The Abstinence Clearinghouse Blog

I finally got my Barnes & Noble membership card in the mail last week. This week, I’ll send it back.

I was walking past the bookstore’s magazine racks the other day when something caught my eye. I’d certainly never seen magazines in plastic bags here before. And in a section like “Men’s Interest,” that could mean one thing. B&N is now selling Playboy, Penthouse, Women With Women, and a number of others. I didn’t care to investigate how much, if any, of the covers were covered by black paper. I could just read the titles as they stuck up from behind magazines about hardware and rifles.

Now, some might call me a hypocrite, and it may be the truth. B&N has long carried such soft-core magazines as Maxim, Stuff, and GQ, not to mention the Lowrider sort of magazines, the covers of which feature shiny cars obscured by the bikini clad women draped over the hood. What’s more, their “Sex & Relationship” section is lined with books covered with graphic photos of couples engaging in sex. Unlike the afore-mentioned porn mags, these books are at eye level for any child who happens to wander through that aisle. In this vein, B&N’s website lists over 750 “Sex Guides & Manuals”. This is in addition to the countless pieces of erotic “literature” (including the entire romance section), erotic coffee table books, and a number of DVDs in the electronic media section.

Here’s the point. Pornography. We’re steeped in it.

And I just think you should know. I’m sick of it.

I think I should be able to walk into a bookstore for a cup of coffee without being assaulted by it. I think kids should be able to do their homework online without stumbling across it. I think our culture needs to learn to respect men and women alike and view them as people rather than sexual objects.

Ever wonder why porn is such a huge industry? Ever wonder why there’s magazine after magazine, book after book, photo after photo, printed and uploaded and distributed? Why so many videos, websites, and stores?

Because porn is unsatisfying.

If it was satisfying, there wouldn’t be a need for newer and harder material. But porn is progressive, degenerative, and consuming. It erodes persons’ expectations and understandings of people and relationships. It destroys marriages, corrupts childhood, kills relationships, fuels abuse, and degrades human dignity.

It needs to end.