1. Thriving in Babylon: Against the Threat of Pornography
Jennifer Ellison
A report from the
National Center of Sexual Exploitation
Summit in Houston, October 2016

2. Questions
What is the average age someone views porn for the first time?
How old were you when you remember seeing porn? What was the medium?

3. What is porn in 2017?
Real or simulated sexual acts or images deliberately displayed to third parties for the purpose of eliciting sexual arousal or illicit profit irrespective of the format or medium.
The electronic age has introduced the possibility of new and ever expanding sexualized media with an ease and accessibility that is truly mind-boggling.  Softcore pornography is so mainstream it does not even exist anymore. It’s the poster in the store front at the mall. It’s the advertisement plastered on the side of a city bus. It’s scenes in television shows.

4. Resources National Center on Sexual Exploitation Fight the New Drug
NCOSE Dirty Dozen list:
Fight the New Drug
Internet Safety 101
Youth Conference with Sean McDowell
Video Introduction to the problem:

5. Why do we have to talk about it?
It’s prevalent, free, easily accessed.
Internet, social media, video games
Stats from Josh McDowell
Web pages: million; billion
30% of all internet use is pornography
47% of Christian homes have a pornography problem
2/3 of divorces are related to pornography use
Porn increases infidelity by 300%
1 in 3 porn users are women
90% of 8-16 year olds have viewed porn

6. David Horsey Los Angeles Times
“You do not have to be a prude to worry about porn. Thanks to the internet, Americans have been pushed, unwittingly, into a vast social experiment testing whether unfettered access to the most freakish and foul pornography will warp sexual relations for generations to come.” 12/15/2014

7. Why do we have to talk about it?
There are predators.
My childhood: Outside, Inside, Magazines
My children: +Online: internet searches; pop ups and banners; free flash games; virtual reality
There is peer pressure.
Young men testified about their struggles from age 8 into their 20’s.
It’s damaging.

8. Fight the New Drug FTND explains that porn harms in 3 ways:
Porn affects the brain
Addictive – chemical changes
Requires increasing stimulus for same response
Increasingly deviant sex & violence
Porn affects relationships
Porn kills love
leaves you lonely
hurts partners & marriages
Leads to sexual dysfunction – health crisis much like smoking
Porn affects society
Families: Divorce
Objectification of humans
Violence, prostitution, drugs and human trafficking
Houston – trafficking, prostitution, Super Bowl
happier/

9. Thriving in Babylon Deal with your own issues.
Educate yourself & family.
Be your child’s primary source of sex ed.
Install filters.
Learn & teach how to be safe on Social Sites
Establish family culture of technological health.
Their devices are not safe.
Set tech curfews.
Discourage use in isolation.
Plan activities that do not center around screens.

10. Raises more questions:
Role of the church?
Other societal effects?
Shame & Embarrassment keep us from talking about it.
Other thoughts?