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November 14, 2005
It used to
arrive in a plain brown paper wrapper. Schoolboys lucky enough to
find a hidden copy would sneak off to share it at school… a perfect
way to win points with their friends.
In the span of
one lifetime, the plain brown paper wrapper has been recycled to make
in-your-face glossy catalogues and wall-sized murals of nearly naked
teens suggestively posed by Abercrombie and Fitch. MTV puts the
photos to music. And video games draw you into the fun.
Fully fusing
porn with American family life, last May, hometown burger king, Carl’s
Jr. gave Dads something to watch with their young boys. Paris Hilton,
barely clad in a thong bikini, “with hoses shooting up everywhere,”
writhed in suds atop a Bentley…seductively licking her lips over a
hamburger.
As Pamela Paul
writes in Pornified, “Today, pornography is not only planted in
people’s psyches; it’s everywhere in our culture….We’ve become
‘pornified’—that is, the culture, values, standards, and language of
pornography have infiltrated our daily lives, shaping how we view sex
and how our sexual and romantic relationships play out.”
And just like
the consequences related to sexual promiscuity, the consequences of
our porn addiction are beginning to take a toll on marriages, families
and our children. Psychiatrist Jennifer Schneider studied ninety-one
women and three men, “all of whom had spouses or partners seriously
involved in cyber sex.” She found they all shared feelings of hurt,
betrayal, rejection, abandonment, humiliation, jealousy, and anger.
But Schneider’s
study points to something not so widely known about addiction to
porn. As Paul reports it, more than one in five of those surveyed by
Schneider, “had separated or divorced as a result of their spouse’s
cybersex addition. Half reported their spouses were no longer
sexually interested in them, and one-third said they were no longer
interested in sex with their partner.”
Men interviewed
by Paul tell it best. “Kenneth, a married man and father of three,
began to have trouble relating to women in the real world. ‘I
objectified them,’ he explains… ‘If you meet someone and you’re
preoccupied with women’s anatomy because you spend time looking at
porn, then in the real world, you spend a lot of time looking at
women’s anatomy.’”
Another father
addicted to porn, Liam tells Paul, “It takes a three-dimensional human
being with feelings - someone who could be your daughter, sister, or
mother - and basically says, this is a creature that is only intended
to satisfy your sexual desires. It becomes your natural way of
thinking.”
Even as married
fathers like Kenneth and Liam struggle to overcome their addiction to
porn, teachers in our classrooms are witnessing its impact on our
youth. Dana spends five days each week in the classroom talking about
sex with teens. She and the kids cover the physical, emotional and
relational reasons for abstaining from sex until marriage.
On the last day
of class, Dana brings up the subject of porn. “I can see it in their
eyes,” she says. “Half of the kids in the class look down at their
desks. They’re involved with porn, and they’re embarrassed.”
Dana has a hard
job in a culture that mixes porn with simple television commercials
for hamburgers. She must help students understand the damage of an
impure thought. She must lead them through the natural consequences
of linking a beautiful expression of intimate sexual love to the
heartless eroticism of porn.
We train our
bodies with our minds. And the irony of training our minds with porn
is that we destroy our ability to enjoy the natural physical sexual
pleasures that sustain a marriage between husband and wife. Our
libido is no longer satisfied by natural sexual activity. And our
intimate emotional connection with our sexual partner is destroyed.
“It’s really a
shame that today, people are actually afraid to admit they are opposed
to pornography,” Paul says. “It’s time we realized that this line of
thinking – fed to us by the pornography industry – doesn’t have to be
our way of thinking. The reality is that using and accepting
pornography has negative effects on our lives.”
The brown paper
wrapper existed for a reason. Its existence acknowledged the harm
that can come from an impure thought. And for the teens who meet Dana
each week, this is a message that can’t come too soon.
Read More About the Impact of Porn
Pamela Paul, PORNIFIED: How
Pornography Is Transforming our Lives, our Relationships, and our
Families, TIMES BOOKS, Henry Holt and Company, September, 2005.
October 29, 2004 -
Food for the Brain
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