Men and Porn
So, I’m at this conference for youth leaders. By the way, I’m an IT Manager. The thing is led by this cute little lady by the name of Jeanne Mayo, but I like to call her Jeanne Mustard. She had lots of fun stories and a few interesting laughs, and she had me and Matt rolling on the floor when she had to put in a cough drop in the middle of her talk.
They did this interesting thing. They handed out clickers to people when they came in the room. They were little doohickeys from Interactive Church Resources. So, Jeanne would ask questions of the audience and have us push a button on our doohickey. Doing so generated a graph on the screens of people’s responses.
Well, she asked this one question that really messed me up. She made us be honest, and cup our hands over our doohickey so no one would spy on our response. So, of 2,300 people in the audience, she asked all the men to respond to this question, “In the last 12 months, on television or the Internet, I have viewed something that people would consider porn.” I was surprised.
Of the Christian men in the room, most of them in pastoral leadership in a local church, 74% have knowingly and willingly viewed pornography in the last 12 months.
I’m curious, how does that sit with you? Rest assured, I have thoughts and feelings about it, but I want to hear from you.
Unsettled…the inside of my heart cringes at such a high percentage and then aches for those struggling in the room. –and then I think: “Is that an underestimation?” …
I’m heartbroken by that. But I wonder if the stats are accurate. I wonder if people parsed the word “porn” till it was blue in the face so that they could squeeze out 12 dirty months.
It’s hard to be surprised. It’s practically THROWN at you constantly. I’m sure it’s a very difficult battle to fight.
I’ve always heard about 50% so this surprises me a little. Guess it’s getting easier and easier as Mandy says above.