Study: Christian Men Look At a Lot of Porn—Who Knew?

LYNCHBURG, Va.—It may have come as a surprise to a lot of religious conservatives, though not so much to ordinary people, but a study of 388 self-identified Christian men commissioned by the "porn rescue" organization Proven Men Ministries and performed by the Barna Group has revealed that more than three-quarters of Christian men look at porn regularly. To get to the really good part first, of those who called themselves "born-again Christians," 95 percent admitted that they have looked at porn, with 54 percent admitting that such viewing takes place at least once a month—and 44 percent said they'd looked at it at work within the past three months. Of course, 388 isn't a very big sample size, but considering how attractive and useful porn can be, there's a good chance the Barna study isn't very far off—a chance that's buoyed by the finding that fully one-quarter of those who look at porn online erase their browsing history regularly to hide the fact that they've looked at the sexy content. Indeed, those 388 Christian men may be even hornier than regular folks, since the study found that 7 percent of the Christians (as well as 3 percent of the born-agains) look at porn "several times a day," compared with 3 percent of non-Christians, though the percents that look at the stuff just once a day are just about even between the three groups; respectively 12 percent, 11 percent and 10 percent. But it gets a bit more uneven (and more humorous) when the question is who does it several times a month, with 15 percent of regular Christians admitting to that, versus a whopping 21 percent of born-agains. There are several other fun figures to have come out of the study, such as: • 25 percent of Christian men ages 18-30 look at porn "several times a week," while 23 percent of 50- to 68-year-olds check it out at least once a month. • While just 5 percent of married Christians view porn several times a day, 14 percent do it several times a week and the same percentage several times per month, while 16 percent check it out at least once a month. • 29 percent of regular Christians, and 23 percent of born-agains, admitted they'd looked at porn at work once, beating out non-Christians, only 17 percent of whom said they'd viewed it there. • Fully half of the regular Christians said they first viewed porn when they were between 12 and 15 years old, as did nearly as many born-agains (43 percent). Also, 11 percent of regular Christians saw it first while less than 9 years old, as did 14 percent of the born-agains, while 17 percent of regular Christians aged 9-11 got their first glimpse, as did 20 percent of the born-agains of the same age group. • And while it may have nothing to do with their porn watching, 7 percent of regular Christians and 9 percent of born-agains admitted to having had intercourse when they were younger than 13, while in the 13-15 age group, 17 percent of the regular Christians and 18 percent of the born-agains Did It—and most (39 and 34 percent respectively) found out how to Do It from their friends, while less than 7 percent got the info from a sex ed class. • Also possibly unconnected with their porn watching, 35 percent of regular Christians, and 31 percent of born-agains, admitted to having had extramarital affairs, with 19 percent of regular Christians stating that they'd had three or more such affairs, and 16 percent of born-agains admitting the same. To check out all of the stats, click here. We reiterate that 388 people is a very small sample—but if Proven Men can use the stats to try to convince Christian men to "help them break free from pornography," there's no reason why we can't use those same numbers to demonstrate what hypocrites anti-porn religious people can be!