NASHVILLE (BP) — A major psychology publication has slammed pornography’s critics and endorsed so-called “ethical porn” as able to “enhance people’s well-being.”
Labeling pornography a public health crisis, as more than a dozen U.S. states have done, “risks diverting attention from the real issue: improving comprehensive sex education, including porn literacy,” wrote London psychotherapist Silva Neves in an October Psychology Today article titled “Pornography Is Not a Public Health Crisis.”
Denouncing porn “is not harmless rhetoric,” Neves wrote. “It can induce or amplify shame, which tends to entrench compulsive patterns rather than resolve them. It can lead people to self-diagnose an addiction they do not have and push them towards ‘recovery’ programmes that are not evidence-based, some with hidden religiosity.”
Neves continued, “There are multiple types of porn, from problematic” to “ethical porn which can enhance people’s well-being. The truth is that not all porn is bad, and sometimes there can even be benefits to watching some types of porn.”
Evan Lenow, Southern Baptists’ lead ethicist, said “it is hard to believe that a major psychology journal would make an attempt to defend pornography as good for society.”
“Contrary to the author’s conclusion, the harm pornography has done to our society cannot be ignored,” Lenow, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told Baptist Press. “Pornography produces physical, mental, emotional and relational damage. There is no place for pornography in God’s design for human flourishing, and Southern Baptists have denounced it unequivocally.”
Southern Baptist condemnations of pornography include Article XV of The Baptist Faith and Message and a 2025 SBC resolutionurging Congress and state legislatures “to enact comprehensive laws that ban the creation, publication, hosting, and distribution of pornographic content in all media.”
The resolution “denounce[d] pornography in every form as a distortion of God’s gift of sexuality to humanity.”
Neves rejected the biblical perspective. Not only is evidence of a pornography public health crisis weak, he wrote, but “there are even some studies suggesting that there are fewer sexual crimes in countries where porn is more widely available.” Problems noted among people who view pornography “are not caused by pornography because they can be associated with multiple other factors.”
Children “should not be exposed to explicit sexual materials,” Neves wrote. But pornography’s supposed beneficial effects for adults can include positive emotions, improved body image and a sense of “meaningful well-being” among homosexual populations.
Lenow countered that viewing pornography is both sinful and harmful.
“Whether pornography meets a technical definition of a ‘public health crisis’ is a moot point when it comes to a Christian evaluation,” he said. Pornography “is a sin, introducing outside people into the most intimate expression of marriage. Furthermore, pornography devalues individuals made in God’s image, turning them into products to be used and consumed. Therefore, Christians should neither view nor condone pornography.”
In addition to flouting God’s standards, Neves’s argument has logical flaws, said Mary Anne Mosack, president of Ascend, an organization that advocates a sexual risk avoidance approach to sex education.
“Mr. Neves concedes that children should not be exposed to pornography,” Mosack told BP. “That concession is exactly where his argument breaks down, because most children already are. A national Common Sense Media survey found that 73 percent of teens have seen pornography, with first exposure at age 12 on average, and that more than half had seen depictions of rape, choking or someone in pain. When harmful content reaches children at that scale, before they can consent or understand it, that is a public health concern by any reasonable definition.”
Neves’ research methodology also includes a “double standard,” she said. “He dismisses harms as ‘only correlational’ while relying on the same kinds of studies to claim benefits.”
The solution to the harms of pornography, Mosack said, includes sex education that protects young people.
“We agree that shaming young people does not help,” she said. “But the answer is not teaching children to consume pornography ‘wisely,’ as many comprehensive sex education programs do. It is equipping them to avoid it, strengthening the role of parents, whom teens say teach them more about sex than pornography does, and giving young people a clear, hopeful vision of healthy relationships. That is not fear. It is protection.”
The ERLC, Lenow said, will join that effort.
“The ERLC will continue to advocate for God’s good design for sexuality, comprehensive laws that ban pornographic content and the protection of all people, especially children, from its grip,” Lenow said. “Join us in praying toward these ends.”
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