often. Half of the cohort (49%) says they never seek out porn, and 17 percent say they have never come across it.

Coming Across vs. Seeking Out

Smartphones, tablets and laptops have revolutionized the way we encounter images; pictures and videos are easily accessible with one swipe or click. The ubiquity of online pornography, coupled with open and unlimited access to information and imagery through new media and technology, are key reasons people stumble onto pornography on a regular basis. It doesn’t take much effort to encounter sexually explicit content on apps like Snapchat and Instagram, or even via text messaging (some of which is unsolicited).

Q

It’s sobering that the more you seek porn, the more porn seeks you. Pornographers load up a person’s computer up with cookies that alert other porn distributors to your interest. It’s a system designed to transform the casual user into an addict. Could we use the same approach? What would it look like to think about escaping porn addiction in a similar “systemic” way?

Pornified images in mainstream media, including in video games, increase a person’s chances of encountering sexually explicit material. Popular culture is awash in sexualized images and ideas; you only need to see an Axe commercial, Miley Cyrus performance or “reality” show like The Bachelor for confirmation.32

The “pornification” of pop culture is, at least in some ways, the byproduct of a broader cultural shift against authority and objectivity, particularly in youth culture, that manifests in self-expression, subjectivity and experimentation.33 The normalization of porn is creating a hypersexualized culture in which younger generations are now coming of age. They, in turn, tend to be more open to sexual experimentation and self-expression— leading to further social acceptance of sexually explicit content. It’s unclear where (or if) this self-perpetuating feedback loop will end.

The more frequently a person consumes pornography online or through Internet-connected apps, the more he or she is targeted through ad networks that use cookies—little packets of data on his or her device that track online activity and browsing history and then share that information with advertisers and retailers. The more porn a person consumes, the more invitations he or she receives to consume porn.

The data clearly shows that the more frequently a person actively seeks porn, the more frequently he or she will come across porn— even when he or she is not actively searching for it. Researchers cross-referenced how frequently someone comes across porn with how often someone seeks it out—and found a direct correlation. If a person seeks out porn on a daily basis, he or she is more likely to come across porn on a daily basis. The same goes for those who seek out porn weekly, once or twice a month and less often. The darker squares in the table below show that those who seek porn daily are more likely than others to come across it daily (73%); those who seek porn weekly are more likely than others to come across it weekly (54%); and so on.

Coming across porn frequently does not necessarily correlate to frequently seeking it out. That is, just because a person comes across porn doesn’t mean he or she is more prone to seek it out.

Age, gender, income level, ethnicity, marital status and faith practice all seem to affect how often people use porn. In the following sections, we examine each of these demographic variables.

Porn Use by Age

When it comes to coming across porn, as opposed to actively seeking it out, the differences between teens (ages 13 to 17), older Millennials (25 to 30) and Gen-Xers (31 to 50) are statistically insignificant. However, the percentage among young adults 18 to 24 is significantly higher than other age segments. Since actively searching for porn increases one’s chances of coming across porn—and young adults are more likely than others to seek it out—this result is as expected.

Young adults may also come across porn more frequently than other age cohorts because they tend to have more “comprehensive” notions of what qualifies as porn. This may seem counterintuitive, but in four out of five scenarios young adults are more likely than older adults to classify an image as porn. Consequently, when people of different ages see the same image, the younger person is a bit more likely to perceive the image in question as porn.

Teens are less active than young adults in seeking out porn and somewhat on par with older Millennials and Gen-Xers. Every age cohort under the age of 50 is more likely than Boomers (51 to 69) to seek out porn.

It is likely that limited access to technology, thanks to vigilant parents, plays some role in teens’ less frequent searches compared to young adults. After all, it is more difficult to find porn if you don’t have your own personal laptop, smartphone or tablet! It is even more difficult if parents filter and block Internet access and monitor their teen’s online footprint. (And there are only so many days in a week when a kid can watch porn at a friend’s house without their parents finding out.)

