I see that ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)have approved a porn domain. It has been a long time since we had .com and .co.uk suffixes and now added to the pile we are about to have .xxx as a domain for porn.
The battle by some groups to prevent what might be seen as a legitimisation of porn has been lost and yet many of those who publish the stuff are not that happy about the move either as they see in it the potential for their material to be 'ghettoised'.
Personally I would be happy to see this move as it has the potential for me to filter all .xxx content from our servers and browsers and it was also (hopefully) remove some of the material already out there from the mainstream domains. After all, those who seek porn will always find it and other than removing or restricting content, there's no way to limit it and so this is nor a bad outcome.
I meet people who are addicted to pornography and what they see begins to shape what they do (or want to do) and colours their attitudes to their partner (or partners) to the extent that it has destroyed marriages. The reality is that regardless of domain, nothing other than engagement, pastoral intervention and some firm talking is going to restrict the effect of porn. The fact that it is so easily found on the internet is not good or helpful, but is a mirror to the casual sex ridden, almost abusive society, we inhabit and this should motivate Christians to get involved in the area of relationships (how many do marriage courses for those before marriage and once they're married?).
So before people start throwing up their hands and moan that all is lost, let's ask ourselves (honestly) what we are doing to be engaged, to work in the area of educating people over the problems of porn and to (I know, I keep saying it) be the difference.
Too many people merely campaign and do nothing on the ground where the needs are - but that's not us, is it?
Pax
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