Published July 31, 2024
Among the many surprises awaiting viewers of the Republican National Convention two weeks ago, perhaps none was quite so jarring as the appearance of porn star Amber Rose on stage. Declaring her newfound realization that “Donald Trump and his supporters don’t care if you’re black, white, gay, or straight; it’s all love,” Rose alarmed and outraged many religious conservatives who hesitated to take lessons on the meaning of “love” from an OnlyFans influencer. But should we have been surprised? Perhaps pornography is, to borrow the cliché, simply the new normal.
In the early 2000s, broadband internet became widely available, abolishing the barriers of time and space that have been humanity’s greatest ally in controlling access to pornography and other fuel for sinful desires. But a sense of shame and decency still limited porn consumption—especially for children—in an era when you needed a desktop or laptop computer to view it online. From 2007 onward, however, you could carry a device with access to the internet in your pocket, and many parents lost little time in putting these portable porn delivery systems in their kids’ Christmas stockings. Today, almost everyone under 30 has come of age in a context that takes on-demand porn access for granted. By some estimates, more than 90 percent of men and 60 percent of women now regularly consume pornography in some form.
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Brad Littlejohn, Ph.D., is a Fellow in EPPC’s Evangelicals in Civic Life Program, where his work focuses on helping public leaders understand the intellectual and historical foundations of our current breakdown of public trust, social cohesion, and sound governance. His research investigates shifting understandings of the nature of freedom and authority, and how a more full-orbed conception of freedom, rooted in the Christian tradition, can inform policy that respects both the dignity of the individual and the urgency of the common good. He also serves as President of the Davenant Institute.
