I have a son and soon he’ll be a teenager. I’m excited about that because it opens up a whole fresh set of things I’ll get to do with my son that we’ve never done before. Adventures lie ahead. But challenges and dangers do too.

My job and calling as his father is not to just enjoy being his friend but to help equip and prepare him for the world that lies beyond the safety of the family home. The home has been a safe refuge for him to grow and develop in and part of that is because we have worked hard to keep somethings out. Yet as my son begins to spend more time outside of the home and the centre of relational gravity shifts a bit, one of those challenges and dangers will be the fact that he will be exposed to pornography. It is sadly almost inevitable. He is going to grow up in age where pornography is freely and widely watched, used and shared. We live in Pornland.

The wider culture is in a strange moment evidencing confusion and contradictions. It is becoming both more puritanical and more pornographic. On the one hand the #MeToo movement has created a media culture that is moving away from the objectification of women. In this Washington Post article, Jessica Goldstein says, “It’s clear that the attitudes of artists and readers have evolved. Tolerance for leering magazine stories is at an all-time low.”

That may be true, but on the other side of this contradiction sending nude selfies, for example has become an everyday occurrence. This reveals the disturbing fact that, “Last autumn, a poll of 7,000 UK schoolchildren by the youth sexual health charity Brook put the figure at nearly one in five who said they would send a naked selfie to a partner during a lockdown.”

So let’s be clear, 20% of UK schoolchildren would send a naked selfie. Not only that but there are voices that argue that this should be considered normal: “What if it’s just really ordinary and banal, a thing people do?,” says Kath Albury, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales. “We don’t say, ‘We’re going to the shop for milk now: will that empower or demean you?’”

Yet I find it hard to imagine that the sending of nudes would be seen as so banal and commonplace if it wasn’t for the fact that pornography hadn’t already become banal and commonplace. These children are already so exposed to pornographic sex that a simple nude seems well, tame by comparison.

But if our culture is genuinely interested in dealing with misogyny and creating a healthier culture then it must deal with this contradiction. It is unlikely to succeed unless it also tackles pornography. The attempts to shutdown Pornhub, the biggest of all porn providers, suggest that at least some are seizing the moment.

Gail Dines a professor of sociology at Wheelock College in Boston and author of “Pornland: How Porn has Hijacked our Sexuality” said in 2016 (which seems a different age now) that it was a public health crisis.

The thing is, no matter what you think of pornography (whether it’s harmful or harmless fantasy), the science is there. After 40 years of peer-reviewed research, scholars can say with confidence that porn is an industrial product that shapes how we think about gender, sexuality, relationships, intimacy, sexual violence and gender equality — for the worse. 

For a (very) frank discussion of the attitudes around porn that is common in the UK, this BBC newsbeat video will enlighten, and probably disturb, you (frank & graphic language). It is frankly a bit of a mess. But of course this generation of young adults are also potential parents of the future. It will be interesting to see what attitudes and values toward sex this generation will choose to pass on.

There is a need for education but also for theological reflection in our parenting. Tim Challies did just that after reading Carl Trueman’s book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, and sees four main reasons how porn deviates from God’s better story for sex and sexuality.

• Pornography detaches sex from a real physical encounter. “Pornography makes sex about self—about personal pleasure and personal satisfaction that has no reference to the pleasure or satisfaction of another person.”
• Porn detaches sex from a personal narrative. “It trains people to understand each sexual encounter as an isolated act in which future relationship is meaningless.”
• Porn detaches sex from future consequences. “‘Nothing is demanded of him, and he gives nothing in return.’ It’s the laziest, emptiest form of sexuality.”
• Porn detaches sex from any ethical context. “For many people today, the ethics of pornography go no deeper than the ethics involved in its origins.”

What I appreciate about this is it also creates a framework for telling this better story that goes far beyond saying stuff like, ‘God doesn’t like it and you shouldn’t do it because it’s bad.’ Instead we need to cast a vision of sex that is connected to a real person in the context of a real relationship that calls for self-giving and love, that respects and protects. All characteristics that a man needs to develop and be encouraged in.

That doesn’t mean we don’t explain the sinfulness of pornography in the context of violence against women, trafficking, addiction and so on but a ‘thou shalt not’ needs connecting to a better and more compelling alternative.

The knowledge of my own failures, the knowledge of others who are deeply stuck in habits that they find shameful, the knowledge that porn is as addictive as any other drug makes this a topic I cannot afford to duck. My son’s future mental, emotional, relational and spiritual health (and yes, when the time comes, my daughters too) may depend on it. So that means making sure the lines of communication around sex and porn are open and able to be used. And on subjects like this we need to learn from some good role models. Here are a few different links to how some others have gone about that task: the first two links are to Christian articles and the third is the New York Times (here, here and here).

The challenge is not simply to say ‘Be holy’ but to show that holiness is better than sinfulness and why it is so. The challenge is not say something is sin but to show, why it is so. Yet the challenge must not be ducked, it must be risen to and accepted.