In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the numerous reports of sexual harassment and assault that followed, our nation is engaging in an ongoing conversation about the culture of complicity that allowed such predatory behavior to continue unabated. Over the next few months, we are bound to see (thankfully) many articles describing the pervasive nature of this culture of complicity in other industries (the music industry, service industry, etc.). All of this will hopefully lead to structural changes through enacting laws, policies, rules, and customs specific to those industries. But sexual assault and harassment is a cultural problem, not merely an industry problem, and I fear that focusing on specific industries alone will fail to address the wider culture of complicity, as it exists in society as a whole.

Guilt is an uncomfortable feeling that humans try to avoid, and focusing on sexual harassment in specific industries allows people who are not part of that industry to ignore their own involvement in the wider culture of harassment. Someone who is not in the entertainment industry can easily say, “If I were there, I would have said something. I would not have ignored the obvious predatory behavior,” without recognizing the myriad ways that most people already accept the sexual degradation and harassment of women. In our national conversation surrounding these scandals, although we have sought out hidden contributors to this abusive culture, we have avoided one elephant in the room: porn.

The recent death of Hugh Hefner has given us reason to review his contributions to our society. Ross Douthat of the New York Times, partly in response to the wave of positive remembrances of Playboy’s founder, reminded readers that “the social liberalism he championed was the rotten and self-interested sort, a liberalism of male and upper-class privilege, in which the strong and beautiful and rich take their pleasure at the expense of the vulnerable and poor.” Hefner effectively disguised the exploitation and objectification of women as their own liberation from patriarchy. The success of this pernicious effort, which elevates personal license above the common good and genuine equality has led to the widespread acceptance of pornography, even among liberals who claim to be committed feminists.

Many progressives today would defend a woman’s right to participate in degrading pornography as long as it is her free choice – even if the choice is to reduce herself to an object of sexual pleasure to satisfy men’s basest desires. This focus on the individual choice to consume or participate in porn allows us to ignore its societal impact and the larger structural injustices at play. This refusal to look at the big picture is exactly what makes us complicit in the culture of sexual harassment and abuse.

The fact of the matter is this: to publicly support the equality of women while privately indulging in women’s degradation and dehumanization is the privilege of men living in a patriarchy that they do not fully want to dismantle. You cannot publicly recognize the inherent human dignity of all women and privately enjoy watching that dignity stripped away in pornography that is increasingly violent and abusive today without hypocritically perpetuating injustice and inequality. And in a culture where the vast majority of men habitually instrumentalize women through consuming pornography, is it not obvious that such degradation will not remain limited to the digital world? This behavior primes men and boys to see women as objects, even those with religious or feminist beliefs against such thinking, and such objectification will inevitably lead some to cross further lines. If women continue to be viewed as objects, men (especially those in power) will continue to harass and abuse them.

If you watch porn, you are absolutely complicit in the culture of sexual harassment and abuse. Guilt is an uncomfortable feeling, but it can inspire a conversion of heart, which is needed from everyone if we hope to realize a culture where the dignity, equality, and worth of all women is fully recognized.

Patrick Higgins became a high school theology teacher in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles after receiving his MA in Theology at the University of Notre Dame.