Porn on the Internet

Published in the Fiji Times 14 August, 2013

I opened my email last week to find the following message:

“I'm someone who's addicted to pornography and I just can't get it out of my head. I strive for the goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ but sometimes I'm tempted to watch bad videos. I fast, I pray and even read Bible, but still this things haunts until it takes me down. And sometimes Sir, when I see girls (teens), especially the way they dressed up and the they are build up, my mind starts to drifting away into bad thinking.”

The sender of this email is not alone in his struggle. There are many people from all walks of life who struggle with addictions to pornography and cybersex, and similar sexual practices. We have seen many lives and families devastated by addictive sexual sins. These problems are not unique to any race, financial, social or marital status—Christian or non-Christian.

Pornography addiction used to be generally dismissed as something that the “creepy lifelong bachelor” or the “lonely guy with mommy issues” would suffer from. With the availability of cheap pirated DVDS and increasing internet access, coupled with the advent of the portable computers such as laptops, netbooks smartphones, and tablets, the condition is seeping into parts of the population previously unaffected. Seemingly normal men from all walks of life, including an Australian preacher who faked having cancer to cover up a 16-year porn addiction, are claiming that pornography has taken over their lives.

A 2010 report from the Washington Times stated that “ease of access also has leveled the playing field between the sexes — men are known as the sexual risk-takers, after all — and psychologists and researchers have seen an increasing number of women becoming addicted to pornography on the Internet” since 2000. According to the report, 17 percent of women said they struggled with pornography addiction and that one in three visitors to pornography sites were women. About 30 percent of Internet pornography consumers are women, according to the 2008 Internet Pornography Statistics.

The report quotes, Mary Anne Layden, professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston who said, “The more pornography women use, the more likely they are to be victims of non-consensual sex,”. “The earlier the male starts using pornography, the more likely they are to be the perpetrators of non-consensual sex.”

“Pornography is the drug of the millennium and more addictive than crack cocaine,” said Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough Is Enough, a US-based non-profit organisations that works to make the Internet safer for children and families. “Ninety percent of pornography addiction begins at home,” Ms. Hughes said, adding with children becoming more technologically savvy, “It is no longer a question of if they will come across porn, but when.”

Science has shown that the brain reacts and takes in images in a certain way and can be detrimental in the developing mind of a child. When a man or woman becomes sexually aroused, the levels of endorphins and enkephalin in the prefrontal cortex are at their highest.

Whatever a person visualizes at that point — real or imaginary — his or her body glues to, hungers for and craves, and the adrenal glands imprint that image on the mind.

“If a man or woman sexually gratifies themselves with pornography on a regular basis they will actually attach to sex as object relationships as opposed to intimate relationships,” said Douglas Weiss, a licensed psychologist and executive director of Heart to Heart Counseling Center  “So they will actually hunger for object relationships, creating over time what we call intimacy anorexia.”

Sex, in its ideal sense, is relational, and object sex does not fulfill the relational aspect of that, said Mr. Weiss. A person doesn’t get that full satiation, but gets a different kind of buzz with object sex because it’s a different kind of sex.

With someone having to visualize that object in order to achieve sexual gratification, barriers are created, even at a young age, said Ms. Hughes.

“If they’re an addict, they stop developing spiritually, relationally and morally, at the age of the onset of the addiction,” said Mr. Weiss.

Read more on this issue at http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/porn-addiction-at-crisis-level/ and http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/11/more-women-lured-to-pornography-addiction/?page=all

The young man whose cry for help sparked off this discussion, has acknowledged his addiction and recognised the negative impact it is having on his life. He has taken the first step towards beating his addiction:

1.Make sure that you know you are an addict. An addiction to anything is defined by when it interferes with other aspects of your life.

2. Throw away any porn you have. That includes anything vaguely resembling porn. If there are any magazines with thinly clad women, get rid of them. If you have any novels involving intimate acts, get rid of those. Also get rid of anything that causes you to think about sex.

3. Get rid of your personal internet connection. That way, you can only access the internet in public places, where the temptation of porn is less likely. If you must go online at home, install filtering software that would block porn sites.

4. Find something else to do to occupy your time and mind, so you won't think about porn. Be outgoing, and spend time with friends.

5. Do not feed your lusts. Seek support from a local priest or member of clergy. Looking at life as a pornographic film is also a no-no.

6. Find a support group. Note, however, that many support groups are religious in nature and take the stance that porn is simply bad in any degree. If you do not agree with this stance, then the support may not help you. Christians, for example can get spiritual strength and direction from the following verses of Scripture: Matthew 5:27-30, 1 Peter 2:11, Romans 8:13, Romans 6:12, 1 Corinthians 6:13, Galatians 5:17, Philippians 4:8, 2 Timothy 2:22, Psalm 51, Psalm 101:2,3, Proverbs 6:25-29, Proverbs 5:18-20,  Proverbs 8:13,  Job 31:1-4,  Matthew 5:8, Romans 8:6, 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 6:18-19,  2 Corinthians 10:5, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5,  James 1:15; 4:3, and 1 John 2:16

7. Go to a qualified therapist, who can provide guidance.

“Simplicity, Serenity, Spontaneity”