The following is an excerpt from, “Throw off Pornography”, the 4th book in the “Lord of My Life” series. You can download the complete book for free through Amazon Kindle, Apple Books or Barnes & Noble. You can also order the paperback version through the Amazon bookstore. Find direct links for all of these at ktfproductions.com under the store tab. Visit every week and receive weekly excerpts January through April of 2024.
THE TOXICITY OF PORN
Human beings aren’t too difficult to understand. We are simple creatures born with a sin nature. If you think about it, there are only about 5 base sins that tempt us, sexual immorality in its many forms being one of them. And pornography is one form of sexual immorality. There are dozens of warnings against sexually immoral behavior in the New Testament. Unlike other sins, sexual sins are very personal. It is a sin that is committed against our body, and our body is the temple of God. It is the residence of the Holy Spirit. Paul said in 1 Corinthians, chapter 6, verses 18-20:
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.
But how many of us heed this warning? I’m sure you’ve heard the statistics. As of January 2022, Barna Research reported that “68% of church-going men and more than 50% of pastors regularly view porn.” It is a pervasive sin. It is a sin that is easy to hide. It is a sin that has infiltrated the church and has taken up residency in the lives of many believers. And we have learned to live with it. We accept it. The Holy Spirit is grieved because of our apathy. But we often neglect to recognize that there are several negative side effects associated with porn addiction, both tangible and intangible. So many of us have fallen into the trap of minimizing these effects because we have convinced ourselves that they don’t spill into other areas of our life. We may even believe that if we were free from pornography, we wouldn’t be any different than we are with it. But I encourage you to examine that fallacy with me.
What would your life be like if you were free from the grip of pornography in all its forms? Would anyone see a difference? Would you behave differently? Would life be different? It is easy to believe that nothing would change. It is easy to think that the fallout of pornography is confined only within our mind and that it only affects the way we think. It is easy to believe that we can hide what is in our mind and in our heart from those around us. But Jesus warns us in Luke, chapter 6, verse 45:
A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
In other words, what is in our heart always surfaces in some way. Because we can only view our lives through the lens of life with pornography, it isn’t always apparent to us what life would be like without it. We can’t see how the sin we’ve allowed into our heart has affected us or how it has surfaced. It isn’t obvious how our addiction has influenced our decisions, our perception, or our behavior. So, what are some of the unseen effects of pornography?
We hinder our relationship with God:
You already know that sin and God’s holiness can’t mix. But habitual sin can cause us to actively push God away. I noticed that when I was sinning habitually with pornography, I didn’t pray. I felt ashamed and distant. I felt like God was far from me, and even if he wasn’t I felt like he wouldn’t want to hear me apologize yet again. I’d remind myself that I’d been in this very place so many times before. And I also knew that before long I’d be right back, fallen to the temptation of pornography, wanting forgiveness, but not having a leg to stand on. I knew that I’d want to repent, but that I’d know how hollow my words would be because by tomorrow I will have fallen again. And when we feel like we are not worthy of coming to God, we avoid him. I like how Paul explains the sin struggle in Romans, chapter 7, verses 15-21 which says:
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
The habitual nature of pornography keeps us bound. And when we are bound, we do the exact opposite of what we should do which is to come to God. Our relationship with God is key to a healthy spiritual life. If for any reason we choose not to come to him we are sabotaging our spiritual walk.
We don’t view women correctly:
I know. I used to roll my eyes at this one too. But if you catch yourself frequently “undressing” women with your eyes, imagining all types of sexually vile acts you want to perform with them and defaulting to your base desires whenever you see someone who is attractive, your view of women is sexualized. God does not want us to objectify women by immediately thinking of them in a sexually context. Lust is not born from our addiction to pornography, but it is certainly amplified by it. With the multitude of detestable images that we’ve collected from what we’ve seen through porn, it is easy to superimpose those visuals or desires on someone we see in person. This can lead to more egregious thoughts which can lead to more egregious sins. It is a slippery slope similar to what we find in James, chapter 1, verses 14 and 15 which says:
but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Even if we don’t physically act on our desires, pornography can seed thoughts deep into our heart. These desires can spill out into our relationships with women, our conversations with women and our dating practices with women. I don’t even want to talk about how it can affect our sexual relations with women. There is no upside to how thoroughly this screws up our ideology of women. And it is at its worst when it advances from thought to action. We forget that these women are someone’s daughter, sister, or mother; that they are made in the image of God and should be thought of as such. As James warns, we cannot allow our evil desires to be conceived to the point that it gives birth to sin and even worse, death. For porn addicts, the objectification of women is subtly woven into very encounter we have with them. Even though we may smile on the outside, inwardly we are ranking them on a sexual scale, or defaulting to any number of sexual thoughts that are ungodly. When we encourage these thoughts and play with them in our head, our perception of these women and the heightened desires we’ve cultivated from the sexual scenarios we’ve imprinted on our brain will come out in some way, maybe even in a way that they will notice. It is not a side effect to take lightly.
