Damon Brown, author of Playboy’s Greatest Covers once said: “It seems so obvious: If we invent a machine, the first thing we are going to do–after making a profit–is use it to watch porn.”

The Internet is proof of that.

Last year, just one pornographic website boasted of receiving 42 billion visits, which is an average of 115 million visits every 24 hours. For perspective, that’s the collective equivalent of the entire populations of Canada, Australia, Poland and the Netherlands all visiting in one day.

Every minute, of every day, the website recorded more than 80,000 visitors. And in one year alone, over 115 billion pornographic videos were viewed, with more than 600 thousand years worth of porn consumed worldwide.

The reason for this explosion of online pornography is simple enough. As R.C. Sproul Jr noted, the Internet has obliterated the last great defence against sexual perversion, shame.

In a Tabletalk piece titled, Let it Not be Named Once, Sproul Jr wrote:

“The Internet is the first pornography delivery system that doesn’t require any interaction with a live human being. The only thing standing between millions of men and oceans of pornography fifteen years ago was the public shame of consuming it. The public shame is now gone. There is no longer a convenience store clerk, or video store clerk, or bouncer at the ‘Gentleman’s Club.’ On the Internet, it’s just you and the pictures.”

Naturally, with ease of access to pornography comes increased access to pornography, and with increased access, a world of problems. Not the least being, a desensitized mind desperate to regain the rush once felt when it first looked at the things it now considers a bore. Before long, habitual viewers will find themselves consuming content they previously considered repugnant just to get the desired hit.

Sproul Jr continues:

“The very pleasure of pornography is the shock of it. This explains the all too familiar phenomena of the downward spiral. Like illicit drugs, each ‘hit’ requires a stronger hit the next time to get the desired effect. What was once delightfully forbidden soon becomes all too commonplace. And so darker perversions are pursued. The path from marijuana to crack cocaine runs parallel to the path from Playboy to pedophilia. It is, in the words of Solomon in Proverbs, the path to death.”

The degenerating effects of porn are further evidenced through a quick glance at some of the most searched for phrases on the pornographic website previously mentioned.

For male users, the top ten searched for terms included, “milf,” “step-mom,” and “step-sister.” The top searched terms from women were equally depraved and included, “threesome,” “step-dad and daughter,” and “extreme gangbang.”

Dr Norman Doidge in his book The Brain That Changes Itself noted that this decline has not only taken place on the individual level, but also on a broader scale, affecting what we collectively consider socially acceptable:

“Thirty years ago ‘hardcore’ pornography usually meant the explicit depiction of sexual intercourse. Now hardcore has evolved and is increasingly dominated by the sadomasochistic themes… all involving scripts fusing sex with hatred and humiliation. Hardcore pornography now explores the world of perversion, while softcore is now what hardcore was a few decades ago… The comparatively tame softcore pictures of yesteryear… now show up on mainstream media all day long, in the pornification of everything, including television, rock videos, soap operas, advertisements, and so on.”

According to SimilarWeb’s analysis, the vast majority of traffic flowing to pornographic websites is coming from the freest nation on earth. Stats from 2015 revealed the United States was the largest consumer of pornographic content, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, France, Russia, Japan, and Canada.

The pornographic website previously mentioned reported that last year Japan moved up the chart to become the second-highest consumer. Third place was the United Kingdom, followed by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Philippines, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, and Poland.

In other words, most traffic is predominately flowing from countries with a distinctly free and Christian heritage. They say “sex sells,” but while these nations are largely the most affluent, what if the pornification of the West wasn’t just about generating billions of dollars in revenue each year?

In a recent lecture titled, Resistance, Revolution, Reformation, and Romans (13, That Is), theologian and author Doug Wilson aptly noted a connection between pornography and the rise of tyranny.

Pornography, according to Wilson, is a political weapon of war used to compromise and enfeeble men. This is because virtuous men are an obstacle to tyranny. They’re hard to get shackles on, as Wilson put it.

Citing G.K. Chesterton, Wilson notes: “Free love — easy access to sex — is the first and most obvious bribe to offer to a slave. Tyrants, therefore, love public entertainments, and private vices because they love an enervated people.”

To illustrate this point further, Wilson appealed to an example found in Revelation 2:14, which reads:

“I have a few things against you, because you have there them that hold to the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication.” (Rev. 2:14)

In this verse, Jesus refers to an incident which occurred in the book of Numbers. The false prophet Balaam had advised the king of Moab to use easy sex as a means of weakening the men of Israel in order to eventually overthrow them. Before long, “the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab” (Num. 25:1).

Sexual immorality was wielded as a weapon to weaken the nation’s men. If strong societies are built upon strong families, then anything that attempts to undermine the family unit threatens to compromise society and subsequently weaken the nation from within.

In that sense, porn is, therefore, political. And as Wilson goes on to say, it reveals an individual’s true political allegiance.

“Porn is political and it reveals where your heart is,” he says. “You could be the loudest anti-tax, Tea Party, freedom, don’t tread on me, Gadsden flag guy, but if you’ve got a porn habit, you are a traitor. If you’ve got a porn habit you are on the other side.”

Porn is a political weapon of war. pic.twitter.com/Ex8VFdM4j8

— Caldron Pool (@CaldronPool) October 21, 2020

Today, it seems no effort is being spared when it comes to undermining marriage, which is the foundation of the family, and the family, which is the foundation of society. Porn is no doubt just another assault on God’s good design for sex, but that can impact on almost every aspect of life. Actions have consequences, some we may not have even yet considered.

While we might falsely imagine that what’s done in private has little to no impact on others, we’d do well to remember the warning in Proverbs 6:27, “Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned?” Can a nation of enervated porn addicts produce the virtuous men necessary for resisting the ever-increasing threat of tyranny? As always, the fight against the enemy without begins by conquering the enemy within.