Pornography—the written or visual depiction of sexual acts or nudity with the purpose of stimulating and gratifying lustful desires—is a multibillion-dollar industry in the United States. It is a serious problem among teenagers.
Two videos—one from the perspective of teenage males and the other from the perspective of teenage females—have recently teen produced by the Catholic film company Outside da Box. Check them out and share them with your students. Remind your students of how pornography hurts all those who are involved with it.
The textbook Foundations of Catholic Social Teaching: Living as a Disciple of Christ summarizes pornography’s negative effects:
- It harms the viewer by training the person to use others for selfish gratification. Consequently, it can cause great division and hurt in marriages and even future marriages.
- It hurts the persons being portrayed—even if willingly—in that they renounce their true personhood to be treated as objects.
Pornography “does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public) since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world” (CCC, 2354).