We become dependent on porn:
I’ve never been tempted to do hard drugs, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol or gamble. For me, these addictions are an “acquired taste”. In other words, if I were to allow these things to rule over me, I’d have to first train my body to want them. I’d have to learn to like them. However, the desire for sex comes naturally to me as it does for most. It is part of the human condition. It is in our nature to want it. I would argue that the draw is stronger for men than women, but I’m fairly certain that we all experience a strong desire for sex at some stage in our life. Pornography was my way of satiating that desire. It was my way of scratching that itch. Unfortunately, it worked so well that I became dependent on it. When we become dependent on something to satisfy one of our base desires, what do we do when we no longer have it? I think dependency on porn can be compared in some way to a dependency on drugs (without the physiological component). We begin doing it because it satiates our pleasure center. And we keep doing it because we become addicted to it. It gives us an unnatural release for our sexual depravity. And in short order it becomes a part of our lives. It becomes almost necessary. We lose sight of the truth that our total dependence should be God and God alone. As Jesus said in John, chapter 14, verse 20:
On that day you will realize that I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
When we are in right relationship with God, we are in sync with him. But when we allow sin to rule over us, we exchange what God had in mind for a cheap counterfeit.
We carry constant shame:
For believers in Christ, an addiction to porn can really beat us down emotionally and spiritually. Every time we take communion, every time there is an altar call for freedom from sin, every time we want to do something for the cause of Christ, I don’t know about you, but during those times I felt like the biggest hypocrite. The shame! The hypocrisy! The feeling of failure and defeat felt like a mountain on my shoulders. I’d continually remind myself that I am not the person I want to be, that I am not the person God wants me to be and that I am not the person I want others to believe I am. Admittedly, there are different degrees of shame for everyone. But if you call yourself a Christian, a follower of Christ, and if you are addicted to pornography, there is inevitably some level of shame. Paul said in Ephesians in chapter 5, verse 3:
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.
When we admit that we have willingly and consciously sinned, there is no greater reminder of how far we are from obeying this mandate. Shame can cause us to distance ourselves from God and other believers. It can cause us to condemn ourselves, and it can lead to depression. This is especially true if our sin is habitual and if the temptation seems insurmountable. And if constant shame has become our lifestyle, how much damage might it have caused over time? How has this degree of constant shame destroyed our self-esteem and altered who God wants us to be?
Our proclivities grow more detestable:
If you are a regular porn user, you know that traditional forms of pornography eventually become “vanilla”. Over time, what once satiated your desire no longer does the trick. Just like gateway drugs draw unsuspecting users toward addiction to more hardcore drugs, so does pornography. And when we allow darker and more detestable forms of pornography into our heart, we rewire our brain to redefine what is “normal”. And as we learned from Luke, whatever is in our heart, eventually comes out in some way. We must remember that what we allow through our senses informs how light or how dark our hearts are. It informs how righteous or how sinful we are becoming. Jesus said in Matthew, chapter 6, verses 22 and 23:
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Admittedly, this portion of scripture is most likely referring to money due to where it is located in Jesus’ sermon, but it doesn’t take a theologian to realize that the sentiment can apply to pornography as well. The more time we spend using porn the darker the forms of pornography become. God is light. If we continue to allow this darkness into our heart, the darker, or the more unlike him, we become.
I’m sure that if you think on it, you may be able to identify other toxic side effects that arise from addiction to pornography. There are many, most of which are intangible and are not easily seen by others. It rots our insides, and it is our insides that matter most. Remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees and teachers of the law in Matthew, chapter 23, verse 27?
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”
Pornography is incredibly dangerous because it is free, ubiquitous, easily accessible, and anonymous. It is incredibly toxic because it rots our insides, it rewires our brain, it separates us from God, and it encourages the objectification of women. It is secret, it is done in the dark, and it makes us hypocrites. It is unassuming, unrelenting, and is a subject most of us don’t want to talk about in public because quite frankly, it has a hold on most of us. It is as if we are constantly drinking poisonous water. It unwittingly contaminates us in ways that are virtually unseen. We seem to only acknowledge it after the damage is done, and by then we are in too deep.