Take note, readers! Porn isn’t going to hurt you—but your shame, guilt, and overall belief that it will just might.

A new book has found that “compared to other Americans, pornography shapes the lives of conservative Protestants in ways that are uniquely damaging to their mental health, spiritual lives, and intimate relationships.” But that’s not because pornography targets American Protestants more than other groups, or because porn is actually harmful. According to Samuel L. Perry, a sociologist of religion at the University of Oklahoma, it’s hurting this group of people because they think it will.

In Addicted to Lust: Pornography in the Lives of Conservative Protestants, Perry drew on numerous national surveys as well as over 130 personal interviews with evangelical Protestants across America to determine how they were adjusting to the “new reality” of ubiquitous pornography available online, and what its consequences were on their lives.

In an interview with The New Yorker, Perry said, “With conservative Protestants, you have this fascinating paradox of a group of people who hate pornography morally. They want to eradicate it from the world.” Yet, he found that statistically, they watch porn only slightly less than other Americans. “So you have this paradoxical situation of a group of people who collectively hate it, and yet, as individuals, they semi-regularly watch it,” he said.

But watching it makes them more miserable than it does anybody else. “It seems to be uniquely harmful to conservative Protestants’ mental health, their sense of self, their own identities—certainly their intimate relationships—in ways that don’t tend to be as harmful for people who don’t have that kind of moral problem with it,” said Perry.

In other words, believing that porn is harmful becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. “It’s not necessarily that porn makes you depressed. It’s watching porn when you’ve already said that that’s an immoral thing and you don’t want to do it,” Perry reported.

So, next time you venture into an adult entertainment binge, just remember. It’s not the porn that’s harming you. It’s just your shame. And that’s all in your head.

‘Shame’ photo by Katherine Evans