By: Shane James O’Neill
3 min. read
COVID and Porn
COVID-19, a global health crisis, meets pornography, a public health crisis. The coronavirus has been devastating, to say the least. It has touched our lives in every conceivable way — our health, our finances, our travel, our relationships. And now, it is impacting our isolation.
The world’s largest online porn distributor gave free premium access of their content to Italy, Spain, and France. Consequently, there has been a massive spike in pornography. And the spike in porn isn’t just in those countries, but across the world. People are lonely, people are isolated from relationships, people have more time on their hands, and people are bored. And in comes porn to meet all those needs.
Porn viewership doubled then tripled then quadrupled. In other words, pornography is making a killing off this virus.
Here’s the rough irony, pornography has been declared a public health crisis not just because of its intense connection to sexual abuse and sex trafficking, but for its impact on mental health. Pornography will make you more anxious, more depressed, and it exacerbates isolation.
We’re isolated because of COVID but porn takes that isolation to an entirely different level.
Studies have shown and continue to show that porn makes people feel more and more lonely and it has a detrimental effect upon relationships, pushing people into deeper isolation and causing them to feel unknown by the people closest to them.
As COVID continues, more isolation will ensue. More people will watch porn, and thus find themselves even more isolated. The circular impact is an ugly one.
We know you’re isolated, we all are. So, what do we do about that?
Becoming Human
There’s always an image of the kind of person that I long to become. We all have that. We have financial goals, relational goals, reading goals, spiritual formation practices, even ways that we want to grow in grace and peace and love. Some of our goals are external (social and work related), but many are internal.
So, what if we used this time to become the kind of person we long to be. Instead of binging on Netflix or YouTube, read Scripture for 5-10 minutes (maybe just a chapter) and then get yourself to go for a walk to pray and process.
That’s simple, right? Read, then walk. Doing that every day will bring you so much closer to the person you long to become.
And if you want to watch a movie or a show (or YouTube fails), invite someone to watch with you. Or, if you’re feeling extremely brave, only watch shows and movies when you’re with other people.
Learning from COVID
If this global event shows us anything, it’s that we’re deeply relational beings who need to live with purpose. In times of isolation, we become wayward and aimless, and so we sin. Well, we don’t just sin, we binge-sin like there’s no tomorrow. Which is easy to justify, considering we’re in a pandemic of global proportions. Yet, we’re only allowing a different virus to infect us. And like COVID, this other virus is passed from one person to the next, between loved ones and strangers, alike.
As we combat COVID through isolation, let’s not intensify that isolation through the means of another virus. COVID eats away at our body, and the other uses our bodies to eat away at our souls.
In your isolation, talk with the one who was isolated for you. Jesus lost all of his relationships and was utterly left alone to die an isolated death. He did that so He could know us in our isolation. So, let Him. Ask Him about His isolation, read about it, sit with Him in it.
He is near to both the broken and the bored.
Grace and peace as you seek His compassionate face and grow in the knowledge of God’s isolation on your behalf.
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Shane James O’Neill is the Editorial Director for Proven Men Ministries. He is currently working on a graduate degree in apologetics at Liberty University’s Rawling School of Divinity.