Small gods: Pornography

So you say there is nothing wrong with looking at those images.  Well I say…your god is too small! 

• Why do you think Jesus and the bible speak so strongly against sexual lust?
• What is lust?

Lust tries to suck the life out of something without regard for the life it is sucking.

• Distorts true beauty.  Photoshopped pictures or pictures taken in a particular pose tend to tell our brain that this is reality and what we are ultimately looking for in a mate.  Full and lasting true beauty is more than skin deep.  Don’t buy it?  Then just ask any couple that has been married for more than 40 years and see how they describe beauty.
• Degrades women (for guys too).  It makes them into just sexual objects.  In social philosophy the term for this is objectification.  For guys, we can actually develop an negative self-perception in terms of physical appearance and sexual functioning.
• Damages future intimacy.  In a GospelCoalition article,  William M. Struthers, associate professor of psychology at Wheaton College says: “Pornography… enslaves the viewer to an image, hijacking the biological response intended to bond a man to his wife and therefore inevitably loosening that bond.”  God designed sexual intimacy and wants it to be good and exciting.  It is meant to be an adventure of discovery of beauty between a man and woman.  Beware of going on “cheap vacations” of sexual encounters with anyone beside your wife.  God wants you to explore the depths of this gift together…for the first time!
• Desensitizes our brain.  We are hard-wired to always want something new or have more stimulus. Overstimulation of the brain through the use of porn makes us want to search out more exotic or prolonged sexual stimuli.   Struthers again says “because erotic imagery triggers more dopamine than sex with a familiar partner, exposure to pornography leads to ‘arousal addiction’ and teaches the brain to prefer the image and become less satisfied with real-life sexual partners.”  Reality then seems boring in comparison.  YIKES!
• Drives Decisions.  The psychological, behavioral, and emotional HABITS we develop determine our decisions.  As a “preferred route” is formed in our brain, then our natural tendency is to make decisions based on that “path”.  In other words this is “rewiring” the brain.
• Defames God’s design.  In Genesis 2:24 God gives his plan for sexual intimacy. And in Matthew 19:4-6  Jesus speaks even of the power of this sexual bond that two people are no longer separate individuals but “one flesh” and declares that nothing should separate or come in the way of it.  If God holds this beautiful thing that He created to be shared with only one other person in such high regard, then why do we go on polluting it by exposing ourself to images that will potentially damage or destroy it?