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I have been reading The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church. There was a section on pornography use across generations(the combined Silent/Boomer generations, Gen X and the Millenial generation) that I found interesting. The question was whether people identifying themselves as current (as opposed to former) Mormons had used the following types of pornography in the last 6 months. There were about 1100 current Mormons who participated in the study. Here are the numbers: All Genders___________Silent/Boomer______Gen X______Millenial
Soft Porn______7%_______________14%________19%
Explicit Porn___5%_______________11%________18.5%
The authors report that men tend to look at porn (although not specified as to whether its soft or explicit) at a rate of 10% (Silent/Boomer) to Millenials men at 22%. Women look at it at a rate of 1.5% (Silent/Boomer generation) to 15% of Millenial women.
Some time ago, a well-known and influential poster here on StayLDS made the comment that “all men look at pornography” (referring to LDS men). Based on this 2019 data, that doesn’t seem to be the case. I also think the cross-generational differences are due a lot to the changing biology of age. When I was young, I was TORMENTED by the tension men feel that is only relieved with sexual activity. Now, as a near 60-year-old man, I have no such tension or temptation to torment me. I give thanks for that regularly. As a celebrity once said, it’s “nature’s anesthetic”. Young men, on the other hand, have the biological urge to get rid of the tension which probably explains why the rate is so much higher in the younger generation.
I was a little suprised at the relatively high rate of porn usage by women though. It wasn’t far beyond men, and given the fact there is a +/- 4% margin of error in the percentages, it’s even possible that Millenial women’s use approaches the equivalent of men, although I doubt it.
Those numbers sound reasonable to me. A few years ago in an EQ meeting, the EQP had everyone write something down they were struggling with on a small strip of paper. He then read them aloud to everyone (keeping it anonymous of course), with the intent of showing that everyone in the room had something they were dealing with and that no one was immune from difficulties. I’d say about 20ish percent of the papers had porn written down.
SilentDawning wrote:Some time ago, a well-known and influential poster here on StayLDS made the comment that “all men look at pornography” (referring to LDS men). Based on this 2019 data, that doesn’t seem to be the case. I also think the cross-generational differences are due a lot to the changing biology of age.
To be fair to that poster, the church does tend to treat the younger generation as if it’s a given that they’re looking at it. Even back when I was in YM about a decade and a half ago, our bishopric was asking in interviews WHEN the last time was that someone saw pornography, not IF.
Right, I think that it is important to understand that looking at porn and finding it exciting is normal. Even if only 20ish % of LDS men do so regularly – it is very normal.
SilentDawning wrote:Some time ago, a well-known and influential poster here on StayLDS made the comment that “all men look at pornography” (referring to LDS men). Based on this 2019 data, that doesn’t seem to be the case. I also think the cross-generational differences are due a lot to the changing biology of age. When I was young, I was TORMENTED by the tension men feel that is only relieved with sexual activity. Now, as a near 60-year-old man, I have no such tension or temptation to torment me. I give thanks for that regularly. As a celebrity once said, it’s “nature’s anesthetic”. Young men, on the other hand, have the biological urge to get rid of the tension which probably explains why the rate is so much higher in the younger generation.
This is only the number who used porn in the last 6 months. I think if you looked at how many have ever used porn it would be much higher, and likely be a large majority at least for men.
I had a YSA bishop (who was also a professional counselor) tell our elders quorum that if we didn’t struggle with pornography, chances were the person next to us did.
Porn is very frowned upon in the church, so I would expect a lot of men use it, feel bad about it, and repent. Some may stop for good, and others may return to it when overcome by temptation at a later time.
I can’t say I am an expert – not sure if I know what an expert is but I think there is two things going on. The first thing is an evolution of porn and two, an evolution of what we think is porn. I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s and back then as a young man we all knew what porn was and to see porn took effort and knowledge of what you were doing. Accidents were possible but extremely rare. I would say that now days – if one utilizes the web for news, research, entertainment or anything else – they will encounter soft porn at a minimum – whenever the internet is used. For example, if one views MSNBC, CNN or FOX main page for news summary – at least one article (complete with tag line pictures) will be what I consider soft porn. I remember one of my first dates when I was old enough to drive, I took a young lady to a movie and we both were so embarrassed that we walked out. A couple of years back the same movie was on a family channel, and I watched it again (with my now wife) and I could not figure out what it was so many years ago that embarrassed me and my date.
My impression is that porn is infecting succeeding generations worse than the previous generations. I do not know but there may be individuals that do not think they have a problem that 60 years ago would be as bad as what was available. [moderated comment that was speculative, offensive, and unrelated to the remainder of the post] I do not believe the Church is immune and possibly porn is more distractive than in the general population – that is not attempting to spiritually learn and improve.
What suprised me about these numbers was how low they were among Boomer/Silent Generation. And among the Millenials. I thought a lot more men would be using pornography than the numbers suggested. The authors speculated that people might not have accurately reported their porn usage, but commented that the survey was done anonymously at a computer, so there wouldn’t be the same deterrent to honesty that a live interviewer might have caused.
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