7 Surprising (and Negative) Effects of Porn

Porn is a problem. It's a personal problem for many and a cultural problem for all. You may think you have not been affected by porn, but you have because it's embedded in the surrounding culture. The staggering size of the pornography industry, its influence upon the media, and the acceleration of technology, paired with the accessibility, anonymity, and affordability of porn all contribute to its increasing impact upon the culture. Pornography affects you whether you’ve ever viewed it or not, and it is helpful to understand some of its negative effects, whether you are a man or woman struggling with watching it or simply a mom or dad with a son or daughter or a church leader. There is a plethora of research on the detrimental effects of pornography (and I do not think that what follows are necessarily the worst of them), but here are seven negative effects of porn upon men and women:

1. Porn Contributes to Social and Psychological Problems Within Men      Anti-pornography activist, Gail Dines, notes that young men who become addicted to porn “neglect their schoolwork, spend huge amounts of money they don’t have, become isolated from others, and often suffer depression.” (Pornland, 93). Dr. William Struthers, who has a PhD in biopsychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, confirms some of these and adds more, finding that men who use porn become controlling, highly introverted, depressed, dissociative, distractible, narcissistic, curious, and have high anxiety and low self-esteem (Wired for Intimacy, 64-65). Ironically, while viewing porn creates momentary intensely pleasurable experiences, it ends up leading to several negative lingering psychological experiences. 

2. Porn Rewires the Male Brain 

Struthers elaborates,

As men fall deeper into the mental habit of fixating on [pornographic images], the exposure to them creates neural pathways. Like a path is created in the woods with each successive hiker, so do the neural paths set the course for the next time an erotic image is viewed. Over time, these neural paths become wider as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography. They become the automatic pathway through which interactions with women are routed….They have unknowingly created a neurological circuit that imprisons their ability to see women rightly as created in God’s image (Wired for Intimacy, 85).

In a similar vein regarding porn’s effect upon the brain, Naomi Wolf writes in her article, "The Porn Myth,"

After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it. 

3. Porn Turns Sex into Masturbation 

Sex becomes self-serving. It becomes about your pleasure and not the self-giving, mutually reciprocating intimacy that it was designed for.

4. Porn Demeans and Objectifies Women 

This occurs from hard-core to soft-core pornography. Pamela Paul, in her book Pornified, quoting the research of one psychologist who has researched pornography at Texas A&M, writes,

‘Soft-core pornography has a very negative effect on men as well. The problem with soft-core pornography is that its voyeurism teaches men to view women as objects rather than to be in relationships with women as human beings.’ According to Brooks, pornography gives men the false impression that sex and pleasure are entirely divorced from relationships. In other words, pornography is inherently self-centered–something a man does by himself, for himself–by using another woman as the means to pleasure, as yet another product to consume (80).

Paul references one experiment that revealed a rather shocking further effect of porn: “men and women who were exposed to large amounts of pornography were significantly less likely to want daughters than those who had none. Who would want their own little girl to be treated that way?” (80).
Again, it needs to be emphasized that this is not an effect that only rests upon those who have viewed porn. The massive consumption of porn and the size of the porn industry has hypersexualized the entire culture. Men and women are born into a pornified culture, and women are the biggest losers. Dines continues,

By inundating girls and women with the message that their most worthy attribute is their sexual hotness and crowding out other messages, pop culture is grooming them just like an individual perpetrator would. It is slowly chipping away at their self-esteem, stripping them of a sense of themselves as whole human beings, and providing them with an identity that emphasizes sex and de-emphasizes every other human attribute (Pornland, 118).

5. Porn Squashes the Beauty of a Real Naked Woman 

Wolf, in her own blunt way, confirms this,

For most of human history, the erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn (Quoted in Wired for Intimacy, 38).

