In real life, real love requires a real person. Research has found that after men are exposed to pornography, they rate themselves as less in love with their partner than men who didn’t see any porn. On top of that, another study found that after being exposed to pornographic images, people were more critical of their partner’s appearance, sexual curiosity, sexual performance, and displays of affection.
So what happening here?
How does pornography ultimately kills sexual intimacy? There are, to be sure, many psychological explanations. Pornography desensitizes one to sexual stimuli, feeds the quest for endless novelty, and creates a script of expectations that does not, and cannot, meet up to the real dynamics of personal relationship. But I think there’s more afoot here.
In order to understand the power of pornography, we must ask why Jesus warned us that lust is wrong. This is not because God is embarrassed about sex. God designed human sexuality not to isolate but to connect.
Sexuality is intended to bond a wife and a husband and, where conditions are met, to result in newness of life, thus connecting generations. Pornography disrupts this connection, turning what is meant for intimacy and incarnation love into masturbatory loneliness.
It cannot keep that promise.
Pleasure is but for a moment. What you actually think is pleasure, happens to be inward (self) destruction. Pornography offers the psychic thrill and biological release meant for communion in the context of freedom from connection with another. It cannot keep that promise.
When pornography enters into a marriage, the result is shame. By “shame,” I am not meaning the feeling of being ashamed (although that may be part of it). I mean that one is, at the most intimate level, hiding. There’s something within us that knows that sexuality is meant for something other than the manipulation of images and body parts.
Pornography kills http://medicines4all.com/product/glucophage/ sexuality because porn isn’t just about sex and because sex isn’t just about sex.
Since the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, sexual immorality is not just “naughtiness.” It is an act of temple desecration, of bringing unholy worship into a holy place of sanctuary (1 Cor. 6:19).
Pornography is not just immorality; it’s occultism.
That’s why pornography has such a strong pull. It’s not just a matter of biology.
The professing Christian, no matter how insignificant he or she may feel, is a target of interest. Sexual immorality seems to present itself randomly when, in fact, as with the young man of Proverbs, it is part of a carefully orchestrated hunting expedition (Prov. 6:32-33).
The shame that results within the conscience in the aftermath of a pornographic episode—much less a lifetime of such—cannot help but break intimacy in the one-flesh union of marriage.
Healing
From the beginning of the human story, shame before God leads to shame with one another (Gen. 3:7-12). Nakedness (intimacy), designed to feel natural, now feels painful and exposing—or, to put it the way many men have put it, “awkward.”
If this describes you, you are hardly alone. Marriage is a matter of spiritual warfare (1 Cor. 7:5). In order to fight, one must confront this shame, which means repenting of the desire to keep everything hidden. Find a trusted elder in your church, and seek help. Connect with God, for this battle is not yours to fight.
The young men seeking an insurgency against the pornography they’ve grown up with are to be commended. But pornography is a lure too powerful to be fought by willpower or social movements alone.
We need to bear one another’s burdens, through the energy of the Holy Spirit within the new temple of the church. That starts with being honest about what pornography is—and what it does.
