But is porn 2.0 actually porn? Can we really consider sexting with a romantic interest on the same plane as watching unknown actors have sex? Or looking at nude pictures of strangers?
Why not? If our general definition of pornography is a sexual image used for personal arousal. Then is our goal in getting a nude picture of a boyfriend or girlfriend any different?
Porn 2.0 offers much of the same promise as traditional pornography: a disembodied, visual experience without the attachments or intimacy of sex. And, there is variety here as well, because the truth is – sexting often happens well before a relationship begins. In those early “get to know you stages” and it’s not at all unlikely that a person is sexting with multiple potential partners at any one time. If he’s asking you for pictures, he’s probably asking someone else for pictures too.
Fully 62 percent of teens and young adults say they have received a nude image—generally from a boyfriend or girlfriend. Forty percent have sent a nude image—again, usually to a boyfriend or girlfriend.
Here’s the thing, though: Even if we all agree together to call sexting and snapchatting nude pictures a form of pornography, we must also acknowledge together that porn 2.0 is not just porn reimagined in a new format.
Porn 2.0 is a new step in pornography because it is personal. And it is a particularly dangerous step because it invites us to not only sexualize our relationships—which we’ve already been doing for a plenty long time—it also invites us to disembody and therefore detach from our relationships. To, in short, objectify them.
You have a crush on a girl? With a little bit of persuasion, you can convince her to send you a topless photo. You get to experience her body—and probably personal pleasure—without intimacy, without physical proximity, without any of the embodied risks of physical sex. You give nothing of yourself.
Of course, you have asked something of her. And this is another danger of porn 2.0. Those who are sending photos begin to feel their own sense of validation and self-worth coming from the objectification and the distribution of their bodies. “If I want him to like me, I have to do this. All the other girls would do this.”
Now, I know I’m beginning to gender this: to make assumptions that the requestor is a boy and the sender is a girl. But, the stats bear this out: we found that girls are both more likely to send and to receive nude images. At first, this seemed odd. Like someone wasn’t telling the truth: if girls are saying they send more images than guys and they receive more images than guys, then who are they sending and receiving from?
The more I thought about this though—and the more I reckoned it with my own experiences and those of my friends—the more I realized what’s happening. Men are the initiators. They are the ones asking for the pictures. They are also the ones often sending the pictures. However, not all guys are engaging in this. There are plenty of men who aren’t asking for or sending nude photos. They are choosing not to do this and so they are, primarily, immune to the phenomenon. Girls, on the other hand, are indiscriminately targeted. They may not initiate, but they will inevitably be forced to respond to a request for a photo or to a photo showing up in their text. Whether they want to engage or not, women will experience this reality.
Porn 2.0 may feel like a sideways conversation from the broader concerns of pornography. But porn 2.0 is destructive. It’s destructive to our ideas of healthy sexuality, our body images and self-confidence, our fledgling relationships and our call to live in intimate, embodied presence with one another.
Porn 2.0 is a reality we can’t ignore as ministers and spiritual leaders. It is the reality our young people are living in—and a significant new contour to the life of the single, dating teen and young adult.
A native New Yorker, George Barna has filled executive roles in politics, marketing, advertising, media, research and ministry. He founded the Barna Research Group (now The Barna Group) in 1984 and helped it become a leading marketing research firm focused on the intersection of faith and culture. The company has served several hundred parachurch ministries and thousands of Christian churches throughout the country. It has also supplied research to numerous corporations and non-profit organizations, as well as to the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army.
To date, Barna has written 48 books, mostly addressing leadership, trends, church health and spiritual development. They include best-sellers such as Revolution, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions, The Frog in the Kettle, and The Power of Vision. His most recent book is Revolutionary Parenting. Several of his books have received national awards. He has had more than 100 articles published in periodicals and writes a bi-weekly research report (The Barna Update) accessed by more than a million people each year, through his firm’s website (www.barna.org). His work is frequently cited as an authoritative source by the media. He has been hailed as "the most quoted person in the Christian Church today" and has been named by various media as one of the nation’s most influential Christian leaders.
He is a popular speaker at ministry conferences around the world and has taught at Pepperdine and Biola Universities and several seminaries. Barna served as a pastor of a large, multi-ethnic church and has been involved in several church start-ups.
After graduating summa cum laude from Boston College, Barna earned two Master's degrees from Rutgers University. At Rutgers, he was awarded the Eagleton Fellowship. He also received a doctorate from Dallas Baptist University. He lives with his wife (Nancy) and their three daughters (Samantha, Corban, Christine) in southern California. He enjoys reading novels, watching movies, playing guitar, and relaxing on the beach.