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Always game to push the boundaries of the portrayal of awkward sex on television, merely a few short minutes into Girls’ fourth season, Lena Dunham managed to up the squirm factor by tossing in some unexpected butt play between Marnie (Allison Williams) and Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). We caught up with the cast (and Brian Williams) at the season four premiere and asked them — as delicately as we could — their thoughts on the soon-to-be-infamous sex scene.

Cardinal Raymond L. Burke leaves the concluding session of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family at the Vatican Oct. 18, 2014. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) Matthew James Christoff of the New Emangelization Project has just posted an outstanding interview with Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke that focuses on a number of interrelated issues: the state of men in the Church, the "man crisis", evangelization, marriage, the Mass, and the sacrament of Confession. Here are a few excerpts: On the role played by radical feminism in undermining a needed focus on men: Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke:  I think there has...

There could be an unlikely contributor to the decline of marriage in this country. And it's free pornography on the Internet. A team of researchers, who published their findings in The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Germany, determined that the rise of free Internet pornography is not only correlated with a pronounced decline in percentage of young adult males who are married, but might actually be contributing to the trend. "The results in this paper suggest that such an association exists, and that it is potentially quite large," the study notes. The researchers used data from the...

Why is anyone surprised that Rolling Stone would flub a rape story? Since when did a magazine that borders on—and, by my standards, crosses over into—pornography, become a trusted source for matters involving women and sexual assault? For over four decades, Rolling Stone has spilled thousands of gallons of ink glorifying the hedonistic, misogynistic culture of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. Its covers have been adorned with nude men and women—sometimes together. Pornography is a regular topic, and it’s almost always put in a positive light. (This piece can also be found on American Thinker today.)

We all know that pornography consumption around the world is at an epidemic level, and it’s no secret that it’s having disastrous effects on relationships, marriages, and society at large. The problem is only exacerbated by the availability of pornography online. According to the website covenanteyes.com, more than 1 in 8 Internet searches are for erotic content. 67% of children admit to clearing their Internet history to hide their online activity, while 79% of accidental exposures to Internet porn among kids take place in the home. Equally disturbing is the fact that 56% of divorce cases involve one party having...

Pornography is everywhere. It’s an evil with far-reaching affects that damage many layers of society. But no one is hurt more by the overwhelming presence of pornography in our society than children.According to a study by the London School of Economics, nine out of ten children who go online (by the way, many of them just doing their homework) will view pornography. Even when kids are acting responsibly and innocently, adults in the pornography business are so fixated on creating new porn addicts that they have made it virtually impossible for children to escape their grasp. Think about it—90 percent...

In July, I received the following email, asking for help: Donny, I just read your story about Mindy. I thank you for sharing that. I decided to contact you and see what advice you may have for me, a married father of four beautiful young children, and addict of pornography. In the past I have cheated on my wife and it sickens me. Porn has been something that I can't break.... Every time it just draws me back in. I have tried professional counseling and found that it was a waste of time. I look at my wife and daughters...

A student at Duke University started doing porn to pay for her tuition. She became a media sensation and liberals everywhere loved telling her story. She would do interviews and say things like porn is “empowering” and “freeing”. She is in a documentary coming up and now that she has been in the industry for a little bit her view of porn has dramatically shifted. “The sex industry has a way of making you very cynical and very bitter,” a tired-looking Weeks tells an off-camera interviewer, “In a way I’ve started to become kind of a bit bitter and a...

A Canadian airline has sent a warning to its pilots to stop bringing pornographic material into the cockpit. In an internal bulletin to staff, Air Canada threatened to sack and/or pursue criminal charges against pilots who were caught displaying ‘inappropriate material’ on a flight. The warning was sent to employees after obscene material was discovered while an official with Transport Canada, the national industry regulator, was seated in the cockpit. The bulletin was issued a year ago, but has recently been obtained by CBC News. In the notice, Rod Graham, Air Canada’s chief pilot and director of fleet operations and...

1. The reasons pornography is not wrong. Pornography isn’t wrong because sex is bad or the body shameful. It's wrong because sex is good and the body magnificent! As Christians we must never forget whose idea sex was in the first place. It was not thought up by Hugh Hefner or by Cosmopolitan magazine but by God! In fact, God's very first commandment to humanity in the Bible is to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28)! And as philosopher Dr. Peter Kreeft noted, “I do not think he meant for us to grow oranges and invent calculators.” Pornography is wrong...

he virtue to which we are called with regard to sexual relationships is called chastity. Through integrity and self control, the chaste person observes the true meaning and intimacy of sexual relations. Pornography is gravely offensive to this. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, "[pornography] perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world" (CCC...

