San Francisco, Calif., Mar 26, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In 2013, Beyonce Knowles topped GQ’s list of “The 100 Hottest Women of the 21st Century.”
That same year, the “definitive men’s magazine” that promises “sexy women” along with style advice, entertainment news and more ran a shorter listicle: “10 Reasons Why You Should Quit Watching Porn.”
The list included reasons such as decreased sexual impotence in men that regularly viewed pornography, and a reported lack of control of sexual desires. It was inspired by an interview with NoFap, an online community of people dedicated to holding each other accountable in abstaining from pornography and masturbation.The site clearly states that it is decidedly non-religious.
Matt Fradd, on the other hand, is a Catholic. Fradd has spent much of his adult life urging people to quit pornography, and developing websites and resources to help pornography addicts.
But even though he’s Catholic, Fradd’s new anti-porn book, “The Porn Myth,” won’t quote the saints or the Bible or recommend a regimen of rosaries.
“I wanted to write a non-religious response to pro-pornography arguments,” Fradd said.
That’s not because he’s abandoned his beliefs, or thinks that faith has nothing to say about pornography.
“Whenever I get up to speak, people expect that I’m just going to use a bunch of moral arguments (against porn). And I have them, and I’m happy to use them, and I think ultimately that’s what we need to get to. But I think using science…is always the best way to introduce this issue to people.”
“In an increasingly secular culture, we need arguments based on scientific research, of which there’s been much,” he said. It’s why he cites numerous studies on each page of his book, and why he’s included 50 pages of additional appendixes citing additional research.
Fradd is careful to clarify in his book that it is not a book against sex or sexuality. What he does want to do is challenge the way many people have come to think about pornography, and question whether it leads to human flourishing.
“This book rests on one fundamental presupposition: if you want something to flourish, you need to use it in accordance with its nature,” Fradd wrote. “Don’t plant tomatoes in a dark closet and water them with soda and expect to have vibrant tomato plants. To do so would be to act contrary to the nature of tomatoes. Similarly, don’t rip sex out of its obvious relational context, turn it into a commodity, and then expect individuals, families and society to flourish.”
But why dedicate a whole book to the scientific effects of pornography?
Fradd said that the sheer volume of pornography consumption makes this an especially urgent book – and it’s at least two decades too late. According to one survey, about 63 percent of men and 21 percent of women ages 18-30 have reported that they view pornography several times a week – not to mention those viewing it slightly less often.
“If we have an iPhone we have a portable X-rated movie theater. And some studies suggest children as young as 8 are being exposed to it, so if I meet someone who’s 14, I know that they have looked at porn or are looking at it regularly,” Fradd said.
Fradd recalls in his book a study done by Melissa Farley, director of Prostitution Research and Education. When Farley’s team set out to do a study about men who buy sex, they had a difficult time finding men who don’t do so.
“The use of pornography, phone sex, lapdances, and other services has become so widespread that Farley’s team had to loosen their definition of a non-sex buyer in order to assemble a hundred-person control group for their research,” Fradd wrote.
Throughout the book, Fradd uses scientific research to debunk numerous and prevailing “myths” or arguments about pornography, including the ideas that pornography empowers women, that it isn’t addictive, and that it’s a healthy part of sexuality and relationships.
One of the most commonly believed myths is that pornography doesn’t hurt anyone, Fradd said. But he has found that pornography harms people personally, relationally, and societally.
On the personal level, a 2014 study from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin found that frequent pornography use in men was associated with decreased brain matter in certain areas of the brain.
The abstract explained that the association may not be causation, but correlation, “which means that if porn isn’t shrinking your brain, it would mean that people with small brains like porn more,” Fradd said.
“It’s not a feather in your cap, either way.”
As for whether or not pornography empowers women, Fradd said that while he agrees that a woman who consents to producing pornography is in some sense “better” than a woman who is forced or coerced, but not by much, because pornography is still being used by the consumer to treat another person as a means to an end.
“No matter the level of consent, it is a manly thing to treat a woman who has forgotten her dignity with dignity nonetheless,” Fradd wrote.
Fradd also quotes Rebecca Whisnant, a feminist theory professor, who once refuted the myth of porn as female empowerment in a talk:
“Feminism is about ending the subordination of women. Expanding women’s freedom of choice on a variety of fronts is an important part of that, but it is not the whole story. In fact, any meaningful liberation movement involves not only claiming the right to make choices, but also holding oneself accountable for the effects of those choices on oneself and on others,” she said in a 2007 talk.
These women are also perpetuating a system that robs women, as a group, of empowerment, Fradd said, such as women who are sex trafficked while participating in the porn industry. By some estimates, two million women and girls are held in sexual slavery at any given time.
