A newly released survey shows a third of adults in the U.K. — or 34% — say pornography is an acceptable part of modern society. Furthermore, one in five adults admitted they wouldn’t mind pursuing work in the industry.
The authors of the study, commissioned by the Naked Truth Project, a U.K.-based nonprofit seeking to “open eyes and free lives from the damaging impact of pornography,” surveyed 2,087 adults and determined that those aged between 18 and 34 were more likely (32%) than those aged 55 years and older (8%) to pursue work in pornography.
Interestingly, however, a slight majority of respondents (51%) said they would be concerned if they discovered a family member was creating pornographic content and publishing it to sites like OnlyFans or Pornhub, Sky News reported.
The Savanta ComRes survey furthermore found that 44% of boys aged 11 to 16 years watched pornography to get ideas of what to try in sexual relationships.
Ian Henderson, chief executive of the Naked Truth Project, said he believes pornography “ruins lives” and “wrecks relationships” by causing “things like mental health problems, addiction, even impotency.”
“So, it may be accepted, but it can’t be acceptable, because people deserve much better than those things,” he told the news outlet. “Someone once said that the problem with pornography is not that it shows us too much, but that it doesn’t actually show us enough. Behind the glamour is often exploitation, coercion, injustice.”
Joshua Broome, a one-time pornography performer who is now a pastor, told Sky News more people need to understand the devastating impact of pornography.
“After making over $1 million in the porn industry, traveling the world and many empty intimate encounters, I realized that none of the things that society paints as success brings true happiness,” Broome said. “I felt empty, used up, and worthless. I discovered that peace is not found in things.”
“It led me to isolating myself to the point where I went an entire year without hearing my real name,” he continued. “So, while on the outside looking in, I had made all this money, fame, and was on the cover of magazines, when I lay my head on the pillow, I felt sad and empty and alone, and that caused me to have thoughts of self-harm.”
Despite this, the problem of pornography is only escalating, which is why the Naked Truth Project is hosting the P-Word Conference, a virtual seminar designed to equip church leaders with the tools to best address the issue.
The conference site references 2016 data from the Barna Group, which found that, at that time, 93% of pastors in the U.S. believed pornography was “a much bigger or somewhat bigger problem than it was in the past.”
With a roster of more than 30 guest speakers, the P-Word Conference is slated to begin Sept. 28.
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