The College Fix

College Fix contributor Michael Bradley, a student at the University of Notre Dame, recently penned a column for Ethika Politika on what he called “The Saddest Status Quo,” or the high frequency that college students masturbate to porn.

I’ll go out on a limb here and claim that for most American male college students, masturbating to pornography is so common as to be unremarkable—like brushing one’s teeth or doing one’s homework. This practice is so embedded in the American male psyche as an acceptable habit that it is assumed by men of other men. It’s a normative part of being a guy. Therein lies the problem.

Highlighting the social costs of pornography—as the Witherspoon Institute has admirably done—is not going to change how men judge their own pornographic consumption because it constitutes a consequentialist rebuttal of these bad habits.

The heart of the pornography and masturbation problems is a “manhood culture” that promotes a vision of manliness that is enhanced by, rather than incompatible with, such habits. …

When the inside crowd of any given community “okays,” by word or deed or both, certain ways of living, those practices embed and endure over time as new community members perpetuate the cycle. Everybody knows this. It’s human psychology. It’s this cycle, and not just “the way guys are,” that is largely responsible for this epidemic. Boys are being exposed to pornography prior to puberty. It isn’t lust that’s driving the pornography industry. It’s the industry that’s inculcating lust in boys who aren’t all that inclined to lust, because that industry stands to gain a mammoth profit for their viciousness.

The epidemic of pornography and masturbation cannot be explained by adolescents blindly stumbling upon this magic combination for cheap pleasure. It is held out to them by those already under its spell.

Click here to read the full column.

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