The World’s Virtual Babylon
The porn industry since its conception has been a destructive form of spiritual neutering of young men who fall prey to it. It is draining men of their spiritual strength and turning them into weak eunuch boys whose service is rendered to the wicked Baal of sexual lust. This visual fantasy of one’s desire for sexual stimulation through a screen has castrated young men of their innocence and passion and have warped their sense of reality towards women. Their servility is now to their object of lust. Could this, in a metaphysical sense, be any worse than the kings of old who flayed the penises of young boys to eliminate any emotional arousal towards their queens? The normalization of pornography as a means to achieve that pithy end of cyclical self-destruction has become a habit for young men everywhere who have access to the internet. This is a serious yet overlooked issue in our culture and must be addressed from three, though not exhaustive, standpoints: what pornography is, its effects upon the brain, and its effects upon the soul.
What Pornography Is
Pornography is the visually explicit depiction of sexual organs intended to arouse sexual excitement upon the viewer. However, this definition does not capture all the subtleties that have developed in our society especially through the use of media. The visual display of men and women in lewd and lascivious clothing is considered soft porn. It in some way outlines or emphasizes one’s sexual organs to arouse or “catch the eye” of the viewer. Pornography used to be less accessible to the public prior to the internet, but now it only requires a perverse curiosity for the internet to provide hundreds of naked images of men and woman. Children and underaged teens are now finding themselves going down a nasty rabbit hole.
The Normalization of Soft Porn
Due to the widespread spread use of social media, soft porn has now become commonplace. Anyone creating posts of their bodies can do so in a sexually suggestive manner. Worse, is the phenomena of underaged teens posting pictures of their bodies in an attempt to receive attention and affirmation from strangers without realizing the effect it has on them and the viewer (young and old). It is disturbing to think than older men with pedophilic ideations are stalking the pages of young girls; however, it must be a reality that teens, and especially parents, must consider when creating social media accounts.
One must also consider the vicious cycle that soft porn launches the viewer into. When the viewer is aroused, that smidge of excitement quickly evolves into a vehement compulsion looking for release. That tickling sensation of arousal is never satisfied without release. Soft porn, therefore, is the foothold into that deep and wide-cast net of pornography composed of endlessly wicked genres including fetishes of violence, incest, bodily defamation, and so on. Oftentimes, those who fall victim to it the most are young men.
Pornography Among Young Men
Statistically speaking, 84.4% of 14-18-year-old-males have viewed pornography1 and the sentiment towards pornography is not one of censure. 90% of teens and 96% of young adults encourage the use of pornography around social circles2. Furthermore, 1 in 5 youth pasters and 1 in 7 senior pastors use porn on a regular basis, which is more than 50,000 U.S. church leaders2. A multi-billion-dollar industry is cashing in on young men’s souls. The danger among young men is the corrosion of their spiritual leadership when seeking or maintaining a relationship with women. The porn industry profits by providing a false and unrealistic depiction of what sex is, how it is done, and how women are dehumanized to be objects of sexual fulfillment, rather than a spiritual companion. Sex, in its original sanctified state, is meant to be a blessing from God. God and sin simply cannot abide together in the temple of people’s bodies.
The Brain on Porn
Sexual compulsion, which is the sudden onset and urge to bypass all mental warnings and engage in sexual behavior, is typically the starting point to porn addiction. By feeding off this compulsion, people experience an anatomic change in the brain similar to that of drug users3. Porn overexcites the reward association of our brain, providing excessive dopamine, and ultimately reducing the viewer’s brain size to that of alcoholics4. Dr. William Struthers stresses how pornography and masturbation weaken the cingulate cortex which houses our willpower, along with the ability to make moral and ethical decisions5. Once a man’s morals are corroded, his spirit soon follows in rust and degradation.
The Spiritual Restoration of Manhood
What are we to make of the spiritual connection between manhood, Christ, and pornography? As I have alluded to earlier, we must see porn for what it is in its most base essence. A shallow fulfillment of what men yearn for the most—God. This disillusioned and short-lived experience only satisfies an urge, providing men a release from the reality of having to build and maintain a relationship with women, his counterpart. While God charged man to cultivate the cursed ground from which he must toil over, man is also responsible for fostering and leading the relationship with the woman he loves. The woman on the screen is not his reality. Pornography does not reveal the problems that occur in marriage. It cannot not teach a man how to talk and listen to his wife and it certainly does not give man the courage to lay his life down for his her. That is what a virtually uncommitted world takes away from men—the pressures of reality that shape his character.
There is no way to rid the world of pornography and its sponsored industries. There is no application or program that can fully prevent someone from gaining access to pornography. Applications such as Covenant Eyes, at best, provide roadblocks that slow someone down from watching pornography. When his temptation is high and his spirit is low, the individual must ultimately make the decision not to engage in pornography. To fight back against his depraved lust, driving him into a spiritual battle against his own sinful nature. This struggle has a beauty to it. Free will is a blessing. It imbues us with a spiritual empowerment, if used correctly, and it brings us closer to God when we choose to make the right decision.
I recommend every man struggling with pornography to hold himself accountable to another mature man that he can trust. Shame must not lead him to a perpetual cycle of destructive and risky behavior, but to a sincere repentance. The porn industry is not going away and so the need for young men to steel their will is the battle of our generation. To understand that his purpose in life is devoted to God, his wife, and his children. He is not made to be spiritually castrated, turned into a poor eunuch boy whose self-loving tyranny leads him down a destructive path of sexual worship. Young men must struggle with themselves, cry to the Lord for self-control and divine strength to resist himself. Only then can young men usurp that pagan throne of lust and be the Godly man he was made to be.
Image credit: Freed Russian serfs. The Zemstvo dines, painting by Grigoriy Myasoyedov, 1872. (Photo: Tretyakov Gallery/Public domain)
References
- Wright, P. J., Paul, B., & Herbenick, D. (2021). Preliminary insights from a U.S. probability sample on adolescents’ pornography exposure, media psychology, and sexual aggression. J.Health Commun., 1-8. doi:10.1080/10810730.2021.1887980
- Covenant Eyes. (2022, January 3). The most up-to-date pornography statistics. Covenant Eyes. Retrieved January 14, 2023, from https://www.covenanteyes.com/pornstats/
- Schiffer, B., Peschel, T., Paul, T., Gizewski, E., Forsting, M., Leygraf, N., Schedlowski, M., & Krueger, T. H. (2007). Structural brain abnormalities in the frontostriatal system and cerebellum in pedophilia. Journal of psychiatric research, 41(9), 753–762. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2006.06.003
- Schulzke, E. (2013, September 25). New UK study finds porn affects brain like drugs, alcohol. Deseret News. Retrieved January 14, 2023, from https://www.deseret.com/2013/9/25/20526176/new-uk-study-finds-porn-affects-brain-like-drugs-alcohol
- Gilkerson, L. (2023, January 12). Brain Chemicals and porn: How porn affects your brain. Covenant Eyes. Retrieved January 14, 2023, from https://www.covenanteyes.com/2014/02/03/brain-chemicals-and-porn-addiction/