The cumulative number of women who have posed topless on the internet doubles every eighteen months.

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I was doing chores this evening, and my mind started having strange philosophical discussions with itself. I mean, what else is it supposed to do while I vacuum and mop? At any rate, I got onto the topic of pornography. It is a continual problem for every man, and definitely one I struggle with (on the occasion that I actually struggle, instead of giving right it).

But what caught my mind's eye was the conventional Christian wisdom on pornography. Namely, that it desensitizes men to sex and sexual acts, causes men to disrespect women , and treat them as nothing more than sex objects.

The problem is that that narrative doesn't really match up with my experiences. I do not feel that I treat women with disrespect, or only think about having sex. Nor do I feel more inclined to behave that way after viewing porn. And of the men I know who have viewed porn (or still do), all of them are well behaved towards women. So either I've only met the outliers, or the conventional wisdom is lacking.

It seems to me that pornography is more of a symptom of society's problems with the relationship between men and women, rather than a cause. That disrespect and sexual objectification are more prevalent is obvious (hello rap culture), but I think that has more to do with America's growing self-centeredness. The it's-all-about-me-I-don't-care-about-anyone-else attitude and the loosening and often outright abandonment of moral restrictions leads to disrespectful, degrading behavior, since one is concerned with one's own pleasures, and not whether that hurts someone else.

And that seems to me where porn lies. It is selfish. It is sexual gratification without the hassle of getting a woman's permission first. Actually, right there I can see how pornography can contribute to this problem. Like any other form of selfishness, when you become used to indulging in your pleasures at your whim, suddenly finding yourself restricted in a similar area (say your girlfriend isn't in the mood) will make you resentful.

But this does put the root cause on our own selfishness, and our growing inability to deal with it when we don't get what we want when we want it. So it looks like the Church does have a point and pornography does feed the problem. But what the Church misses (or I have missed) is that the problem is the continual selfish indulgence in every sin to the point we get angry when we can't indulge for some reason. Pornography and sexual degradation are the problems associated with lust. I bet it would be easy to find obvious examples of the other deadly sins.

And this also explains why my own experiences did not match the conventional wisdom. We (my Christian friends and I) understand and accept that we can't always get our way, and that selfishness is wrong, so we don't flip out when the universe doesn't cater to our whims. So while we unfortunately still indulge in our own favorite sins, the Holy Spirit keeps it from dominating our lives.