It’s part of the reason why Fradd is donating all of the proceeds of “The Porn Myth” to Children of the Immaculate Heart, a non-profit corporation operating in San Diego, Calif, whose mission is to serve survivors of human trafficking.
Porn also disempowers the women whose relationships are destroyed by men caught up in pornography addictions, Fradd noted.
“Ask the millions of women whose husbands habitually turn to porn. Do these women feel empowered by pornography?” Fradd asked.
Pornography use in marriage is one way that porn harms relationships. According to Fradd’s research, a survey of 350 divorce lawyers reported in 2003 that pornography was at least part of the problem in half of all divorce cases they saw.
Another commonly believed myth is that marriage will solve a porn addiction, which shows a misunderstanding of the psychology of addiction in the first place, Fradd explains.
But pornography can also damage the relationships of a single person looking for love.
A 2011 TED talk by psychologist Philip Zimbardo said that studies showed a “widespread fear of intimacy and social awkwardness among men,” and an inability to engage in face-to-face conversations with women, Fradd wrote.
“Why? Zimbardo says this is caused by disproportionate Internet use in general and excessive new access to pornography in particular. ‘Boys’ brains are being digitally rewired in a totally new way, for change, novelty, excitement.’”
And Zimbardo is not alone in his observations. As Fradd notes, neuroscientist William Struthers wrote in 2009 that “With repeated sexual acting out in the absence of a partner, a man will be bound and attached to the image and not a person.”
In other words, men can start preferring pixels to people. According to NoFap’s statistics in 2013, about half of their users had never had sex with a real person, meaning their only experience of sexual intimacy has been digital.
That reason alone has been why many people, men especially, have sought to kick their porn habits, Fradd said.
“I know agnostics or atheists who quit porn literally because they couldn’t have sex with people they were hooking up with. That’s why they quit porn. And these guys are fit, good-looking young men, who couldn’t get an erection around a young woman. But they realized if the woman left and they opened up their laptop they’d get an immediate erection.”
Studies have also shown that pornography addiction is driven by the increase in amounts, and varieties, of material readily available to anyone with access to the internet.
“People find themselves viewing more and more disturbing pornography, and the reason for this is because of a decrease in dopamine in the brain, which happens because of the addiction one has, and they end up seeking out more graphic, violent forms of pornogrpahy just to boost the dopamine enough to feel normal,” Fradd said.
“People don’t wake up when they’re 30 and decide to look at child porn or feces porn or something disgusting like that. These are big things that people spiral into, and the industry has to keep pushing the envelope because it’s addictive,” he added.
While the statistics of pornography can be disturbing and depressing, Fradd stressed that there was still hope. He devotes several chapters in the book to protecting children from pornography, dealing with pornograpy in marriage, and getting help for those addicted to pornography.
Fradd himself has spent years in ministry to those with pornography addictions, and helps run the site Integrity Restored, which offers numerous resources to help those struggling with addictions and those in ministry to them.
The most effective steps for someone to follow for someone addicted to porn?
“They should find a spiritual director, they should go to therapy, and they should find a 12 step group (like Sexaholics Anonymous),” Fradd said. “With those three things together, we’ve seen the most success.”
Often well-meaning Christians will relegate pornography addictions to the spiritual realm, telling people that they simply need to pray more, Fradd said. And while prayer isn’t a bad thing, it doesn’t address the psychological aspect of addiction.
“When people do things like put a picture of Mary on their laptop or pray more, it doesn’t actually usually work. It’s not a solely spiritual problem, so what we don’t need is a solely spiritual answer,” he said.
Just as you should encourage a clinically depressed person to seek counseling and therapy, you should also encourage someone experiencing addiction to seek professional help, he added.
Fradd said he’s also been encouraged by the number of celebrities who have recently spoken out against pornography, such as Pamela Anderson, British comedian Russell Brand, actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rashida Jones, and former NFL player and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” actor Terry Crews, to name a few.
Slowly, he said, society is catching up to the science that shows how harmful pornography can be.
“We’ve reached a tipping point in our culture such that everyone either struggles with porn and/or knows someone who does, and we all see the negative effects,” he said.
“So the porn industry’s cronies can tell us that pornography is healthy for well-rounded adults, but they now sound like the tobacco apologists sounded like in the 80s. In light of the evidence, their assertions seem increasingly ridiculous.”
Fradd’s book is available at: https://www.thepornmyth.com/
[…]
I thought a Catholic who is in mortal sin, if he was informed of the teaching of the Church. I also thought that according to canon law is is not longer in the Church. Is this the case?
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was excommunicated latae sententiae decades ago. Unfortunately no Bishop responsible for his soul has ever had the nerve to codify that fact by issuing a ferendae sententiae excommunication.
His life long mockery of the faith will be addressed, finally, during his particular judgment.
