A few scary thoughts...
* At 12 billion a year, the revenues of the sex and porn industry in the U.S. are bigger than the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball combined. Worldwide porn sales are reported to be 57 billion. To put this in perspective, Microsoft, who sells the operating system used on most of the computers in the world (in addition to other software) reported sales of 36.8 billion in 2004.
Family Safe Media
*4.28 billion: Revenues in the U.S. in 2005 of adult movie sales and video rentals alone.
AVN News, State of the Adult Industry
* 60% of all website visits are sexual in nature.
MSNBC Survey 2000
* The No. 1 search term used at search engine sites is the word “sex”. Users searched for “sex” more than other terms such as "games," "travel," "music," "jokes," "cars," "weather," "health" and "jobs" combined. The study also found that "pornography/porno" was the fourth-most searched for subject.
Alexa Research
*45 million: The approximate number of unique visitors to adult web sites in April 2005.
AVN News, State of the Adult Industry
* A 2000 MSNBC.com survey found that as many as 80 percent of visitors to sex sites were spending so much time tracking down erotica on the computer that they were putting their real-life relationships and/or jobs at risk. "Until they discovered cyber sex, most of these people had no problems with sexual addition," according to the survey's author, Al Cooper, a sex therapist at the San Jose Marital Services and Sexuality Center in San Jose, Calif.
* 77% of online visitors to adult content sites are male. Their average age is 41 and they have an annual income of $60,000. 46% are married.
Forrester Research Report, 2001
* In 2001, in a study of 7037 adults, two thirds of those who visit web sites with sexual content say their Internet activities haven't affected their level of sexual activity with their partners, though 75% report masturbating while on line.
Divorcewizards.com
* The U.S. Customs Service estimates that there are more than 100,000 web sites offering child pornography (which are illegal) worldwide.
Red Herring Magazine, 1/18/02
* Hollywood currently releases 11,000 adult movies per year – more than 20 times the mainstream movie production.
LA Times Magazine, 2002
* 39 million homes receive the adult channels in scrambled form, while the number of children with potential exposure to such images is about 29 million.
Morality Continues to Decay . Barna Research Group, November 3, 2003
* One in 4 American adults surveyed in 2002 admitted to seeing an x-rated movie in the last year.
National Opinion Research Letter
* "The porn industry employs an excess of 12,000 people in California. In California alone the porn industry pays over $36 million in taxes every year."
Bill Lyon, a former lobbyist for the defense industry turned lobbyist for porn, as quoted by CBS News November 2003.
* In a Kinsey Institute survey, respondents were asked "Why do you use porn?"
72% said they used porn to masturbate/for physical release.
69% - to sexually arouse themselves and/or others.
54% - out of curiosity.
43% - "because I can fantasize about things I would not necessarily want in real life."
38% - to distract myself.
* “Most girls who enter the porn industry do one video and quit. The experience is so painful, horrifying, embarrassing, humiliating for them that they never do it again.”
Luke Ford, quoted by CBS News
* A study of university networks by Palisades Systems found searches for child pornography at 230 colleges nationwide. The research revealed that 42% of all searches on file-to-file sharing systems involved child or adult pornography. The study also found that 73% of movie searches were for pornography, 24% percent of image searches were for child pornography, and only 3% of the searches did not involve pornography or copyrighted materials.
April 1, 2003 – Des Moines Register
* Queen's University in Belfast conducted a survey of 350 businesses in the U.S. , U.K. and Australia for the porn-filtering firm SurfControl. 28% of those questioned said they had downloaded sexually explicit content from the Web while on the job. U.S.-based employees were slightly less likely to do so than workers in other countries. The survey also found abuse to be slightly higher in organizations with more than 500 employees. Of the 31 percent of employees who distributed sexually explicit material from work, 36 percent worked at companies larger than 500 employees; 27 percent worked for companies with 20 employees or less.