6. Porn Has a Numbing Effect Upon Reality

It makes real sex and even the real world boring in comparison. It particularly anesthetizes the emotional life of a man. Paul comments,

Pornography leaves men desensitized to both outrage and to excitement, leading to an overall diminishment of feeling and eventually to dissatisfaction with the emotional tugs of everyday life…Eventually, they are left with a confusing mix of supersized expectations about sex and numbed emotions about women…When a man gets bored with pornography, both his fantasy and real worlds become imbued with indifference. The real world often gets really boring…” (Pornified, 90, 91).

7. Porn Lies About What it Means to Be Male and Female 

Dines records how porn tells a false story about men and women. In the story of porn, women are “one-dimensional” –they never say no, never get pregnant, and can’t wait to have sex with any man and please them in whatever way imaginable (or even unimaginable). On the other hand, the story porn tells about men is that they are “soulless, unfeeling, amoral life-support systems for erect penises who are entitled to use women in any way they want. These men demonstrated zero empathy, respect, or love for the women they have sex with…(Pornland, xxiv).”

Sean McDowell: The Hidden Price Tag of Porn

Today’s pornography is different from any in the past in three ways: accessibility, quality, and consumption.

Pornography is tearing apart the fabric of our society. You may think this is an 

overstatement. After reading, “The Social Costs of Pornography” by the Witherspoon Institute, I think it may be an understatement.

In 2008, the Witherspoon Institute sponsored the first multidisciplinary exploration of the social costs of pornography. Scholars from various fields including philosophy, psychology, and medicine were included in the forum. Every major shade of religious belief was represented, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, agnosticism, and atheism. And both the left and right in American politics were present. They all agreed that there is a substantial multidimensional, empirical record of the harms pornography brings to society. Obviously, such agreement is rare.

Today’s pornography is different from any in the past in three ways.

1. Accessibility.

The Internet has made porn ubiquitous.

2. Quality.

Today’s porn is much more hardcore.

3. Consumption.

Porn consumption has increased radically with the advent of the Internet. Sixty-nine percent of men and 10% of women report viewing pornography more than once a month. Eighty-seven percent of men admit using it in the past year. The researchers conclude, “In sum, there is evidence that more people—children, adolescents, and adults—are consuming pornography—sporadically, inadvertently, or chronically—than every before.”

More from ChurchLeaders.com: 40 Positive Reasons to Avoid Porn

How does pornography actually harm people? The researchers list a plethora of ways. Each of these points is supported with empirical evidence in the report. Keep in mind that these areobjective facts about pornographic consumption, not my subjective opinions.

• Those who view pornography overestimate how frequently certain sexual acts are actually practiced, which increases one’s willingness to do unconscionable things.
• Porn viewers physically map their brains based on the images they see. Pornographic consumption remaps the physical structure of the brain.
• Many men who view porn lose the ability to relate to or be close to women.
• Porn viewers become desensitized to the barrage of imagery, and as a result, child pornography and violent pornographic images often lose their ability to shock and disgust.
• Women often report distress and harm when discovering that their husbands view porn. They typically feel betrayal, loss, mistrust, devastation, and anger as a result of their partner’s behavior.
• Porn users have an increased likelihood of divorce and family break-up.
• Those who had an extramarital affair were three times more likely to have used Internet pornography than those who had not.
• Porn leads men to place less value on marital fidelity and more value on casual sex.
• Therapists report seeing fourteen- and fifteen-year-old boys addicted to porn.
• An Italian study reported that boys who view porn were more likely to report having sexually harassed a peer or having forced someone to have sex.
• Adolescent girls who report using pornography are more likely to report being victims of passive violence such as sexual harassment and rape.
• Today’s consumption of pornography encourages sexual exploitation such as trafficking.
• Adolescents who view pornography are more likely to view women as sexual objects.
• Porn consumption raises the risk of sexually risky behavior.
• Men who use pornography are less attractive to potential female partners.
• Exposure to pornography decreases sexual satisfaction with one’s partner for both men and women.
• Chronic pornography use is associated with depression and unhappiness.
• Users often report disgust and shame at finding themselves stimulated by images that would have once repulsed.

