October 2, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Those of you who regularly read my weekly columns here know that I have consistently attempted to highlight the impact of ubiquitous porn use throughout our culture, especially the ways in which these digital toxins are profoundly transforming the way men and women relate to one another. Indisputable evidence of the fact that pornography is mainstreaming sexual violence within the romantic context continues to pile up.
One recent study noting that teenage boys who are exposed to violent porn are two to three times as likely to assault girls. Pornography is consistently playing a pivotal role in violent sexual crimes, and another recent study indicated that nearly a quarter of adult American women feel fear during sexual intimacy due to the rise of porn-inspired choking.
And now, the New York Post has again highlighted the increasingly horrific impact of porn use in a news article titled “Teen suffers life-changing injury trying to imitate porn.”
The story, unfortunately, is an increasingly common one: I’ve had teenagers at Christian schools ask me why their boyfriends increasingly ask for (or demand) anal sex—and the reason is that both their worldview and their understanding of sexuality is being informed by pornography.
According to the New York Post:
In a tragic case illustrating the sinister effects of online porn, a 16-year-old girl’s bowel was so badly injured during group anal sex that she needs to use a colostomy bag for the rest of her life. The teen reportedly suffered the life-changing injury while copying scenes seen in violent porn, according to an Australian Broadcasting Company News investigation.
But, sadly, Australia’s national broadcaster was told that the girl’s horrific experience was just one in a string of serious injuries to result from porn-addicted Australians trying to imitate aggressive sex they’ve watched online. Australia GP and former Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr. Bastian Seidel told the ABC he has seen first-hand how copying behavior seen on porn videos can go dangerously wrong.
“We have seen anal fissures more and more. I’ve seen that more in women, so that’s caused by men having anal sex with women,” he said. The ABC’s hard-hitting investigation also revealed the horrendous experience of a woman, “Sarah,” whose former boyfriend forced her into having anal sex. The 41-year-old was left with nerve damage to her bowel and can no longer cope with hugging her mom because she was so traumatized by the rape. “In pornography, it’s not how it is in real life. It’s just not how it is. It looks like they enjoy it, but it really hurts,” she said.
This trend has been exploding for years.
Over a decade ago, Dr. Robert Jensen of the University of Texas described in his book Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity how porn consumption was leading young men to believe what is now referred to as “rape myth.”
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Rape myth is essentially the porn-inspired belief that women want whatever sex acts men demand, and that if they resist these acts, their resistance can be overcome with a little force. In pornography, of course, pleasure appears to be the result—at least for the male. In real life, the girls and women who are subject to this violence often suffer profound psychological and physical pain, as well as bodily harm. But as this type of pornography has become nearly omnipresent in youth culture, girls often feel trapped into accepting sexual demands that are now presented as “normal.”
More from the New York Post:
Experts and teachers have all agreed that porn-addicted men are making their girlfriends suffer in an attempt to copy what they see online. Cyber safety expert Susan McLean, who advises the Australian government and speaks at schools, was among several experts revealing how high school girls were being seriously injured when their boyfriends try to imitate what they’ve watched in porn.
She said their copycat behavior involved using objects and tended to be “quite violent.” The girls “often feel very powerless to say ‘no,'” McLean added…Porn education organization Reality And Risk told the broadcaster its research showed that close to 90 percent of the most popular porn viewed includes physical aggression. This issue has also been delved into by Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology senior lecturer Meagan Tyler, who said overseas pornographers, particularly in the US, have deliberately made their content more violent.
Consider this fact carefully for a moment: American porn companies are deliberately producing pornography in which women are abused, degraded, and subjected to bone-chilling sexual violence (and if you doubt this, feel free to listen to one of the two interviews I conducted on my LifeSiteNews podcast with former porn actresses.) Such pornography is being consumed by millions upon millions of young men and women every day, as well as teenagers, and even children. That pornography is informing their views on sexuality, relationships, and the opposite sex. By permitting this industry to spread this poison unchecked, we are creating the conditions for sexual violence, marriage breakdown, and profound distrust between the sexes.
It is an unpopular view, but countless conversations with the girls and boys who have borne the brunt of this evil industry have led me to the inescapable conclusion that Ross Douthat is right: we should be taking government action against this industry.
We would never allow any other industry to create a product that has resulted in so much misery and victimization, and the scale of the digital porn threat is so great that some scientists admit they simply do not fully comprehend how profoundly pornography will transform our society in the coming decades. I have my own predictions on that, and one of them is simple: Expect to hear many, many more of these awful stories in the years to come.
Such awful stories are not only probable. In this porn-infused culture, they are inevitable.
Jonathon’s new podcast, The Van Maren Show, is dedicated to telling the stories of the pro-life and pro-family movement. In his latest episode, he interviews Fr. Frank Pavone, the National Director of Priests for Life, the largest pro-life ministry in the Catholic Church. Van Maren speaks with Fr. Pavone about his experiences as a pro-life priest and leader. Fr. Pavone shares how his dedication to the pro-life movement starting in high-school and continuing while he was in seminary. After he was ordained a priest, he preached about abortion almost every weekend from the pulpit, leading to a profound impact on his parish.
You can subscribe here and listen to the episode below:
