Porn is a male problem, right? Wrong. Women can be ensnared as well. Certainly women are impacted by a boyfriend or husband who engages with pornography. ♦

For men and women the human sex drive is profoundly strong and compelling. Like a magnet. Our human design is Divine and hints at the extraordinary capacities of our mind, spirit, and soul for love, touch and engagement.

But of course it’s been corrupted and distorted.

By our own selves in submitting to temptations, lusts, and distortions of what is good, healthy, and pure. Pleasure and selfish satisfaction have over-ridden God-given templates of behavior and obedience.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. – Romans 1:24

Yes, God, being consistent in His love, deed and Word, has given us our full freedom and right to choose a path to our own demise.

And we’ve not chosen well.

Dabble Leads to Trouble
When it comes to pornography, dabbling will led to trouble. In fact, there is no dabbling in porn. It’s an alluring trap that will capture any that come close. Of course men are particularly susceptible due to our easy visual stimulation. But with the coarsening of our culture and loosening of sexual mores, women are falling prey to the destructive ways of pornography.

And the hit on both men and woman can be psychological, humiliating, and scarring.

Apart from a degradation of what God intended to be lovely, pornography destroys male/female relationships with warped visions, expectations, and desires. The impact runs the gamut, wreaking havoc on our mental chemistry, our relational bonding, as well as our own sense of self and security, or rather, insecurity.

This impact is long-lasting, even taking years to identify, overcome and restore.

6 More Reasons to NOT Use Pornography
In last week’s Biblical Viewpoint post I listed the first 6 of 18 reasons to not use pornography. Recently this Christian View of Pornography¹ list was boldly addressed and published by Westgate Church of Saratoga and San Jose, California.

Here are reasons #7 through #12:

• Reason #7 – Pornography creates false expectations of normal sexual relationships with people. Porn distorts your perception of what is normal in healthy sexual relationships. Porn stars play out artificial scripted scenes where the woman pretends that she loves being dominated by a man and wants to have sex all the time. Female porn stars are exaggerations of normal female bodies. The same is true of the male porn stars who tend to have abnormally large penises.
• Reason #8 – Porn creates an increasing appetite for more exotic and dangerous sex acts. As users are drawn to more exotic and extreme forms of porn to get the same high, they are being taught that those behaviors are more normal and common than in real relationships. The type of porn being made today has increasing levels of male domination, rough sex and violence against women which increases the user’s dominating and aggressive behavior towards women.
• Reason #9 – Porn kills love and ruins your sex life. Porn makes normal sexual relationships less satisfying and users become less in love with their partner. Since our brains like novelty, our brain gets rewarded with extra dose of brain chemicals that make us feel good and strengthens those brain pathways forming a stronger connection to porn images. The user becomes more critical of their partner’s appearance, sexual curiosity, sexual performance, and displays of affection. Porn users get so obsessed with chasing something that isn’t real that they can’t have successful relationships with a real person.
• Reason #10 – You live a life of slavery and bondage to porn. Prolonged use of porn cause you to become enslaved and live in mental and physical bondage. The shame drives you progressively deeper into isolation and self-imprisonment.
• Reason #11 – Results in the loss of things most important in life. Addicts can lose perspective and go on a path of self-destructive behavior resulting in divorce, loss of employment, loss of family, emotional and spiritual death, and for some it leads to suicide.
• Reason #12 – Profound psychological damage to wife/girlfriend. A husband/boyfriend with a sexual addiction inflicts more psychological damage to his wife/girlfriend than any other type of addiction. In general, the core questions of women are (1) am I captivating, (2) will I be pursued and (3) will I be protected? A man with a sexual addiction answers “No” to all of these questions by his actions. While healing is possible, there are scars that never go away and you never attain a level of 100% trust and intimacy. Women frequently express feelings of profound loss, betrayal, mistrust, devastation, anger, and depression. Porn makes women feel like they are never enough.

The final 6 reasons will be published in next week’s Biblical Viewpoint post.

A Woman’s Mental Health
One final note relative to Reason #12. While her Heavenly Father cherishes, pursues, and loves her, a woman’s mental and psychological well-being and security is actually a reflection of how her own father’s demonstration of love, acceptance, and protection was communicated to her as a child.

In God’s Divine design, this is built upon (or destroyed) by the grown woman’s own husband as he is called to love his wife as he loves his own body. (Ephesians 5:28) When a man engages with pornography (known or unknown by his wife) he is “captivated” elsewhere in his mind, “pursuing” other loves, and certainly not focused on “protecting” his bride (perhaps only protecting himself).

Now think of what damage is done to children exposed to pornography.

¹ Westgate Church, Saratoga, CA, also Divine Sex, by Jonathan Grant, and Wired for Intimacy, by William Struthers.

Have you been corrupted and/or damaged by pornography?
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They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of their ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity. – Ephesians 4:18-19

Categories: Abundant Living, Evil, Family, Fathering, Manhood, Marriage, Parenting

Tags: Christain view of pornography, lust, porn, pornography, sexual addiction, Westgate Church