What do we do? For starters, can you help spread the word about the dangers of pornography? Please consider getting a copy of the report, “The Social Costs of Pornography,” and study it. Talk to your friends about it. Share it with your family and church. Blog about it. Or forward this blog to as many people as you can. There needs to be a renewed conversation about how pornography is damaging this generation. We can no longer ignore the most dangerous health hazard to this generation. Our kids deserve better. 

My Time with an Ex-Porn Star

There are real faces behind the facts and statistics about pornography.

For Mars Hill’s Real Marriage sermon “The Porn Path,” we flew up Crissy, a former porn star who’s since become a Christian, as a special guest to be interviewed in a Q&A with Pastor Mark and Grace as part of the sermon.

After the event, I chauffered Crissy and her friend to the airport to catch their flight home to L.A. Due to the severe snowstorm that hit Seattle this winter, her friend was able to get on a last-minute flight, but Crissy missed her flight altogether.

This meant I ended up spending a few more hours with her. Little did I know my time with her would be life-changing.

As we waited to be sure her friend’s flight successfully took off, Crissy began to share her story, much of which she did not tell at the event. Her words brought all I had learned about the effects of porn to a completely different level.

It suddenly became very real. There was a real face behind the facts, a real voice behind the statistics.

I took away three major things from our conversation that will forever remain with me.

1. Women Are Extra-Special

1 Peter 3:7 tells men, “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.”
When I read the words “weaker vessel,” I don’t see it as saying women are the weaker sex or unequal to men, but rather women are extra-special, especially your wife.
Crissy’s story helped me to see that being a man means treating women (and in the future, my wife) with extra-special care, love and respect. I am to treat them as I would the most delicate vessel in my pottery collection—not because it is prone to break, but because it is invaluable.

2. Porn Is Real

I know firsthand how addicting porn can be. During my college years, I was serving the church and watching porn. I was leading worship and watching porn. I was a leader in the church and watching porn.
It was a love-hate relationship. No professing Christian, after watching porn, says, “I’m glad I did that.” We know it is wrong by conviction from the Holy Spirit and regret it after the fact—but we keep going back.

If you’re looking at porn, know this: Real people are involved, and real damage is done. When you watch porn, you are supporting and encouraging the sexual, emotional, psychological and physical abuse of real women, not just actors. 

Talking with Crissy, my disgust over my history of watching porn and my gratitude to Jesus for redeeming me from that horrid habit simultaneously reached new highs. I wish every guy could sit down with Crissy for five minutes and just talk to her. If that doesn’t convict him, I don’t know what will.

3. Jesus Can Redeem Anyone’s Story

What stood out the most to me as Crissy shared—despite all she had been through over the years with guys (not men) treating her as a commodity rather than a person and disrespecting her entirely—was that she told her story with a smile on her face.

Crissy knows without a doubt her past does not define her—Jesus does.

She knows in Christ, she is righteous and spotless without blemish. She has hope for the future because of Jesus. She knows Jesus is using her past to redeem others in the present.

She now works for a nonprofit organization called Treasures, which aims to reach out to women in the sex industry with the message that they are loved, valued and purposed by Christ. 

For those of you struggling with porn, know this:

• There’s no such thing as “free porn”—it’s a lie.
• Real women are being hurt in the porn industry.
• Porn promises what only Jesus can fulfill.
• Because Jesus conquered sin and death, this sin can be put to death once and for all in your life. You are fighting a battle that has already been won through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. 

Jesus really can and will redeem anyone’s story.

4 Reasons Men Like Porn

One of the tasks of a good friend or accountability partner to someone who is 

Why do people run to porn again and again?entrenched in pornography is to help them understand their own heart.

Why do they run to porn again and again?

Solomon reminds us “the purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water” (we often can’t see our own motivations), “but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Prov. 20:5, parenthesis added). A wise friend helps to draw out of others the deeper motivations they are unable or unwilling to see in themselves.

