There are some beautiful beaches in the world that have hidden dangers. When water floods sand below the surface, the sand particles get pushed apart. The result is a muddy mixture of the two that can’t support the weight of a person. When someone walks over it, they sink down. It’s a trap known as quicksand. As the person sinks down, it pushes the water out creating a vacuum effect that secures its victim tighter and tighter. Sometimes it only takes moments to absorb someone into a desperate situation.
This is what pornography does to millions every day. It starts simple enough without any sign of danger, a movie on cable or the click of the mouse. We tell ourselves there’s nothing wrong with it, or perhaps it’s not that bad, even though we keep it secret. Pretty soon what started as “controllable” and “here and there” turns into a habit, deeper and deeper. But the user is not the only one affected. The consequences for our society as a whole is alarming. Knowing the dangers and taking them seriously will allow us to avoid getting ensnared. The fate of the next generation depends on us. Here are 4 dangers of pornography.
I have not talked to a single man who has watched porn habitually that said it was easy to stop. Even in spite of an intense desire to live porn free because of how it was affecting their lives in a negative way, every guy I’ve talked to has said it was a “struggle.” Many have not even been able to quit. They are slaves serving a master.
Intimate relationships demand an investment of time and energy. It involves sacrifice and vulnerability. All of those things are difficult. Porn is a cheap and quick way to avoid all of that in order to get a momentary rush of similar feelings that intimacy brings. The problem is that the desires that would be found in a relationship are replaced by porn. Sex becomes a selfish pursuit of recreating scenes from movies (if it doesn’t disappear altogether). The sexual relationship gets cheapened when connection ceases to be the goal. Couples drift apart, particularly as most of the viewing is done in secret. A 2003 poll of 350 attorneys specializing in divorce at the American Academy of Matrimony Lawyers revealed that a large amount of their divorce cases involved one person with compulsive porn use. It’s playing with fire.
Every click to a porn website contributes to destroying lives. Even most of those who have willingly entered into the porn industry speak of being coerced to do hurtful things they never wanted to do. One of the most popular male porn stars of all time gave a personal account to the website Fight the New Drug. In it, he said, “I had to go to work so I could do the porn; so that I could buy the drugs to bury the pain from doing the porn; And around and around it went.” Even worse, porn fuels the demand for prostitution, many of whom are victims of human trafficking. In a 2003 study, 854 human traffic survivors were surveyed and it showed that 50% were forced to do pornography.
Boys and girls are exposed to pornography early and get hooked. Finding a teenager who has not been exposed to porn is a nearly impossible task. They are being taught about sex and sexuality from what they see on the Internet and graphic video games. They play at being sexual by sending and posting naked pictures to one another and performing sex acts as early as age eleven. They do all of this without the brain development to understand the long-term consequences. It’s contributing to the destruction of a generation deficient in what it means to build intimacy.
The problem is us. Adults have told them what to be. Adults produce the material and market to kids. Adults have sexualized them and they are simply molding to the culture we have formed and approved. According to Homeland Security Investigations, child exploitation cases continue to jump higher and higher. Last year, the number one search term among porn was “teen.” That should shock our collective conscience, but I fear as a society we may have burned it away.