A conservative religious environment strongly increases the chances of adolescent porn viewing, study finds

New research has found a link between religious environments in the United States and porn-viewing among youth. The study, published in Deviant Behavior, strengthens the findings of existing research by using multilevel data to account for important differences between individuals.

Why were researchers interested in this topic?

“Compared to research conducted at the individual level, there is a paucity of research examining how the overall religious context may influence adolescent porn viewing, which is related to deleterious development outcomes, such as substance use and mental stress,” explained study author Fanhao Nie, an assistant professor of sociology at Valdosta State University.

“Among the scant research on religious context and porn viewing, individual-level variables are usually unaccounted for. Thus, it is unclear to us what kind of people within a given religious context are actually watching porn. For instance, some prior research found that state-level population share of evangelical Protestant is associated with more frequent porn searches on Google (Whitehead and Perry 2017).”

“Without controlling for individual religious identity, however, it might be possible that those who have searched for porn in evangelical Protestant states are people who are not evangelical Protestants but live in predominantly evangelical Protestant states. The contrary might also hold true: it is the religious majority—evangelical Protestants whose frequent porn searches leads to what has been found about porn in evangelical Protestant states. In conclusion, those research gaps along with the significant social and health impacts of porn viewing on adolescents lead me to conduct this research,” Nie explained.

The study combined individual-level data from the National Study of Youth and Religion with county-level data from the 2000 U.S. Census and an independent census of religious congregations. The individual-level data (from 3,370 U.S. youth and their parents) allowed the researchers to control for age, gender, religious service attendance, importance of religion in life, parent educational attainment, and several other religious and demographic factors.

Even after accounting for confounding variables, the researchers found that county-level religious adherence rates still increased the odds of watching porn during adolescence by 66.53%, regardless of religious identity. Similarly, youth were more likely to report viewing pornography in counties with a higher share of conservative Protestants, especially among youth who were not conservative Protestants themselves.

What’s the main takeaway from the study?

“I think the message from these results is that when it comes to preventing youth sexual deviance, more needs to be done beyond simply promoting high personal religious devotion and strict parental control. As one can see from this study, instead of curbing porn viewing, a predominantly conservative Protestant religious environment turns out to increase chance of adolescent porn viewing,” Nie told PsyPost.

“My speculation is that it might be due to the pressure from conservative Protestant culture which forbids or even shames overt sexual expression. Under such a religious cultural context, youth may have no other option but to seek out sexual opportunities, including porn viewing, covertly.”

“Perhaps, we, especially the religious leaders, should rethink the traditional approach we have been taking for granted when dealing with sex-related topics. Instead of promoting the prohibitive and avoidant attitude towards sex which may only stimulate more rebellious and risk-taking behaviors among the youth, we may want to have more open dialogs with the young congregants to help them establish a more open-minded, objective perspective on the role and purpose of sex,” Nie said.

The study helps to confirm the link between religious environments and pornography use in the United States. However, there are still some questions that future research needs to address.

“The data used in this study are based in the Judeo-Christian social context in North America. However, other major religions, such as Islam, also have prohibitive teachings against indiscriminate sexual activity and the dangers of watching porn. To understand the relationship between religious context and porn viewing in other socio-cultural contexts, one would need data derived from a more diverse set of population,” Nie explained.

“The other issue is related to time, the data used in this study were collected before 2008 when smartphones were not as popular as nowadays. What kind of impact will smartphone bring to the relationship between religious context and porn viewing? Will variables, such as access to smartphone, explain at least part of the relationship found in this study? More recent data may be better able to update us with answers to those questions.”

“In addition to what is discussed in the previous question, measures on community-level public health resources should also be considered when studying youth sexual deviance. Studies have shown that a predominantly conservative religious context is associated with less interest in and commitment to social investment in public health resources (Beyerlein and Hipp 2005),” Nie added.

“Thus, it might be possible that the inadequate public health resources and education is also responsible for adolescent porn viewing and perhaps a wide range of other negative health related outcomes in conservative religious contexts. In sum, religious context matters.”