1. Porn is easy, but relationships are hard.As an accountability partner, it is important to understand the allure of pornography: What deeper motivations keep men coming back to it again and again? What are good accountability questions we can ask to get to the root of the problem?

Relationships, especially our closest relationships, involve work.

Every day we are required to care what’s going on in others’ lives. We must put up with sour moods, offensive behavior and selfishness—both in ourselves and in others.

In contrast, porn offers men a feeling of risk-free intimacy.

Pornography offers men a fantasy world where they are required to know nobody, require no romance and no self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. And for many men the payoff is great: not only can they avoid the messiness of real relationships, they can also feel the delight of a million virtual women catering to their every whim.

Good Accountability Question: Has there been a relationship in your life recently that has been unusually difficult?

2. Porn is comfortable, but life is stressful.

In life things go wrong. Expectations are frustrated. People let us down. Tragedies happen. We get sick. We get tired. We get into sharp disagreements. Life is stressful.

Porn, by contrast, offers a very comfortable world where nothing goes wrong. Porn offers a ready-made setting where we know we will get exactly what we want.

Of course, we know it’s fake. It’s like professional wrestling or “reality” TV. As Chris Hedges says in his book Empire of Illusion, the success of these forms of entertainment lies not in fooling us that these stories are real. “Rather, it succeeds because we ask to be fooled. We happily pay for the chance to suspend reality.”

Good Accountability Question: Have there been any stresses in your life recently that have brought on a feeling of pressure or strain?

3. Porn is exciting, but life is boring.

The word “boredom” first started being used by French authors when they wrote about that feeling of discontentment when life gets tedious.

While the feeling of boredom has probably always been around, it is only in the last 300 years we have seen it become a social epidemic. Blaise Pascal said boredom is the plight of a modern man when “he lacks distraction and has no absorbing passion or pastime.”

Boredom is one of the fruit of a leisure culture. As wealth and free time increase, so does our hunger for distraction.

As we come to expect constant stimulation and excitement, the day-to-day can seem dull by comparison. With Google at our fingertips, information is everywhere, but we easily become detached, anonymous spectators, rarely taking risks of vulnerable involvement or passionate commitment—rarely acting on what we know.

Culturally we are guilty of what Dorothy Sayers calls the sin of tolerance, “the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”

Porn offers a world of sexual excitement to our bored minds. Porn is a highly sexualized form of the image-based culture in which we live, a world where billions of pictures are painting a thousand words at break-neck speeds. Porn offers a fantasy of pure sexual stimulation.

Good Accountability Question: Have you found yourself bored or itching for excitement? Do you feel like your life is mundane?

4. Porn makes men feel powerful, but real life makes them feel powerless.

It is easy to feel small in the world. We intuitively know the world does not revolve around us, but this doesn’t stop us from wishing it did. We want others to pay attention to us, to treat us as important, to put us first. This desire can be so strong at times we can actually begin to feel entitled to it: We want a little corner of the world where we are kings.

Porn offers men a deluge of power. In a man’s porn-fed fantasy, the girls never say no. In pornography there are no social barriers between a man and the woman of his dreams. Pornography sells the idea that beautiful women are trophies—collectibles that show the watching world what a real man really is. Pornography also sexualizes male dominance, allowing men to fantasize about a world where women enjoy being treated as objects.

Good Accountability Question: Have you been in any situations recently that made you feel belittled, unimportant or disrespected?

The Biblical Goal of Accountability Questions

The reason accountability partners should ask these pointed questions is not to “psychologize” sins away. Rather, the goal of good accountability questions is to use them as a springboard to focus our thoughts on benefits of the Gospel of Christ more than the pleasures of sin (Heb. 11:24-26).
Each question opens a door to living out Heb. 10:24: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.”

