Advanced Ally Training
Day 2: Understanding Pornanite’s Power
Welcome back to the Advanced Ally Training! We’re here to help you on your friend’s hero’s journey to defeating porn.
In the superhero video you watched the other day, porn was compared to a special mineral that renders you powerless (like kryptonite).
This is a helpful analogy. For one thing, it shows us we can’t just kill porn in one shot with a mythological hammer. It won’t just die like that because it’s not alive. Instead, we’ll have to develop an antidote.
To develop that cure, we’ll spend the next few emails looking at how porn affects our bodies—literally.
When we have a sexual experience, our brains fire off a ton of chemicals.
- Dopamine is released into a region of the brain responsible for emotion and learning. It supplies a great sense of pleasure, and tells the person where to go to get that same high later.
- Norepinephrine creates alertness and focus. It is the brain’s version of adrenaline. It tells the brain, “Something is about to happen, and we need to get ready for it.”
- Oxytocin and vasopressin help to lay down the long-term memories for the cells. They “bind” a person’s memories to the object that gave him or her the sexual pleasure.
- The body releases endorphins, natural opiates that create a “high,” a wave of pleasure.
- After sexual release serotonin levels also change, bringing a sense of calm and relaxation.
Put these all together, and over time sex binds you to your sexual partner. That person is the one giving you that dopamine craving, that endorphin high.
When a person watches porn, they’re bonding to digital variety and novelty. Porn is taking the body’s natural, good processes for sexual pleasure with a specific person and training it to be hijacked by virtual images.
So, in short, when you limit your sexual experiences to one person, your body craves one person. When you expand your sexual appetites to images and variety, your body craves images and variety.
TEXT YOUR FRIEND:
- How does your body physically feel when you view porn? Alert? Energized?
- How do you think this bonding changes how you view your spouse/significant other/people in general?
FOR PEOPLE OF FAITH:
Sometimes people think they just need Jesus and they’ll magically quit porn. Read Psalm 139:13-16. How does your view of recovery change knowing that our wiring was designed by God?
For you formed my inward parts;
Psalm 139:13-16
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.