pornography

I’m a prude. Let’s just get that out there right now. I blame my Southern Baptist upbringing for my prudishness. I was taught that the body was inherently shameful, the earthen vessel we had been…

Last month, Utah officially declared that pornography is a public health hazard, approving a resolution that contradicts much of the current scientific research. Regardless of one’s political or moral…

Last week, the evangelical-influenced Barna Group released findings from its new study, “ The Porn Phenomenon,” based on a survey commissioned by Josh McDowell Ministries. The study, which poses a…

In another sign of just how far the agendas of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Pope Francis have diverged, it’s worth noting that at their recently concluded fall plenary, the bishops…

It is easy to blame the war machine or the pornography industry, but the more mundane problem is with our addiction to visual thrills. What some people see as a lack of moral vision (watching a porn video, for example) is perhaps better approached as an amoral astigmatism, a lazy eye, a privileging of the visual over our other evolved senses. The thrill of watching may mingle with compassion for those being harmed, but unless you as a viewer do something to actually alleviate that suffering, you are only a voyeuristic addict, entranced by the power of the gaze.

If only the Church had responded so fervently to child abuse.

Young evangelicals who have taken up Wilberforce’s abolitionist banner are discovering that lacing social action with a concern for “the suppression of sin” is miring their efforts in needless controversy and threatening much-needed coalitions.

Annie Lobért knows that sex sells. The 16 years she spent as a stripper, prostitute, and high-class escort, most recently on the Las Vegas Strip, taught her that.

Is this about morality, or Mormon-baiting?

Artist Jonathon Keats feels there is a complete lack of curiosity on the part of the average person to ask the playful and profound questions at the heart of human existence. The hoi polloi wait, Keats laments, for the artist to tell us the meaning of their art, the scientist to tell us how the world works, and the religious leader to tell us right from wrong. We have become passive creatures. To help combat this lethargy, Keats has turned to pornography. It began a couple of years ago with plants—showing zinnias uncensored footage of explicit pollination acts—but now it has escalated to porn for God.