Saving Sex

Hey Ikon parents,
I just thought i would update you on what we have been talking about at Ikon this past . If you are curious about what we are trying to accomplish with this series check out Pastor Mielke's message on the parent section of the Youth Web Site. This past Sunday we talked about Porn. we discussed how it affects our sexuality, our relationship with God, and our relationships with other people. Girls and guys also split up in to separate groups to discuss the impact porn has on guys and girls. Here are some of the statistics we discussed:

Size of the Industry
$57.0 billion world-wide - $12.0 billion US

The pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink
Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball, and basketball franchises.
US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, & NBC (6.2 billion).
Internet Pornography Sales
$4.9 billion

Pornographic websites
4.2 million (12% of total websites)

Pornographic pages
Country
Porn Pages

United States
244,661,900


Pornography Time Statistics
Every second - $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography
Every second - 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography
Every 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is being created in the United States



Children's Exposure to Pornography

Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography
11 years old

Largest Consumer of Internet Pornography
12-17 age group

15-17 year olds having multiple hardcore exposures
80%

8-16 year olds having viewed porn online
90% (most while doing homework)

Breakdown of male/female visitors to porn sites
72% male - 28% female

* 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.

· 38 percent of adults believe it is ‘morally acceptable’ to look at pictures of nudity or explicit sexual behaviorMorality Continues to Decay. Barna Research Group, 3 November, 2003. * 59 percent of adults believe it is ‘morally acceptable’ to have sexual thoughts or fantasiesMorality Continues to Decay. Barna Research Group, 3 November, 2003.* 38 percent of adults believe there is nothing wrong with pornography useMorality 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.

As you can see, pornography is a huge problem in our society and it greatly affects young people. It destroys the gift of sexuality and can really mess up our relationships and how we view members of the opposite sex. We hope that this night encouraged your teens to question what society sees as "OK" and to realize that God has called us all to something much better. As always, let me know if you have any questions.

God's Peace,
Peter