The most heinous depictions of evil perversion to and upon women are the themes of a torture porn film made by an actor who also starred in campaign ads for Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf, a Democrat who is running to become that state’s governor. Porno film actor Alan Benyak had the lead role of “Mr. Cannibal,” in a horrific film which describes how four friends are kidnapped by a man only to realize they are part of his BREEDING FARM! “These women are milked, bred, and sold for a psycho’s pleasure,” says the promo on the front of the porno vid....

In the spring of 2000, Zogby International asked more than a thousand U.S. adults whether they had ever visited a sexually-oriented web site. Only one in five had done so. Among born-again Christians, 18 percent had gone to such sites, just three percentage points less than the general public. Well, fast forward to today. A group called Proven Men Ministries commissioned the Barna Group to examine current pornography use. You might want to sit down for this—Barna found that 64 percent of American men and 20 percent of women view pornography at least monthly. And for Christian men, that number...

Have you noticed that the word “lust” is being purged from the Bible? The Greek word for lust (epithemia) points to inner sin thirty-four times in the New Testament. In the vast majority of these places it has traditionally been properly translated as “lust” or the archaic and more precise word, “concupiscence.” Not Any More Unfortunately, modern translations, such as the New International Version (NIV) are abandoning the word lust....

Churchgoing Christians who support same-sex marriage are more likely to think pornography, cohabitation, hook-ups, adultery, polyamory, and abortion are acceptable. And it’s reasonable to expect continued change in more permissive directions. As mainline Protestant denominations increasingly accept the ordination of gay clergy and publicly affirm same-sex unions, the sociologist in me wishes to understand what this development means for people in those denominations. I’m not talking about subtle linguistic shifts. While the difference between speaking of marriage as a “civil contract between a woman and a man” and as “a unique commitment between two people” is obvious to those who...

We live in reductionist times, which is another way of saying that we live in times that have often cast aside the deeper, sacramental, and mysterious meaning of things and people.Many human beings reduce themselves and others to merely biological realities. Gone is the soul and the mysterious spark we call life. Gone is the metaphysical, there is only the physical. Even our longings, our thirst and hunger for justice, our attraction to what is good, true and beautiful, even these soulful expressions and their reaching what is not material and “understood” by many today merely as emanations of the...

"Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me!” (Psalms 19:13) If you as a believer know what you need to do to overcome lust but then do the opposite, you are acting in willful disobedience. This is presumptuous and arrogant sinning and it comes with a price. As David understood fully, by arrogantly and selfishly entering into sin, you are allowing sin to gain dominion over you. You become an “addict” to a life-dominating sin—a slave with no way out.

To the women of America: Please do not underestimate the significance of this. Here, now, you have been given the opportunity to grab ahold of our society and drag it back from the precipice. You cannot cure all of our ills, but, if you answer the call, you can at least help us take one small step toward peace and prosperity. This is truly a seminal moment in our history. The weight of our future, our children’s future, our children’s children’s future, partially rests on the decision you are facing. Your task, ladies, is simple. All you must do is...

The Parents Television Council is slamming NBC's Today for airing the first trailer for the movie version of Fifty Shades of Grey during its 8 a.m. hour. ... "We're talking about basically the equivalent of a dime-store trashy romance novel [in the Fifty Shades of Grey book]. Essentially, what Today's doing is they're promoting what people refer to as mommy porn. That's what it boils down to. Today is helping to promote mommy porn. That's a pretty poor judgment on their part in terms of their attitude towards their audience." ... The Parents Television Council is not the only organization...

I never thought it would happen to me. I’m technologically savvy, hyper-vigilant about parental controls, and frequently check the search and browser histories of my kids’ electronic devices. As a writer for LSN, I’m more aware than most people of the filth that’s out there and the harmful effects it can have on a developing brain (not to mention a developing soul). So that’s why I was surprised and heartbroken the day I discovered my ten-year-old son had been watching hardcore pornography on his iPhone. It was the first day of final exams. At the bus stop that morning, my...