Porn Use by Gender

Men come across porn more frequently than women, even when they are not actively seeking it out. In fact, they are five times more likely to come across porn on a daily basis (20% of men vs. 4% of women). Women (25%), on the other hand, are more than twice as likely as men (10%) to say they never come across porn. Why are men so much more likely to come across porn than women? The simplest explanation is they are more likely, by a wide margin, to actively search for porn. Two-thirds of men 25 and older say they seek porn at least occasionally (66%), compared to only 27 percent of women.

Porn Use by Marital Status

On the whole, it is probably accurate to say married people have easier access than single people to sex. Married couples do not necessarily engage in more sexual activity than singles, but overall they have fewer barriers to connecting with a sexual partner. Consequently, it is not altogether surprising that singles are more prone to porn use than those who are married.

Six in 10 married adults say they never actively seek out porn (60%), but the same is true of only 44 percent of singles. Singles seek out porn on a daily basis twice as often as married adults. This may indicate an attempt to substitute sexual intimacy with porn, especially for singles who are not in a serious relationship.

Porn Use by Income Level

When it comes to coming across and seeking out porn, a middle income between $50,000 and $99,000 per year tends to correlate with more views. The reasons for this are unclear, but may relate to greater access to technology than lower income Americans and less access to more expensive activities than higher income Americans.

Q

In 1 Corinthians 6:15 Paul says that a member of the body of Christ who sexually unites with a prostitute unites Christ to the sexual act. Is porn use the same thing in a more contemporary form? If so, what does that mean for the Church?

Porn Use by Ethnicity*

Black and Hispanic adults seem to come across porn at an alarmingly high rate compared with white and Asian adults. While Hispanics are also more likely than other ethnic cohorts to search for porn daily—which likely leads to more unintended encounters with porn, as previously discussed—it is unclear why black Americans come across porn so frequently. While whites (8% vs. 4%), Hispanics (22% vs. 11%) and Asians (11% vs. 4%) say they come across porn roughly twice as often as they seek it out, black adults report coming across porn 13 times more frequently than they seek it out (26% vs. 2%). This is an enormous disparity, and the reasons for it are unclear.

_{*Sample sizes of black, Hispanic and Asian cohorts of adults 25 and older were small enough that Barna would not usually include this data for analysis. However, because the data seem to indicate significant divergences between ethnic groups, we have chosen to release these results with a caveat noting the small sample sizes.}

Porn Use by Faith Practice

Under Barna’s definition, practicing Christians are self-identified Christians who agree strongly that their faith is very important in their life and have attended a church worship service within the past month. (Self-identified Christians who do not meet these criteria are called non-practicing Christians.) Practicing Christians report coming across porn somewhat less frequently than other Americans. Just 9 percent of practicing Christians, for example, come across porn on a daily basis compared to 14 percent among the rest of the population. Likewise, 17 percent of practicing Christians say they come across porn weekly, compared to 23 percent among those who are not practicing Christians.

Besides the obvious explanation—that practicing Christians seek porn less often than others, and so come across it less often—porn-blocking filters, which make it less likely for a device user to unintentionally stumble across porn, are also more common among practicing Christians. Seventeen percent who have sought out porn in the past report installing such filters on all their devices, compared to only 11 percent among all adults who have ever searched for porn.

Practicing Christians do, indeed, seek out porn much less frequently than other teens and adults. Just 2 percent search for porn daily, compared to 8 percent of other Americans; 5 percent search weekly, compared to 17 percent among the rest of the population; and 6 percent seek out porn once or twice a month, compared to 17 percent of all others. Seven in 10 practicing Christians (72%) report never searching for porn, compared to 39 percent of those who do not practice Christianity.

Barna researchers wondered which factor of practicing faith (if any) has a greater impact on how frequently one seeks out porn: 1) church attendance or 2) having a faith that is important to one’s life. It turns out that infrequent church attendance is not a significant factor when it comes to porn use. A low-priority faith, however, is strongly correlated with more frequent porn seeking. In fact, self-identified Christians who do not consider their faith important are more likely than the national average to seek out porn daily, weekly and once or twice a month.

Why People Use Porn

How often do people view porn? is an important question. Even more important, however, is why they view it. As discussed in the previous chapter, function takes precedence over form. Without recognizing the reasons that compel people to use pornography—regardless of how often they use it—it’s impossible to know what spiritual, relational or emotional needs lie at the root of their compulsion.

