I want to draw your attention to this new web site, Porn Fuels Rape.
My friends Daniel Gilman and Jonathan Van Maren have started this important initiative. They held an event at University of Ottawa campus recently.
Here’s what I love about this initiative:
- sexual ethics or the lack thereof is a real problem in our culture, particularly on campus
- this problem is typically addressed by (for lack of a better word) leftist feminists on campus
- leftist feminists on campus want to end sexual abuse, of this I am sure
- they do not come up with productive ideas on how to do so
- men need to speak to men about the nature of the problem
- porn is ubiquitous and I have seen it take good men down
- if we aren’t brave enough to identify porn as a major societal problem, then nothing’s gonna change
Enter Daniel, Jonathan and Peter with a public condemnation of porn, so much of which is coerced and actually rape itself, and which fuels the lucrative industry of human trafficking. They also bring the Christian message of hope and redemption into their presentation as I understand it. (I wasn’t able to attend.)
Courageous Canadians. They should be in the Globe and Mail when they do those Top 30 under 30 rankings. I know they won’t be, and I know these guys aren’t asking for recognition. They’ll get their reward in due course when someone more important than a Globe editor (imagine that!) says, “Well done, my good and faithful servants.”
Here’s Jonathan:
[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_T6MeGrc0E#t=32]
Here’s Daniel:
[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqSfPzpRFco]
by 
I was talking to a pair of student teachers at a Catholic College the other day. One had just come back from teaching a sex ed course at a junior high school. (The typical how to put condoms on bananas BS.) She had felt really limited by what she could talk to the students about, as her cooperating teacher had warned her about parents becoming defensive and complaining to the principal and what not. (Don’t get me started on her fear to speak her mind in the classroom–my belief is that teachers should speak their minds in the classroom, and if there is a problem, then the parent or the student should come in and try to work it out. But young teachers are really, really intimidated to speak out in the classroom. Grr.)
Did I have a point? Oh, yes. Anyway, in this grade-eighters-putting-condoms-on-bananas class, a couple of questions came up. One of these questions was “Is porn real?” Not surprisingly, the intimidated teacher didn’t answer the question, but I thought I’d put it out there: what would you say, in today’s overly permissive society, to an eighth grader who is wondering about porn?
I would start by saying “what do you mean by that question?” to me it’s not clear whether that student has seen p*rn, or heard the word or what. I’m told you should always deliberately ascertain exactly what is asked in order to provide information on that level…. 8th graders are encountering p*rn though, so it is best I think to acknowledge that, and compassionately spell out why it is degrading, and twists what is loving into something evil and cruel.
Thanks for sharing this, fantastic talks. It prompted me to post it on my blog too.