Not Practicing What You Preach: Religion and Incongruence Between Pornography Beliefs and Usage Samuel L. Perry Department of Sociology, University of Oklahoma Religious Americans, and conservative Protestants in particular, have historically been the most ardent opponents of pornography’ s production, dissemination, and use. Yet while religiously committed and theologically conservative Americans are generally less likely to view porno- graphy than others, the difference is often not as great or consistent as one might suppose given their strong moral stance. Drawing on insights from religious incongruence theory, this study considered whether religious commitment and theological conservatism predicted a greater incongruence between what Americans say they believe about pornography morally and whether they actually watch it. Data are taken from the nationally representative 2006 Portraits of American Life Study (N = 2,279). Analyses show that greater religious service attendance and prayer frequency are predictive of American men (not women) affirming that viewing pornography is “always morally wrong” while still viewing it in the previous year. Evangelicalism and other sectarian Protestantism are also the religious traditions most likely to believe pornography is always morally wrong while also viewing it. Findings ultimately suggest that religious commitment and affiliation with theological conservatism may influence Americans (primarily men) to oppose pornography more strongly in principle than reflected in actual practice. Data limitations and implications for future research are discussed. Pornography 1 and religion in the United States have been closely connected for decades. Long before the advent of the Internet and smartphones, conservative Christians vehe- mently opposed pornography’ s production, dissemination, and consumption (Sherkat & Ellison, 1997; Thomas, 2016), with some fundamentalist leaders calling it “a cancer that is changing the character of our republic” (Falwell, 1980, p. 200) and “the single most inflammatory force for evil in our society” (LaHaye, 1985, p. 119). For devout conservative Christians, pornography violates direct com- mands against nonmarital sexual desire, encouraging solo masturbation at best and, at worst, addicting viewers and catalyzing pedophilia, homosexuality, bestiality, and rape throughout whole societies (see descriptions in Driscoll, 2009; Foubert, 2016; LaHaye, 1985). For these reasons, evangelical Protestants—and increas- ingly Mormons (Sumerau & Cragun, 2015a, 2015b)—have been at the forefront of efforts to halt the growing accept- ability and accessibility of pornography in the United States. Still today, studies show that Americans who are more religious and more theologically conservative are the most likely to oppose the distribution or use of pornography (Carroll et al., 2008; Grubbs, Exline, Pargament, Hook, & Carlisle, 2015; Hardy, Steelman, Coyne, & Ridge, 2013; Lykke & Cohen, 2015; MacInnis & Hodson, 2016; Nelson, Padilla-Walker, & Carroll, 2010; Patterson & Price, 2012). Concurrently, studies most often find that religiously committed and theologically conservative Americans are less likely to report viewing pornography than others (Carroll et al., 2008; Doran & Price, 2014; Hardy et al., 2013; MacInnis & Hodson, 2016; Maddox, Rhoades, & Markman, 2011; Perry, 2016, 2017b; Poulsen, Galovan, & Busby, 2013; Regnerus, 2007; Short, Kasper, & Wetterneck, 2015; Stack, Wasserman, & Kern, 2004; Wright, 2013; Wright, Bae, & Funk, 2013). And yet there is some inconsistency in research linking religion and pornography. On one hand, religion does seem to prevent or reduce pornography use to some extent. Hardy et al. (2013), for example, showed that religious commit- ment (operationalized as religious internalization and invol- vement) reduced intentional pornography use in adolescents Correspondence should be addressed to Samuel L. Perry, University of Oklahoma, Department of Sociology, 780 Van Vleet Oval, Kaufman Hall 335A, Norman, OK 73019. E-mail: samperry@ou.edu All data for replication are available from the ARDA. Coding specifica- tions are available from the author upon request. 1 The term pornography can carry moral connotations that are unin- tended here. The term is used to be consistent with religious discourses on this type of media that oppose “pornography” by name, as well as with the data set used for this study. Throughout, the term pornography or porn will refer to any sexually explicit visual material (websites, videos, magazines) created with the intention of stimulating sexual arousal. THE JOURNAL OF SEX RESEARCH, 00(00), 1–12, 2017 Copyright © The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality ISSN: 0022-4499 print/1559-8519 online DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2017.1333569