Why is pornography a sin?
The short answer
It gravely offends chastity, which honors the true meaning and intimacy of sexual union. Pornography perverts the conjugal act and gravely injures the dignity of everyone involved, making each an object of base pleasure and illicit profit (CCC 2354).
We are called to the virtue of chastity, by which, through integrity and self-control, a person respects the true meaning and intimacy of sexual relations. Pornography gravely offends it.
The Catechism says pornography perverts the conjugal act, the intimate self-giving of spouses. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others, and it immerses everyone involved in a fantasy world (CCC 2354).
Christopher West writes in Good News About Sex and Marriage that pornography only feeds a man's fallen tendency to treat women as things for his gratification. While in its grip he cannot love women properly, cannot hope for a healthy, pure relationship, and cannot enter marriage honestly, fruitfully and faithfully.
Rely on God's grace to escape pornography's grip, so that you can love as God intended.
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