NOEMY BANUELOS
STAFF WRITER
On the evening of Monday, Nov. 6, the laughter of over a hundred students could be heard around the J.C. Williams Center as a national pornography speaker for Catholic Answers delivered the final talk for Franciscan University’s Gift of Human Sexuality Symposium.
Through a lively presentation, speaker Matt Fradd shared the dangers and effects pornography can have on the human person, and he concluded with practical tips for overcoming it.
Fradd immediately captured the audience’s attention when he opened by saying that many people who grew up with internet porn are now becoming advocates for turning it off, according to Time Magazine.
“Right now there are 40 neuroscience-based studies on porn users and every one of them lends strong support for the addiction model,” he said. “There are at least 27 studies linking porn to sexual dysfunction.”
Fradd shared many personal stories, but he also grounded his talk in Scripture. He spoke about Genesis 3:12 when he said, “Sexual desire is good. … It is a God-given gift that ought to propel us to make a gift of ourselves.”
Hannah Baker, a first-year pre-nursing major, particularly appreciated Fradd’s sincerity of speech, saying, “I think the way Matt speaks – with complete honesty, pure bluntness, true interest in the good of the other – is something very needed in the culture right now. The tough problems need to be properly addressed to begin to be solved.”
He also brought up important points such as Pope St. John Paul II’s message on love, that “the human person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love,” and that “the problem with porn is not that it shows too much, it is that it shows too little of the human person; it reduces the mystery and personality of (a person) … pornography is intrinsically evil, an intrinsically disordered act.”
One point that stood out to Nicole Finocchio, a freshman education major, and Molly Propson, a freshman accounting major, was the “emphasis” Fradd placed on “making children aware of the issues of porn, so that it may prohibit any future addictions.”
He ended his talk with three helpful steps to combat this porn addiction: find a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, attend a Sexaholics Anonymous (SA) group and find a good spiritual director.
Fradd also provide resources for people who want further information on the topic, including Gary Wilson’s Yourbrainonporn.com; the app called Victory on iPhone; Fightthegoodfight.com; and Lovepeopleusethings.fm
Throughout the presentation, the enthusiasm was palpable, as the audience laughed, sighed and clapped at different moments during his talk. The night ended with an engaging question and answer session. This talk concluded the 2018 Gift of Human Sexuality Symposium.