Adolescent Porn Viewing and Religious Context: Is the Eye Still the Light of the Body?

Abstract

ABSTRACT While prior research has examined the relationship between personal religiosity and porn viewing, little do we know about the overall religious context and its influence on porn viewing. Using two waves of data from the National Study of Youth and Religion merged with county-level U.S. Census and religious data, this study finds that the higher the county-level conservative Protestant population share, the higher the chances of porn viewing during adolescence. This relationship remains robust even after controlling for a host of individual, peer, family, and county-level variables. Further analyses reveal that within a conservative Protestant religious context, non-conservative Protestant youth are more likely to view porn than their conservative Protestant peers, the gap of which widens when county-level conservative Protestant population share increases. A similar yet stronger religious contextual effect is found for county-level total religious adherence rates: a one unit increase in county-level total religious adherence rates is associated with an increase in the odds of porn viewing by 66.53%.