One encouraging development in recent months has been a renewed focus, in both the media and politics, on the harms that stem from a huge and largely unregulated gambling industry.

At Westminster, a sizeable cohort of MPs has successfully lobbied the Government to impose tougher restrictions on betting firms that would target vulnerable, problem gamblers during lockdown. Last week, responding to growing concerns, the Gambling Commission announced updated guidance for online operators. The new guidance orders companies to take steps to identify vulnerable gamblers and prevent them from incurring heavy losses.

The move followed reports that frequent gamblers are betting more in lockdown, despite sports events being off for the foreseeable future. Matt Zarb-Cousin, a recovering gambling addict and former Labour party communications adviser, warns of “mounting evidence that one of the big winners from the coronavirus pandemic will be online gambling companies”. He has called for a wholesale review of gambling laws “as soon as possible”.

Another industry that is ‘winning’ during the coronavirus crisis is online porn. Figures released by the world’s largest pornography website, ‘Pornhub’, in April revealed an 18 per cent spike in visitors to the site. Cynically, Pornhub is enticing visitors to subscribe to its ‘premium’ content by making it free to those who pledge to ‘wash their hands’ and adhere to other coronavirus advice.

In the past, the website has offered similar incentives by, for example, promising to donate money to a charity that cleans up plastic in the ocean every time a litter-themed pornographic video is viewed. These cynical stunts feel rather like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood dressing up as a sweet old woman in order to gain entrance to the Red Riding Hood’s house and ‘gobble her up’.

“Another industry that is ‘winning’ during the coronavirus crisis is online porn”

The statistics on porn usage during lockdown aren’t publicised in the way that gambling figures have been in recent weeks. Porn, like gambling, is addictive, especially for more vulnerable groups like teenagers, but you don’t see headlines on the targeting of teenagers through porn advertising, or a rise in ‘frequent porn users’ visiting sites like Pornhub.

In the society we live in, online pornography is largely viewed as an industry that doesn’t result in tangible harms. Online porn is a product to be enjoyed by men and women as part of a healthy lifestyle – an alleviator of the sexual itch by a beneficent collective of consenting actors and directors. Unless it depicts rape, revenge porn or child abuse, as this report by The Guardian reveals, its fairly immune from criticism.

This needs to change.

The evidence shows that pornography is highly addictive, results in negative health outcomes and poisons relationships. In addition, there are concerns that the porn industry, at large, compounds sex trafficking around the world.

US organisation Fight The New Drug (FTND) is one of the only groups seriously discussing the harms of porn. Its website makes for alarming reading. According to FTND: “Studies have found that frequency of porn consumption correlates with depression, anxiety, stress, and social problems.” Discussing the health implications of porn it says: “Even moderate porn consumption is correlated with shrunken grey matter in parts of the brain that oversee cognitive function.”

“Unless it depicts rape, revenge porn or child abuse, porn is fairly immune from criticism”

There’s more. “Among the effects of the consumption of pornography are an increased negative attitude toward women, decreased empathy for victims of sexual violence… and an increase in dominating and sexually imposing behavior. A meta-analysis of 33 studies found that exposure to either nonviolent or violent porn increased behavioral aggression, including both violent fantasies and actual violent assaults. After being exposed to pornography, men reported being less satisfied with their partners’ physical appearance, sexual performance, and level of affection and expressed greater desire for sex without emotional involvement.”

Chillingly, FTND add that the US Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children both “recognize that pornography is an element that adds to the serious problem of sex trafficking”.

When you consider the significant and well-evidenced harms associated with pornography, it begs the question ‘why is nothing being done?’ In 2020, newspapers and politicians across the political spectrum are waking up to the dangers of a powerful, unregulated gambling industry. They want tougher controls and penalties for betting companies who profit from human misery – gambling addiction and debt. This is good. But all the while they ignore the wolf at the door, a massive online porn industry sucking in millions of child, teenage and adults users, and incentivising sexual exploitation.

It’s striking that unlike gambling, porn is immediately accessible to anyone with an internet connection. When placing bets online, gamblers must have access to a credit card, which usually means they are over the age of 18. However, millions of free-to-view porn videos are viewable to anyone at the click of a button. ‘Safeguards’ are often as flimsy as a tick box asking the site visitor ‘are you over 18?’ This is hardly going to stop a curious child from accessing the site.

Last year, the UK Government had an opportunity to change the law and usher in an age verification system for porn websites. Legislation would have paved the way for credit card checks or special ‘porn passes’, purchased at a newsagent to enable access to porn sites. In October 2019, the Government announced that it had ditched its plans citing ‘difficulties’ with their administration – despite a number of businesses already having invested time and money developing verification products. This was disappointing, to say the least.

“Politicians ignore the wolf at the door, a massive online porn industry sucking in millions of child, teenage and adults users, and incentivising sexual exploitation”

To Christians, the wrongfulness of pornography is clear. 

Sexual activity is for the marriage bed and viewing other people engaging in sex is a violation of the Bible’s strong commands against lust and sexual immorality. In Thessalonians 4:3-5, Paul writes: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honour, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God”. And in Matthew 5:28, Jesus is recorded saying “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Part of sharing the Gospel means warning others against the moral implications of sexual immorality. As Hebrews 13:4 says, “God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous”. People must repent of sin and trust in Christ for salvation.

We can also point to the strong evidence that porn damages human being made in the image of God. As the church of Christ, we should point to the harms of pornography, call for the monstrous porn industry to be curbed, and pray for a seismic change in culture on this issue.