MSNBC 9-6-04
* In May 2004 Businessweek printed the results of a ComScore Networks survey where 44% of U.S. workers with an internet connection admitted to accessing an X rated web site at work in the month of March 2004, as compared to 40% of home users and 59% of University users.
* More than 30% of 1,500 surveyed companies have terminated employees for inappropriate use of the Internet, while only 37.5% of companies use filtering software.
Websense Incorporated and The Center for Internet Studies, 2000
* 17% of all women struggle with porn addiction
* 1 of 3 visitors to all adult web sites are women
* 9.4 million women access adult web sites every month
Internet Filter Review
* 38 percent of adults believe it is ‘morally acceptable' to look at pictures of nudity or explicit sexual behavior.
Morality Continues to Decay. Barna Research Group, 3 November, 2003
* 59 percent of adults believe it is ‘morally acceptable' to have sexual thoughts or fantasies.
Morality Continues to Decay . Barna Research Group, 3 November, 2003
* 38 percent of adults believe there is nothing wrong with pornography use.
Morality Continues to Decay . Barna Research Group, 3 November, 2003
* 42 percent of surveyed adults indicated that their partner's use of pornography made them feel insecure.
Marriage Related Research , Mark A. Yarhouse, Psy.D. Christian Counseling Today, 2004 Vol. 12 No. 1
* 41 percent of surveyed adults admitted they felt less attractive due to their partner's pornography use.
Marriage Related Research , Mark A. Yarhouse, Psy.D. Christian Counseling Today, 2004 Vol. 12 No. 1
* August 7,2006: 50% of all Christian men and 20% of all Christian women are addicted to pornography. 60% of the women who answered the survey admitted to having significant struggles with lust; 40% admitted to being involved in sexual sin in the past year; and 20% of the church-going female participants struggle with looking at pornography on an ongoing basis.
From the results of a ChristiaNet poll reported by Marketwire.com
* In December of 2000, the National Coalition to Protect Children and Families surveyed 5 Christian Campuses to see how the next generation of believers was doing with sexual purity:
48% of males admitted to current porn use
68% of males said they intentionally viewed a sexually explicit site at the school
* A 1996 Promise Keepers survey at one of their stadium events revealed that over 50% of the men in attendance were involved with pornography within one week of attending the event.
* In 2000 Christianity Today survey , 33% of clergy admitted to having visited a sexually explicit Web site. Of those who had visited a porn site, 53% had visited such sites “a few times” in the past year, and 18% visit sexually explicit sites between a couple of times a month and more than once a week.
* Out of 81 pastors surveyed (74 males 7 female), 98% had been exposed to porn; 43% intentionally accessed a sexually explicit web site.
National Coalition survey of pastors. Seattle. April 2000.
* 47% percent of families said pornography is a problem in their home.
Focus on the Family Poll, October 1, 2003.
* In a survey of over 500 Christian men at a men's retreat, over 90% admitted that they were feeling disconnected from God because lust, porn, or fantasy had gained a foothold in their lives.
As reported in an article on Pastors.com by Kenny Luck.
In March 2005 Christianity Today published the results of a study called “Christians and Sex” in their Leadership Journal. 680 pastors and 1,972 laypersons were surveyed, with the following results:
* 44% of churchgoers want to hear more scriptural teaching from their pastors on the subject of sex.
* 22% of pastors feel they should spend more time on the topic.
* 85% of pastors say they speak about sexual issues once a year, while 63% of churchgoers say their pastors do so. Among those churchgoers who say they want their pastors to preach more about sexual issues, 47% say their pastor speaks about it once a year, an even bigger difference of opinion. A CTI analyst was quoted saying "Perhaps this desire for more biblical exposition on sexual issues exists because pastors are not speaking forcefully or clearly enough, while exposure to sexual images and messages in today's media is ever more heightened."
* 57% of pastors say that addiction to pornography is the most sexually damaging issue to their congregation.
* Almost 9 in 10 pastors reported counseling a layperson on sexual issues once a year or more.