Bishop Paprocki had the moral courage [something that should be done without hesitation although a rarity these days among clerics deserving reference as moral courage] to deny pro-abortion congressman Dick Durbin the Eucharist. And I believe he, along with Archbishop Cordileone would likely deny faux Catholic president Biden.
Biden has gone beyond reasoned propriety to expand abortion to extremes, as well as the imposition of disordered sexual behavior on society, religious institutions including the moral rape of children, in cases providing jurisdiction to remove children from parents to have them indoctrinated and sexually mutilated. What’s equally scandalous is that His Holiness doesn’t emit a peep in disapproval. Should there be wonder why we’re witnessing an apostasy? Our bishops and cardinals are left with the obligation to lead the Church out of this cauldron of evil.
It’s time to notice the extent of the gangrene…
Yes, Bishop Paprocki refers to the Fifth Commandment; yes, Cardinal Gregory identifies Biden as yet another “cafeteria Catholic,” and yes, His Holiness “doesn’t emit a peep.” We might note that the scriptural account of creation not only refers to binary man and woman, but firstly the binary relationship between good and evil.
OUR affliction today is the fluid denial of both binaries. Each denial contained within the other…
BIDEN symbolically signs himself at a pro-abortion rally precisely because the incoherent zeitgeist is already rooted in the (im)purely physical spectrum of gender theory. The discounted “sins below the belt” and Biden’s advocacy of total abortion and the pro-LGBTQ religion are two sides of the same coin.
AND as for the so-called “infinite” value (rather than immense) of the human person, what then of the distinction between the infinite God and finite Man? In Dignitas Infinita why might we detect the language of historical “consciousness” subliminally eclipsing the language of personal consciences? Is the gangrene in the “field hospital” Church so advanced that the patients no longer even comprehend to Judeo-Christian cosmos?
TODAY, our prayers are with “Eucharistic Renewal,” and yet we recall that Archbishop Cardileone’s original proposal was for Eucharistic Coherence—as between faith and actions. A “coherence” now obliterated under the crypto-Aztec Biden’s anti-Catholic/Natural Law agenda. Instead, the spectrum of anti-thought and maybe the ideology of harmonized polarities (the crypto-blessing under Fiducia Supplicans)—but no longer the violation of this or that Commandment, nor the quaint selectivity of merely “cafeteria” Catholics…
The Contradiction of the Cross is replaced by Biden’s fluid “sign of the crossing” of the Rubicon…into Nietzsche’s post-Christian “transvaluation of values.” And, into the rejection of binary human sexuality as now coupled (!) with the rejection of binary GOOD and EVIL.
Fr. Peter, I have long admired your commentary on this website, and I agree with what you say here.
But there is one thing that I would like to call to your attention, since I’m sure that your statement was inadvertent.
You said that Biiden wants to “expand abortion to extremes.”
I want to remind you that there is no abortion that is not extreme. Killing one single baby — at any stage of development — is hideous, unthinkable, extreme in the utmost sense.
Not splitting hairs here, but exactly what is a “ faux Catholic”? No, perhaps he is a real Catholic in deep trouble. To my knowledge he has yet to be publicly excommunicated nor to be publicly declared self excommunicated. Exactly WHY I don’t understand at all, but -if I not mistaken- I believe that is up to the higher clergy, not the lay, to determine. He is a brother who needs much prayer.
James, if and when you’re ordained a priest then you can make that determination in the confessional.
James, I guess I gave a glib response and I apologize. What responsibility I have as a priest references what’s manifest in a person’s behavior. Insofar as judgments, and some are necessary in the external forum there are indicators that guide us to make a moral assessment. With Biden we have direct and blatant statements of ‘disagreement’ with obligatory Catholic doctrine. Furthermore, he has an obvious obsession to dismiss moral justice in favor of a party agenda, that apparently is consistent with his own, perhaps his own even more extreme.
While there was and still is the issue of papal interference with Catholic candidates to the presidency on the Constitutional principle of no [one] religion is to have sway within a government [based on the Church of England prominence in government affairs], the principle of separation of Church and State the Constitution doesn’t prohibit any given religion to freely express its differences or priorities. Nonetheless it has been consistently misinterpreted especially by Democrats that Catholics will be controlled by the Vatican on moral issues particularly abortion, same sex relations.
The enigma now is that we have a presumably Catholic president, evidently sanctioned by his Holiness [visits to the Vatican] who obsessively promotes both abortion and homosexuality to the extent of indoctrination and its legal protection. His Holiness remains silent. As do most bishops except an honest few. As if speaking directly and openly regarding the moral injustices of this president were an abrogation of the Constitution. That is a disordered opinion. Disordered due to reversal in the order of legal right [for a religion to express its differences] and moral right [for a Roman pontiff to chastise a politician be he representative or president]. That, on the most grave issues regarding life or death, salvation or damnation. American bishops seem to be silent regarding Biden because of this misconstrued sense of Church interference in the affairs of State. That line of illegality or moral impropriety does not exist regarding Biden. He should and must be excommunicated. For sake of the truth of our faith and our loyalty to the Constitution.
