Style, VF Looks
Mental Health, Mindfulness
Porn is becoming widely accepted as a social norm.
And because this is a healthy lifestyle blog – I feel like I’m doing you guys a disservice if I don’t talk about it every now and then – because it’s unbelievably unhealthy for all of us.
Here are some current lies from the media on the topic:
1). Porn is liberating.
2). Porn relieves stress.
3). Porn can be beneficial to your sex life.
It’s heartbreaking to know the negative effects of watching porn from a scientific perspective, and watch these ridiculous lies destroy people day in and day out.
Before I explain how watching porn negatively effects a person’s sex life – let me address the key terms I’ll be using:
Sexual Stimulation – whatever gets you aroused. (kissing your significant other, a special song, etc.) For those of you who are into porn it will obviously be stimuli such as: naked images, sex clips/videos, fantasies/stories, magazines, etc).
Sexual Template – is the standard, or the basic level, of sexual stimulation required to achieve a normal level of dopamine release.
Dopamine Release – neurotransmitters that give us feelings of pleasure and enjoyment. Woohoo!
Let’s create a hypothetical scale from 1 to 100 (100 being the highest level of dopamine your brain can possibly produce at one time), and a hypothetical situation to explain our scale in a tangible way:
One hot summer day, I sit down under a shaded tree and crack open a juicy watermelon. The first bite of watermelon will produce a dopamine release in my brain due to its’ sweet, delicious taste. It will spike to about a 10 out of 100. I will be happy and experience good thoughts about how the watermelon tasted!! By the last few bites though, the watermelon seems to have lost its’ flavor. It’s plain and watered down.
So what happened?
There’s no actual reduction in the flavor of the watermelon itself, I’ve just raised my “flavor template” because I’ve slowly become desensitized to the effects of the sugar on my brain chemistry.
Basically….. I’ve lost my ability to fully enjoy the melon, because I’ve raised my template over time spent eating bite after bite under the tree.
No need to stress out though, eating watermelon is on a very small dopamine scale (10 out of 100, remember) and my template will go back to normal within a day or so! 😉
However, when it comes to higher levels of dopamine (30+ out of 100) that’s kind-of when you need to stress out, because these come with addictive properties! If you have a high level of dopamine rush into your brain at once, it’s called “dopamine flooding”. Sex and porn raise our templates drastically because of the dopamine flooding during climax (35-50 out of 100).
Here’s another hypothetical situation….
A 12-year-old boy is excited while holding hands with his “girlfriend” inside of a movie theater. His sexual template is low at this point (2 out of 100). Weeks later, his peers send him links to hardcore porn, but he’s never seen a naked female until now. His dopamine immediately spikes to 50. His sexual template is now raised. He continues to seek out these sites – and over time – he needs more erotic videos to release the same amount of dopamine. He no longer has much excitement holding his girlfriend’s hand in real life.
Porn is just one example of high stimulation + frequent stimulation = higher template = reduced enjoyment, though. Drugs/alcohol is another.
It’s what you’ve experienced if you’ve gotten used to a medication, or if one glass of wine doesn’t get you tipsy anymore…. you’ve raised your tolerance level.
This is a bad thing. Regular, realistic sex with a flesh-and-blood person can lose it’s “flavor” just like the watermelon, if you push your levels of sexual stimulation too far to quickly and on a frequent basis (ie: porn). Because with porn, you can type in any kind you want, any preference, any fetish, your whole body doesn’t have to be engaged in the process, your mind can be elsewhere, and you don’t have to meet the physical needs of a real person. You can experience kinky and erotic fantasies that would never actually happen in real life. But the more days pass, the darker the videos get because the old ones just don’t do it for you anymore.
Don’t believe the media. Our brains are easily moldable, and watching porn is highly destructive.
If you’re currently struggling in this area, please don’t panic or feel judged.
Now that you’ve admitted it’s a problem and it needs to stop, know that God is a God who loves and forgives you of all mistakes. It’s seriously never too late to experience real healing. He longs to restore your life and bring you satisfaction through His design for sexuality.
We simply need to get rid of all traces of porn, tell an accountability partner, keep our sexual templates low, and sexual stimulation normal again.
God designed sex to be in a safe and mutually beneficial relationship between husband and wife, and it’s the most amazing thing we can ever experience aside from salvation. Porn is Satan’s roadblock to that fulfillment. It’s a trap, and it destroys lives. It leads to social anxiety, depression, shame, and much more. I pray you break free from bondage and start living life to the fullest!
If you don’t struggle with this, but you found yourself reading this for someone else who’s involved with porn – I suggest you address the topic with love and grace, pray for and with them, and recommend this book to them.
10 Comments
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Chiara marie
Thanks for this thought provoking post. After reading this coupled with the studies from Fight The New Drug…it is a new drug, causing such intense and psychological factors that can weigh in on us at any point of our lives. We need to bring awareness to this issue and that honestly this is the nastiest trap from hell that was sent to earth. Porn is the most perfect drug to break man and woman apart…which eventually leads to breaking the family, the most essential unit of our Christian faith. Once the devil is in to break the family, he’s got power…but no…God’s power and hand has already won the battle. We just have to do our part, take a stand and not normalize this drug. Ooooo you got my blood boiling for this. Time to rise up and fight this new drug.
– Chiara (a fellow fighter of the drug. It’s not just the men.)
VeiledFree
Wow. I have chills. God really laid this post on my heart even though it’s such a controversial issue. Thank you for your response, Chiara – you’re 100% right. I’ve seen it destroy lives of people I love and I’m sorry that you struggled in the past, but I’m so glad God delivered you!
Sarah
really needed this..
VeiledFree
I’m so glad it helped, Sarah, and thanks for stopping by!
Maria
Just read this with my husband next to me in bed. Although this isn’t a problem in our marriage, I believe it is important to discuss this. The enemy never sleeps and after reading this we were able to discuss how we feel about this issue. I suppose generally you don’t hear of couples talking about porn before going to bed but that could be a problem. For me and my husband no subject is really off limits. It helps us a lot. It keeps things still interesting even after 7 years. ?
VeiledFree
Maria, thank you for sharing, and for having the conversation with your spouse. I’m so glad you’re able to experience 100% vulnerability in a safe environment with one another – free from judgement. That’s what a good marriage takes. I’ll be praying that you guys never struggle with this issue, and way to go for never starting in the first place! You are experiencing sex the way God intended and it doesn’t get better than that! 🙂
Lee
A fantastic, much needed post! We must continue to spread the word about the devastation that porn is. Thank you for being obedient to God putting it on your heart. Sharing now !!
VeiledFree
Thank you, Lee! Share away!
Aaron Ramsey
Funny how people often downplay the adverse effects/consequences of porn- despite the many scientific research that has exposed its dangers on brain/psyche.I use to be addicted to it,but not anymore. Amazing write-up. Will be sharing this on my social media profiles-thank you
VeiledFree
Glad that you’ve conquered the addiction – that must have been very difficult! Thank you for feedback and thank you for sharing, Aaron!