Altum brings an uncomfortable issue to the table: the consumption of pornography.

Altum held this Thursday its second annual conference at the headquarters of the Tatiana Perez de Guzman el Bueno Foundation, in a meeting that addressed an issue of enormous social impact: the consumption of pornography. 

The founder of Altum Faithful Investing, Borja Barragán, opened the day by denouncing the magnitude of this phenomenon: “This is an issue that is very uncomfortable to talk about, but it moves billions a year and affects millions of people”.

Before the round table, Barragan presented the Duc in Altum 2026 Award to those responsible for Llamados, the macro-event organized in January by the faithful of a parish in Alcala de Henares, in recognition of their evangelization and community mobilization initiative.

Educating young people's eyes

The first to speak at the round table on pornography was the religious Leonardo Bastidas, of the Disciples of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, who presented various data on the consumption of pornography in Spain and stressed the need for an educational response. Bastidas encouraged broadening the horizons of young people and “educating their gaze”, insisting that the consumption of pornography is based on three conditions that are increasingly common in most homes: “solitude, silence and secrecy”.

The lies of pornography

Rafael Lafuente, an expert in affective-sexual education, gave a summary of his conference on “the lies of pornography”. He explained that pornography presents an unreal image of sex and ends up seriously affecting the conjugal life of many marriages. He described the masturbation associated with porn consumption as “having fake sex while watching or reading fake sex”. 

The speaker used as a cultural example the publishing success of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” which quickly became one of the best-selling books in history, to illustrate that the consumption of sexualized content does not only affect men.

Among the “lies” that, according to him, pornography conveys, he cited the idea that sexual relations are unrelated to fertility -something that would be unthinkable without the widespread use of contraceptives- and the constant representation of young and perfect women, which causes unrealistic comparisons that also damage female self-esteem.

Pornography as a cultural symptom

French philosopher Fabrice Hadjadj explained how contemporary society has moved from contemplation - which requires time and gratuity - to immediate excitement based on quick stimuli. “Spending all day pushing buttons makes us impulsive,” he warned.

To illustrate this cultural drift, Hadjadj mentioned the popular Satisfyer Pro 2 sex device. As he explained, its promotion as a technology that avoids “direct contact” through pulsed air symbolically reflects the contemporary fear of real contact.

“Touching the other implies exposing oneself, being touched by them as well. Pornography eliminates that vulnerability,” he said. In his opinion, the “mechanized blowing” of the device represents the opposite of the personal encounter, as it seeks pleasure while avoiding the intrigue and risk of the actual physical encounter.

Hope from the Incarnation

Hadjadj extended his critique to other areas of contemporary life - from information to art to liturgy - which, he said, sometimes seek to provoke a “superficial effervescence” rather than lead to a deeper experience.

The philosopher concluded with a note of hope inspired by the mystery of the Incarnation. Taking up the Castilian expression “dancing with the ugliest”, he symbolically identified the latter with the human soul: “God was not afraid to take on flesh and blood to save it”.

The conference organized by Altum Faithful Investing thus sought to foster public debate on a phenomenon that, despite its enormous cultural, social and personal impact, is rarely addressed openly.