Porn deadens sex, not improves it
Naomi Wolf in an effort to document the world around us, has an excellent article about the harmful effects of pornography on America's sexual health. The headline is "The Porn Myth - In the end, porn doesn’t whet men’s appetites—it turns them off the real thing."It is worth your time to read it fully. The highlights include:
"But does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity? If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so."
"So Dworkin was right that pornography is compulsive, but she was wrong in thinking it would make men more rapacious. A whole generation of men are less able to connect erotically to women—and ultimately less libidinous.
The reason to turn off the porn might become, to thoughtful people, not a moral one but, in a way, a physical- and emotional-health one; you might want to rethink your constant access to porn in the same way that, if you want to be an athlete, you rethink your smoking. The evidence is in: Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity.
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."
Christians have been making the moral argument against porn for the last 50 years or more. The argument hasn't been very successful because Christians haven't been able to make the case that the delayed gratification will eventually pay off. The fear of an eternal reckoning rarely motivates people to avoid sin.
However, Wolf has made the discussion much clearer. Avoid porn, not because it is morally bad, but because in the long run it hurts. The same very effective reasoning for avoiding binge drinking, smoking, drugs, etc.
I'd like to see Christians acknowledge the ubiquitous of porn and the real pull of that temptation, while offering a positive alternative. Sex with a little mystery and discovery is a lot more fun and interesting than a clinical rut in the hay.
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posted by Expat Teacher @ 7:45 PM
