By: Allie Joy Hudson
5 min read
Porn Is Fantasy
Porn is fantasy. It’s scripted. It’s staged. And it’s not real.
However, once we open our eyes up to the fact that porn is fantasy, this creates a whole new set of difficulties for us.
When we realize that pornography is not real, this invites in the temptation to justify – to justify watching because porn is its own separate little world, an escape, totally separate from the day-to-day lives we lead. This could not be more wrong. What we place before our eyes matters. The effects of the pornography we consume on our lives are staggering.
Pornography affects us whether we realize it or not. It affects our marriages, our sex, our society, and the way we look at, think about, and interact with the people around us.
Learning from Porn
The behaviors that are depicted in porn also carry over into our sex lives. In his book The Porn Myth, Matt Fradd discusses how we as humans are observational learners. This means, we learn how to do things when we watch others act and then try to copy them.
This is especially true and concerning when we think of genres of porn that are violent, and include elements of rape, incest, and abuse.
Studies have shown that men that are already at a high risk for demonstrating sexually aggressive behavior are “much more likely” to actually engage in sexual aggression when they are in the “high-use” group for pornography as compared to men in the “low-use” group (Fradd).
There is a real possibility that casual porn consumption and “I’d never go there” can, over time, pave the way to incest, abuse, and rape in real life, apart from a screen. This is especially concerning when we realize that these porn genres have the highest viewership.
And, violence aside, porn models the idea that people are to be used and abused for pleasure. When we view it over and over, we begin to learn and adopt this self-seeking idea for ourselves.
Using and abusing others becomes our new standard.
Scripted for Pleasure
When we are exposed to something long enough, we become desensitized to it and begin to see it as normal.
Look at the ways our culture has shifted drastically in the past few decades. With the rise of postmodern sexuality, things that were once deemed taboo and shameful are now flaunted in public. To quote Ariel Levy, we live in a “raunch culture” where sex abounds.
In her article “My Rape Convinced Me That Campus Hookup Culture is Really Messed Up,” Alice Owens discusses how the culture of pornography saturated her college environment. She writes, “I can’t tell you how many encounters and near-encounters my girlfriends and I would have when we’d get a look from the guy that meant, ‘You’re going to follow the script, right?’ Get busy pleasing me.” I think it’s so significant that she discusses the unspoken but commonly understood “script” that is the sexuality of our culture. This script is the view that “my pleasure reigns.”
When men and women repeatedly consume pornography, this view expands past the people in pornographic films and photos and begins to warp the image of all people in the viewer’s gaze.
Individuals of the opposite, or sometimes the same, sex become objects of pleasure, something to be used to achieve a sexual high, rather than a person to interact with or to know.
When we look on someone with lustful intent, this minimizes both our humanity and theirs.
Related: Why We Pursue Porn over Sex
Broken Bodies
In addition to pornography warping the way that individuals act and begin to see one another, consistent porn use also has practical consequences:
Porn consumption affects the body. Studies from multiple countries (Switzerland, Canada, and Italy), have shown that erectile dysfunction amongst males under the age of 40 is fairly common. In males ages 18-24, 30% of them have a form of ED (Fradd). According to a 2014 British study of men with ED, 60% of the men studied “had ED problems with sexual partners but not with porn” (Fradd).
Most men don’t even know they have this problem until they are in a relationship.
These numbers are significant! Porn erodes the health and proper function of our bodies.
Never Enough Time
Additionally, watching porn eats up a great deal of time. Especially when someone is addicted to pornography, they spend many hours chasing even greater sexual highs to satisfy their lust.
This takes away from time that could be spent investing in our relationships with God and other people. These relationships suffer and begin to deteriorate, which harms our souls too.
When we are trapped in addiction to staged sexual drama, love that is real and involves commitment loses its value.
Our spouse ceases to be enough when we are always seeking out something new and more exciting.
As Fradd powerfully states, “Online porn viewing is, among other things, novelty-seeking behavior: constantly clicking, greedily keeping multiple tabs open, always looking for the next girl, the next sexual buzz. A real woman – no matter how attractive – is only one woman. A man this obsessed will have difficulty finding her arousing” (emphasis mine).
Jesus and Fantasy
As we have seen, although porn is fantasy, the effects that it has on those who choose to watch it are drastic. It rewires the mind, shifts our behavior, harms the body, and numbs our souls to other people and to God.
Fantasy entices us into a different world, a false world of pleasure. Yet, Jesus came to this world. He didn’t avoid pain but instead took on the worst of humanity and dragged it to Death.
Fantasy may satisfy you, but it’s making you less human, every time.
Only Jesus can make you fully human, and usher in the new creation we are all seeking when we go to other, lesser, worlds of fantasy.
But Jesus redeems even this. He can rewire our thoughts and reshape our actions and draw us back to Himself. Though the snare of pornography hooks us and drags down our everyday lives, Jesus can free us and give each day new hope, meaning, healing, and purity again.
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Allie Joy Hudson is first and foremost a daughter of the King. She has been with Proven Men for over a year and serves in the position of Content Manager. Allie graduated from Liberty University with a Bachelor of Arts in English and minors in Spanish and Psychology. She completed her Senior Honors Thesis on the presentation of postmodern sexuality in short fiction. She enjoys reading, writing, playing the viola, singing, theatre, and photography. Allie is passionate about her ever-growing C.S. Lewis collection, cultivating relationships, and proclaiming truth in the twisted arena of postmodern sexuality. Allie lives in Pennsylvania and is overjoyed to be married to the love of her life.