When we ask the question, “Has there been a relationship in your life recently that has been unusually difficult?” the goal is to help others see how they are looking to a particular relationship to make them feel pleasure or fulfillment (thus, a relationship that is always letting them down). We can then point them to the fullness of joy and satisfaction that comes from Christ (John 15:1-11; 16:16-24; Rom. 15:13).

When we ask the question, “Have there been any stresses in your life recently that have brought on a feeling of pressure or strain?” the goal is to help them see that they are using porn as an escape from life. We can then point them to the psalmists who saw God as their refuge (Psalms 46; 59:16-17; 61:1-3; 62:5-8; 91; 142). Instead of escaping from reality, we can escape into divine reality.

When we ask the questions, “Have you found yourself bored or itching for excitement? Do you feel like your life is mundane?” the goal is to help others see if they have been settling for a life of amusement over a life of amazement. We can then point them to the excitement of knowing God and obeying him (Matt. 13:44; 2 Cor. 8:1-2; Phil. 1:3-4; Col. 1:9-14; 1 Peter 1:3-9; 3 John 1:3-4).

When we ask the question, “Have you been in any situations recently that made you feel belittled, unimportant, or disrespected?” the goal is to help them see they crave power, importance and esteem from men more than they crave the favor of God. Jesus asked, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (John 5:44) We can point them to the eternal glory the Father gives to Christ, and that as Christians we share Christ’s glory because He lives in us (John 17:20-24; Rom. 2:6-10; Col. 1:24-29).

TV Producer Mark Burnett on "The Bible" Miniseries

The co-creator and co-producer of the upcoming miniseries “The Bible,” Mark Burnett shares his personal faith experience and more.

An award-winning producer of hit television shows such as Survivor and The Voice, Mark Burnett has produced an epic, 10-hour miniseries with his wife, Roma Downey, featuring stories from the Bible from creation to Jesus. The Bible miniseries airs on the History Channel each Sunday in March, culminating on Easter. Outreach Inc., the parent company of Outreachmagazine, has produced a related campaign kit and other resources that churches can use to engage people in discussions about the Bible. Here, Burnett shares a personal, Holy Spirit experience, as told toOutreach magazine Senior Associate Editor Scott Marshall. Read more from the interview with Burnett in the March/April 2013 issue of Outreach magazine.

We’ve spent a lot of time in the South Pacific because of various shows we’ve made, and I had an experience in Fiji with Roma [Downey, Burnett’s wife and the star of the television series Touched by an Angel] that I knew was a genuine, physical experience with the Holy Spirit, for sure. It’s my own experience, and my own physiology told me this is real.

I was praying, and I felt that Jesus—not felt, I know—that Jesus was physically hugging me. I just know that to be true. Anybody could say, “Well, how did you know?” I don’t need to explain to people. It just happened. I just said, “OK. Wow.”

That’s one of my very personal experiences. There have been tons more since, but if I had to actually say a point in time that I personally had a Holy Spirit experience, it was in Fiji six or seven years ago.

I cannot remember my life before the Bible was around and was something which we all knew. I must have been 2 or 3 years of age going to Sunday school. I grew up in a very working class area of London, probably a bit like Detroit because everybody worked at Ford Motor Company. My dad worked at Ford Motor Company, and my mother worked at a car battery plant next door on shift work. My father was Catholic, and my mom was Presbyterian. …

The only thing that’s changed for me is—same book, same words, but actually, I used to look at [the Bible] a little bit more like a very harsh rule book. “You must do this, mustn’t do that or God will be really mad.” Obviously, I evolved, realizing for many years now, it’s a love story. …

We’re reading the Bible, reading about the Bible, reading people’s opinions of the Bible and editing this visual piece of work, which is the best work of our careers. The responsibility is huge. I think we’re really good at our jobs. Right now, four nights out of seven, we have No. 1 shows on television as a family. We know what we’re doing. Our responsibility is we better be at the best level of our game on this project. This is the Bible. If nothing else, for the rest of our lives, we ever make, this better be good. And I think we’ve done a great job with this.