Pornified

I only threw up twice, but I was nauseous for almost the full 276 pages of this book. This book was twisted, repulsive, disgusting, and if you're in ministry or work around anyone younger than 40 on a regular basis, it needs to be the next book you read.

Pamela Paul is a writer for Time magazine and a freelance writer for many other magazines, and has done the most exhaustive study I've read on the consequences and costs of pornography in (and on) our society.

Pornified includes excerpts from interviews with more than a hundred people from mainstream society, and reveals that the average consumer of porn in today's society isn't the dirty old man down the street; it's the clean-cut middle-class guy (and girl) next door. Porn is no longer the "dirty little secret" between a man and the gas station attendant - it's accepted by a good portion of mainstream society as a perfectly normal thing.

Ms. Paul spends roughly the first half of the book with what amounts to a shock-and-awe description of the kinds of pornography that are available, the history of porn in modern society, and the different perspectives from which men and women view pornography.

Little disclaimer: I'm not a prude. I grew up in public school, and have worked in college, youth, and young adult ministry for around ten years. But this stuff blew my mind. When you hear people talk about "porn" today, they're not talking about an airbrushed supermodel in a relatively tame pose on the pages of Playboy. That's the porn of the pre-internet age where there was still a 'check' on pornography consumption - you had to go out in public to purchase something to satisfy your craving. Today's porn is free, private, and makes Hugh Hefner look like Mister Rogers.

Pornified pictures a world where porn functions just like a drug. You start with something relatively tame and use it until you need something stronger. Then you go off in search of something else stronger. Before long it can take over your life.

The most terrifying part of this book to me was the section that describes the effect of pornography on kids. It points out that many of our kids are being educated about sex and intimacy through the websites that are only two clicks away. Although it's too soon to measure the long term effects, studies already show a skewed ideology in kids' thinking about how human sexuality functions. The long-term effects on marriages and relationships are difficult to imagine.

Again, this book will make you sick to your stomach. It contains language and graphic descriptions that will make you blush, gasp, and vomit at the same time. But you need to read it. I have guys in my office every month who are struggling in this area. I hear of guys almost daily who have fallen in this area. And the problem isn't going to get better through our remaining ignorant.

Buy this book. Buy some Pepto Bismol. Someone you talk to in the future will be glad you did.