So, I recently found out that many people find our blog by typing in “free porn” to their web browser, and I thought it was a bit ironic.

There is no such thing as free porn. As a recovering porn addict, I should know.

Porn will cost you your libido

Pornography is actually one cause of impotence among men today. Pornography is intensely erotic stimuli. Being overexposed to it will exhaust normal sexual responses in a man.

Before we log on to view pornography, we need to ask ourselves, “What is the purpose of having a sex drive?” Do we want to be aroused when we engage in intimacy with the one we love? Or do we want to condition our bodies to only be aroused by the sort of fantasy women that the adult industry provides? By exposing ourselves to pornography over and over we actually train our brains to need those images in order to become aroused.

For more information on this, see Dr. Judith Reisman’s article, “The Impotence Pandemic.”

Porn will cost you real intimacy

When we view our sex drives as mere pleasure factories that are made to churn out bigger and better orgasms, then the pornography industry attempts to supply exactly what the body demands. But on a deeper level the human heart longs for more. In reality our sex drives can be for a different purpose, a resource to be tapped for a higher goal. I’m talking about romance and oneness with another person.

Pornography is just one major facet of the “sexuality-on-tap” culture in which we live: sexuality packaged in pixels. The more we train our minds to embrace this picture of sexuality, we miss out on the intimacy sex can bring.

Naomi Wolf writes,

“The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as ‘porn-worthy’ . . . 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.”

Gary R. Brooks, Ph.D., explains that a deep, inborn desire for men is intimacy. Unfortunately our culture trains boys from a young age to feel shame over feelings of weakness and vulnerability—necessities for building intimacy with another person. Little emphasis is taught to young men to develop interpersonal skills of communication, empathy and nurturing. Our culture instead trains boys to develop an “emotionally stoic exterior.” Then the hormones of adolescence hit these culturally conditioned boys and confusion ensues: we want intimacy but fear it. The result?

“As young men lean to wall themselves off from the too much emotional intimacy in sex—to develop nonrelational sexuality—they are also taught to sexualize all feelings of emotional and physical closeness. As a result, they become unable to experience nonsexual intimacy.”

Porn delivers in pure form what our culture conditions us to desire: sexual release without the entanglement of relationship. Even married men may tend to seek distance through the fantasy of porn in an effort to withdraw emotionally.

Porn will cost you your self-control

We would all agree that the human body has its limits. There are habitats in which we are simply not meant to live. We don’t breathe under water. We don’t jump off buildings assuming a natural ability to fly.

The human brain has its own healthy limits. Push those limits and problems are created. Drugs are a great example. When we unreservedly begin using addictive substances, the brain will rewire itself and become dependent on the release of chemicals.

But what about porn addiction? Dr. Jeffrey Satinover writes: “Modern science allows us to understand that the underlying nature of an addiction to pornography is chemically nearly identical to a heroin addiction.” When we return to porn again and again these pleasure chemicals in our brains pave a neuro-pathway that make us more and more dependent on the sexual stimulus.

For more information see, “Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?”

Porn is costing someone else their dignity

The sad reality is that there are real individuals behind the porn videos and pictures. Can we really comfort ourselves by saying that the women involved chose their occupation? Chosen or not, do we endorse the industry that exploits and objectifies these women?

Former porn star Shelley Lubben writes,

Many believe the widespread fairytale that women enjoy making porn movies but the truth is there are no happy endings for the women of porn. Women do NOT enjoy making porn movies and a closer, behind-the-scenes look will show you several reasons why.

Repeatedly pornographers stop scenes and ask actors to “freeze” in position during very hardcore sex acts, which causes great physical and emotional pain for porn actresses . . . I speak from personal experience when I say, to be in the middle of a hardcore sex act with several actors at the same time and told to “freeze” in position for several minutes while lighting or cameras are adjusted, is extremely painful and degrading. It’s also very humiliating when scenes are stopped in order to wipe up bodily fluids such as semen, feces and blood.

In the world of hardcore sex, an average day on the set for a porn actress is a long and tedious process . . . After make up, porn actresses usually wait around long hours until it’s their turn to do their scene. Some scenes take an hour and some take several hours to film. It really depends on whether the male actor in the first scene could “perform” or not. It also depends on whether female actresses have to stop the clock because they can’t handle the pain of a hardcore sex scene.

While waiting around, jaded porn performers usually end up in the rest rooms with bottles of alcohol and lines of speed, or outside in their cars for a heroin fix, or gathered in the back yard with other actors to smoke marijuana.

I recommend reading a letter written by Erica, a former Playboy Special Editions Model of the Year—“The Only Way Out.”

The Cost of Porn

There is no such thing as free porn. To be sure, the next time you look at porn you may not need to reach into your wallet. But there is no price tag you can place on the high cost of porn.

For more info:

Husbands Who Watch Porn – What are their wives saying

Myths About Pornography

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