With this in mind, let’s examine the reasons people say they use porn, and look at some of the differences between groups. The most common reason among both teens and adults is personal arousal (63%). Other top reasons include “curiosity” (33%), “it’s just fun” (30%), “to get tips or ideas for my own sex life” (29%), “boredom” (27%) and “to set the mood with a spouse / girlfriend / boyfriend / partner” (24%). (There are significant generational differences that we’ll explore, as well.)

Q

Jesus taught that looking at a woman lustfully is equal to committing adultery, and he hyperbolically counseled plucking out your eye to avoid it. In a broad sense, Jesus was warning against seeing others through a haze of self-centered desire rather than with eyes of godly love. Are there ways in which the Church participates in the culture of objectification, treating people as “useful for me” instead of “valuable to God”? Against the swift current of a culture obsessed with self-fulfillment, how can we teach others and ourselves to love according to the 1 Corinthians 13 model?

Among those who view porn for personal arousal, 13 percent actively seek it out on a daily basis, 29 percent do so weekly, 33 percent once or twice a month and 26 percent less often. The majority searches for porn weekly or monthly (62%).

There is a high correlation between frequent use and doing so for personal arousal. Among those who seek out porn on a daily basis, 80 percent do so for personal arousal. Among those who search weekly, 75 percent do so for personal arousal. And among those who seek it out once or twice a month, 69 percent do so for personal arousal.

Those who search for porn because “it’s just fun” are more likely to view porn on a daily basis (56%). Somewhat similarly, “to express my sexuality” is most common among those who use porn daily (27%) or weekly (23%), but less so among those who do so once or twice a month (10%) or less often (7%).

Reasons by Age

Personal arousal is the top reason—function—among all age cohorts for using porn. But there are clear generational differences when it comes to other motivations. (See the following page.) Teens and young adults, for example, are most likely to use porn as a remedy for boredom. Gen-Xers, on the other hand, are most likely among the generations to have children under 18 living at home—which may account for “boredom” being low on their list of motivations for porn use! Gen-Xers stand out as most likely to use porn to set the mood with a significant other. (In fact, all adults with children under 18 living at home—whether married or single—are more likely than those with no children at home to use porn to set the mood with a significant other.)

Reasons by Gender

Conforming somewhat to relational typecasting, a higher percentage of women (41%) than men (21%) say they view porn to set the mood with a significant other or to get tips or ideas for their own sex life (34% vs. 23% of men). They’re also more likely to say they view porn out of curiosity (36%). A lower percentage of women (55%) than men (63%) say they view porn for personal arousal and because “it’s just fun” (17% vs. 33%).

Reasons by Marital Status

Those who have never been married (69%) are more likely than those who are currently married (54%) or who have been married in the past (58%) but are currently divorced, widowed or separated to cite personal arousal as their main reason for using porn. Using porn out of boredom is also more common among never-marrieds (29%) than among those who are now married (17%) or have been at some point in the past (14%).

Reasons by Ethnicity

Black and Hispanic adults are less likely than whites and Asians to use porn for personal arousal. Compared to other ethnic cohorts, Hispanic adults report using porn more frequently to set the mood with their partner (43%) or to get tips or ideas for their own sex life (43%). This “sex aid” approach to porn may explain why Hispanics are more likely to seek it out on a daily basis.

Ministering to the Whys

Consider how you and your faith community address porn use. How well do you focus on the reasons different people use it and tailor your ministry approach accordingly? For example, since teens and young adults often cite “boredom” as their reason for seeking porn, is it possible there is a spiritual gap in their lives? Perhaps they do not know how to be quiet, able to rest and enjoy God’s presence in stillness. Training Christians in the spiritual disciplines of prayer and silence is something the Church has done for centuries—can your church do the same for the young people in your community, so they can be free of the restlessness that prompts them to fill every second with distraction?

Or consider the single adults in your church who may use porn as “substitute sex” out of loneliness. Do they have the deep connections they need to know they belong in God’s family? Are the couples and families in your church making room for singles in their home lives?

Each person in your congregation or faith group who uses porn, no matter how much they use, does so for a reason. The road to wholeness and freedom begins with finding out their why.