Our culture is saturated with sexual images.  We have become a “pornified” society.  The reason for this is simple – SEX SELLS.  However, people often ask me how we got to this point.  How did we get to the place where society accepts pornography? Pornography has been around for thousands of years.  It has been found on cave walls, on ancient Greek pottery, and in medieval paintings.  However, it was never as openly accepted by western cultures as it is today.

To understand how we got to this place, we have to look at the history of modern technology, marketing, and cultural beliefs as they pertain to porn.  I believe society’s widespread acceptance of modern pornography started in the 1940s with the “pinup girls.”  These were pictures of women, usually clad in bathing suits or bikinis, printed on calendars.  It was common for service men in World War II to carry them to “give them strength and courage to win the war.”  This led to the later acceptance of nude pornography.

In the early 1950s, a man named Hugh Hefner published a new magazine called Playboy.  It would go on to become the most popular pornographic magazine in America.  Because of society’s sanctions against pornography, Hefner decided not to market the magazine as pornography.  Instead, h marketed it as a men’s lifestyle magazine.  He hired some of the best journalists to write for the magazine and articles covered topics ranging form sports to politics to fashion.  There were also the photos of nude women.  Hefner’s marketing scheme led to the widespread acceptance of the magazine and pornography.  This eventually led to the acceptance of other specifically pornographic magazines, such as Penthouse and Hustler. 

The sexual revolution of the late 1960s added to the acceptance of pornography.  The revolution reduced sex to a recreational activity and pornography promoted it.  The acceptance of pornography and sexual promiscuity continued to grow throughout the following decades.  Because sex sells, advertisers and cable television began to push the envelope with more sexual images.  As a society, we became immune to many of these images.  Ads and TV shows that would have been considered obscene and banned in the 1950s were now commonplace.  Cable and satellite television now commonly offer hard core pornography channels.  Hotel rooms offer pornography to guest on their televisions.  And we as a society have accepted all of this.

The acceptance and widespread use of pornography got another strong boost in the early 1980s.  At that time, many American families were purchasing video cassette recorders (VCRs) for their homes.  Because of the demand for movies, small “mom & pop” video rental stores opened in most communities.  In many of these stores there was the “back room” which housed the pornographic movies.  At that point, the sleazy porn shop in the seedy part of town came into everyone’s community, as we accepted it.  People even made jokes about “the back room.”  The mom & pop stores soon gave way to national chains, such as West Coast Video.  DVDs replaced video cassettes and acceptance continued to grow.  While pornography addiction has been around for centuries, I believe it was the introduction of the VCR that began the rapid increase of pornography addiction in America.  It made pornography more accessible.

Finally, the internet emerged in the early 1990s.  Pornographers saw this as a great opportunity for widespread promotion of pornography and huge profits.  Because pornography had become so accepted in society and first amendment rights, it was easy to sell porn on the internet.  Finally, pornography was just a click away.  One no longer needed to go to the porn shop or video rental store for it.  Here is where pornography addiction became an epidemic.  Internet pornography is like crack cocaine.  It’s easily accessible and easily addictive.  Millions of men have become addicted.

Pornographers are very technologically savvy.  They have been able to use each new advance in media technology to promote their products.  They are also wizards at marketing.  They have managed to get mainstream media and many Americans to refer to pornography as “adult entertainment” furthering the acceptance of it.  Porn stars are now even making to crossover into mainstream entertainment.  Major media companies that once only produced family movies are now producing pornography.  And we have accepted it.

The main goal of pornographers is to make money.  Pornography is not simply entertainment, art or free speech.  It’s business!  If we can understand how they operate to lure us into their trap, we can effectively avoid it.  This can help in the successful treatment, and avoidance, of pornography addiction.  By educating the public on how pornographers operate we might even turn the tide of widespread acceptance.  How wonderful our society would be if there was widespread rejection of pornography!  This, I believe, is our duty as virtuous Catholic men.

If you or someone you love is struggling with pornography, we urge you to contact Peter C. Kleponis, Ph.D. at 610-397-0960 or pklepon91@aol.com.  Dr. Kleponis is Assistant Director of Comprehensive Counseling Services in West Conshohocken, PA.  He has helped hundreds of individuals and couples recover from pornography addiction.  Dr. Kleponis works with clients in-person, by phone, and by Skype.