Pornography, the Human Brain, and the Pursuit of Intimacy

Pornography is a multi-billion-dollar industry that enslaves millions of people worldwide. In fact, the most searched for terms on the internet every single day are related to pornography. The porn industry’s annual revenue is more than the NFL, NBA, and MLB combined. It’s also more than the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC. 11 is the average age that a child is first exposed to porn, and 94% of children will see porn by the age of 14. 47% of families in the United States reported that pornography is a problem in their home. Pornography use increases the marital infidelity rate by more than 300%.

Pornography is insidious not just because of what it does to a person spiritually (both its creator and consumer), but because of how it actually rewires the human brain. Neurologists are now discovering that regular pornography users possess neuropathways in their brains similar to those found in the brains of heroin addicts. A 2014 study found that men who watched more porn had less gray matter volume—they literally had smaller brains. The neurological damage porn creates is responsible for things like social anxiety, brain fog, emotional numbness, lethargy, depression, loss of interest towards an actual partner or spouse, and erectile disfunction in men as young as 22.

Due to its horrible spiritual, emotional, relational, and neurological affects, why would anybody, especially a Bible-believing Christian, still choose to view pornography? What is it a person is after every time they click? Is it really an erotic experience of sexual arousal that they want? Or, are they in search of something deeper? Something, more profound, yet so incredibly elusive?