It's Time for an Anti-Pornography Crusade
The Catholic Thing
By Mary Eberstadt Cornell University is my alma mater. I spent four years there in a scholarship house known widely as a redoubt of nerds. As it happened, Telluride House had as its neighbor one of the most raucous fraternities on campus – a juxtaposition not without occasional levity, including when the brothers banded together outdoors and chanted, "Hey Telluride! E equals mc squared!" in our direction. One Saturday night, as I was studying with a friend and distracted by noise from one of the frat's epic parties, I suggested that we go over to see what these fabled soirees were like. He was skeptical, but the booming speakers were making study impossible, so he indulged me and off we went. Within two minutes of entering, as he left to get drinks, I was accosted by a tall, plastered brother in possession of what he thought was a winning proposal: if he could guess my weight within five pounds, I should go upstairs with him. I laughed in his face, amused both by his ethanol-fueled chutzpah and by his swaying in the air above me like a mighty oak about to be felled. I motioned to my friend and we left the place, never to return. And that was the only thought I gave the episode until years later, when I was reading Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. A slew of memoirs of Greek life resulted in a column for TCT, urging Christian boys against joining fraternities. The lesson learned on that far-off Ithaca night – that frat parties are no place for an unescorted young woman – might seem obvious. But that is exactly the pregnant point: not anymore. Two years ago, at another Cornell fraternity, a young woman would make a different choice, and the resulting sordid tale would come to ricochet around the world. And though the details may be disputed in court from now until kingdom come, one fact is clear: she did not see it as ridiculous to acquiesce in what some smashed young men were up to. At least in the beginning, she saw acquiescence as her preferred choice. What has changed between then and now? This brings us to the answer that's gone missing in the commentary exploding everywhere over Cornell's "Jane Doe." In December 2008, thanks in part to forward-looking philanthropist Sean Fieler, a first-of-its-kind conference on "The Social Costs of Pornography" was held at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J. That conference had a major impact, including on my own thinking. It resulted in two critical books, also the first of their kind, summarizing evidence from doctors, therapists, neuroscientists, and other experts. That evidence pointed to a truth that overrules today's idolization of sexual autonomy: Pornography is poison. It alters brains, kills romance, and leads to intense loneliness. It creates addicts and destroys families. The empirical record has been well-documented since that landmark conference, and thereafter. The data are in. What should we do about them? Here are thoughts I shared with a conference of women organized to discuss "A Better Way Forward" just last month: If I could reduce years of meditating on this subject to one single action memo aimed at bettering the human condition, it would read like this. We need to re-stigmatize pornography. We – meaning not only those of us present, but also people across the West – need to understand that pornography today is like tobacco was yesterday: ubiquitous and toxic and in need of social reform. It is the enemy of romance. It licenses perversion. And pornography is also a major factor in today's cratering rates of marriage and babies. Those are the sad facts about a porn-drenched culture. And they call for a radical response: We need something like a movement and manifesto Against the Acceptance of Pornography. It should include secular as well as religious people, and as many of the walking wounded as can be rallied – as well as the heads of faithful Christian universities and colleges, and celebrities, and therapists, and anyone else committed enough to sig...