Articulate and measured statement from a straight-talking bishop.
May his tribe increase.
And now it’s time for all the other bishops in the USA to grow a spine and publicly support what Bishop Paprocki has said about excommunicated Catholic Biden. (Just don’t hold your breath waiting.)
It’s an indictment of the horrific state of Catholic faith formation that a Bishop has to state what should be very obvious to any Catholic. The Bishop, rightfully, is fulfilling his teaching mission but, if our priests would give homilies that align with our faith and not namby pamby, “be good” homilies, maybe things will change for the better, namely, not of the world – Satan.
The Saginaw bishop recently said he was just stupid.
It seems that more and more Priests – just plain Priests at first and now Bishops and Cardinals – are FINALLY finding the nerve to speak up about what has been incredibly obvious for a few decades to those of us in the pews who put what we can into the collection plate each and every week. It seems to be Joe Biden, our devout ‘catholic’ president who has unwittingly become responsible for this, and so the democrats’ irony-deficiency continues unabated.
When will they ever learn?
Conservative bishops are very good at making careful statements. While it is true that Bishop Paprocki has taken some a couple of limited actions, like telling Durbin he can’t receive Communion, they are not close to being enough. Granted, the bishop of Springfield, Illinois can only do so much. Perhaps, though, at the very least he can call out the Cardinal Archbishop of DC for enabling and protecting Biden instead of giving the impression that he and Gregory are of a single mind. At this stage in the Francis era, I don’t expect much from hierarchs who have more of less gone along with the entire program. However, if they are going to make declarations that only elicit yawns or laughs from our enemies, they probably should not say anything at all.
This makes me think of Dante’s Inferno. I wonder what level of hell people like Biden will occupy 🤔. God is not mocked.
As for biden, he is a heretic-end of subject. As for the popes below the belt stupidity, I suggest he read about what Mary stated per sins of the flesh.
Biden has a long record of publicly supporting serious sins while simultaneously claiming to be Catholic. At present, though, he clearly does not always know where he is, who he is with, or what is going on. It’s impossible to say what his intentions were when he made the Sign of the Cross, just as it is impossible to know what his intentions were when he said, “God save the queen!”
Why are you making excuses? Biden’s intentions and character have been clearly and consistently revealed in his words and actions for several years at this point.
Who’s making excuses? He was a bad man before he was senile. Now that he is senile, though, it is largely pointless to pretend every action he takes is the result of a clear-headed decision, whether for good or for evil.
I’m more offended by his simulation of the sacrament of marriage when he was V.P. than by him making the Sign of the Cross.
The rich man died and went to Hell not because he had hurt the poor beggar Lazarus, but because he had lived as though Lazarus wasn’t there, as though the suffering of Lazarus wasn’t happening. (Luke 16:19-31)
Christ again makes clear that we will be damned for grave sins of omission when He declares that on judgement day, He will say to those on His left hand, “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire … for I was hungry and you gave me not to eat, thirsty and you gave me not to drink … ” and goes on to list basic human needs the lack of which He Himself had experienced in the suffering of the least of His brethren. (Matthew 25:31-46)
These hard sayings of Christ are the reason why St. Cyprian, in his treatise On Works and Alms exhorts the flock to do good works and to give alms, not by focusing on the dire plight of the needy, but instead focusing on the fact that their salvation is at stake.
Worldwide, over a billion innocent children of God, Christ in the least of His brethren, have been murdered through “legal” abortion. (No state has the authority to legalize the murder of innocent humanity. That fact was established at the Nuremberg Trials, where prosecutors treated “legal” abortion as a crime against humanity.)
Countess temporarily confused children have had their genitalia surgically or chemically mutilated, “legally.” The sex trafficking of children has become a multi-billion dollar a year business in the United States.
Have we been living as though these things weren’t happening to the innocent children of God? Christ Himself is experiencing these things in the least of His precious brethren.
Even though massive civil disobedience is arguably justified by the current situation, many Catholics will rationalize voting for candidates who are advocates of these atrocities or who are unwilling to alter public policy in order to end them.
It is the duty of the Catholic clergy to exhort the flock regarding their obligation to use the political freedom they still possess to end these atrocities for the sake of Christ unjustly suffering again in these little ones; after all, the salvation of the flock is at stake. The clergy will begin that exhortation or one day hear God almighty incarnate say to them “Depart from me, you cursed …”
Read the White House official proclamation on March 30 2024 of March 31 2024 as Transgender Day of Visibility:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/03/30/a-proclamation-on-transgender-day-of-visibility/
MARCH 30, 2023
A Proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility