Nearly all the people who experience porn-related problems say that the ready availability of pornography on the Internet and other electronic devices is at least partially responsible. Porn’s promise of easy, commitment-free sexual gratification can be just too hard to resist when pornographic pictures, videos, chats, and games are only a mouse or remote click away, any time, day or night. Our high-tech world allows people to access porn anonymously, without having to face a salesperson knowing they’re renting or buying X-rated materials.
Thirty years ago, getting your hands on pornography required time, money, and effort. Today it takes time, money, and effort to get away from porn. With unsolicited e-mails, deceptive links, and pop-up windows, porn can make its way into our lives whether we want it to or not. As one man said, “You no longer have to go looking for porn, porn is looking for you!”
Just a generation ago, only a small minority of people would have been considered regular porn users; today porn reaches an unprecedented number of people of all ages and from all walks of life. And it reaches them 365 days a year, 24/7. In the United States alone, forty million people visit Internet porn sites at least once a month. Some visit for only a few minutes at a time, while others stay for hours on a regular basis. A whopping 25 percent of all daily Internet search engine requests and 35 percent of all downloads are for pornography.
As you might expect, most regular porn users are male (75-85 percent), but the number of females using porn has been growing in recent years. You may be shocked to learn—we know we were—that youth under the age of eighteen have become one of the largest consumer groups of porn. With this earlier start, it’s no wonder that people are getting hooked faster, more seriously, and in greater numbers than ever before.