Human intimacy is a beautiful thing. It is the foundation of society, where life begins, where the love of a man and woman is fully realized. And it is why you should eliminate pornography from your life.
Pornography cheapens intimacy and makes it more difficult to achieve, while simultaneously destroying the viewer’s ability to see the humanity of the person with whom they share intimacy. The other person becomes merely a tool to fulfill the sexual urges that, while natural, have been corrupted by pornography. It is as addictive as any opioid.
Human beings are hardwired for intimacy. It’s why most people seek out romantic relationships. This is a wonderful and natural thing that contributes to individual happiness.
When two people are involved in a romantic relationship, the brain’s reward center releases dopamine. This is inherently a good thing. But that same reward center also releases dopamine when pornography is viewed, and the brain then associates intimacy with pornography, creating an addiction much like narcotic drugs.
This is why people who consume pornography frequently find themselves viewing it more and more and watching increasingly extreme content. The initial exposure is no longer satisfactory, much like the heroin user whose doses increase each time, eventually leading to a potentially fatal overdose.
While the effects of pornography are not so catastrophically tragic, they can greatly alter a person’s life.
Fight the New Drug, a nonprofit organization dedicated to spreading awareness of the harmful effects of pornography, points to numerous scientific studies that indicate a link between pornography consumption and infidelity, divorce, and a dissatisfaction with one’s own sex life.
While pornography can harm relationships, it also has an adverse effect on the individual user. Fight the New Drug quotes psychologist Gary Brooks, who said that “the more one uses pornography, the more lonely one becomes.”
“Porn promises immediate satisfaction, endless excitement, and easy intimacy, but in the end, it robs a consumer of all three,” the organization writes on its website.
In a culture that has oversexualized every corner of our lives, it should come as no surprise that people turn to porn. While in the moment you might feel a little satisfied, you will never find the satisfaction and happiness that true intimacy with another person can bring.
In the #MeToo era, the harm that pornography does to women in relationships and within the pornographic industry is largely ignored. The sexual expectations put on women by their significant others are not far off of sexual exploitation, and they often come from watching porn.
Fight the New Drug points out that pornography “doesn’t give an accurate picture of what healthy sex is like; they cut out things like talking, cuddling, bonding touch, and other ways partners are responsive to each other’s needs and preferences.”
While porn removes soft intimacy in many instances, it also adds abusive behaviors such as verbal abuse and BDSM.
Sex and romantic love have been inseparably linked for the entire history of the human race. But there is no love in bondage. There is no love in screaming at a woman. There is no love in watching a video on a screen while you are alone. There is only emptiness and dissatisfaction. A sense of feeling that you have been robbed of the intimacy that only another human being, someone you have pledged your life to, can provide.
Ditch the twisted abusive fantasies of pornography, abandon the cheapness of an image on a screen, rid yourself of the addiction that has controlled your sexual urges, and resolve to stand up for true human intimacy and love. Porn will only make your quest for true love more difficult and complicated.
Jeremiah Poff (@JJ_Poff) is a senior journalism major at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is a graduate of the Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program.
