A 2008 study on university campuses found that a whopping 87 percent of "emerging" adult men (aged 18-26), and 31 percent of emerging adult women report using porn at some level. Twenty percent of young men report using pornography daily or every other day, and almost half use it at least weekly. But the shock factor of pornography consumption statistics do not stop there: The sky is blue and men view porn—we’ve lost the shock value in our passive acceptance. Perhaps the more telling pornography statistic is that slightly over two thirds of young men, and nearly half of young women believe that porn consumption is morally acceptable.

This statistic of acceptance is particularly interesting because it is pulled from our generation, which often defines right and wrong in terms of consequences. Consequence-based morality maintains that if something doesn’t hurt yourself or others, it’s not wrong. The principle of “Thou shalt not hurt” thus becomes the backbone of discursive moral reasoning, as observed by the National Study of Youth and Religion. Removing an external moral standard from moral reasoning makes it difficult to condemn sex trafficking, exploitation, and violence, much less explicit sexual content and nudity. But even in terms of a “Thou shalt not hurt” moral code, passively accepting pornography overlooks the very real consequences of porn consumption.

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