Pornography is heroin, it’s drugs. We got kids loose in the pharmacy! We got kids running around grabbing whatever, taking all kinds of stuff, man. And you can be damaged severely. (Terry Crews) If you asked 100 people on the street to give a reason why pornography is bad for you, you’d be met with a lot of blank stares or people who outright disagreed with the premise. Mainstream culture conditions people from a young age to think that pornography is a harmless activity, like changing one’s socks or using the bathroom. (Many people harmed by pornography in their youth have grown resentful!) In addition, seeing the effect of behavior on one’s life requires the skill of introspection and observation, which is increasingly rare in this busy, overstimulated world. Finally, the subject of pornography is taboo, which makes open and honest conversations about it a rarity.
This article elaborates 7 personal detriments of pornography, to say nothing of the industry in general. If you’ve read around on the site, these will be familiar to you. I also encourage you to check out 7 Ways Pornography Destroys Your Brain (TeachingMensFashion), which elaborates several effects that did not make my top 7.
This article elaborates 7 personal detriments of pornography, to say nothing of the industry in general. It is my answer to the question Why is pornography bad for you?
7 Reasons Why Pornography Is Bad For You
1. It trains you to be self-centered and selfish.
Reciprocity is the lifeblood of mature relationships. People get their needs and wants met in the same context they help others to do likewise. Relationships, romantic and otherwise, where people think only of themselves are toxic and typically don’t last very long. That said, pornography trains the user to think only in terms of their own gratification, even at the expense of others. Whereas sexuality is relational and reciprocal, pornography is lonesome and unilateral.
Pornography is a wholly selfish act that eclipses the concerns, needs, and well-being of everyone around you.
Heath Lambert
Almost the main work of life is to come out of ourselves, out of the little dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this prison. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.
C.S. Lewis
2. It desensitizes you to natural beauty.
Pornographic actors are chosen for their enlarged sexual features. And it is common for them to undergone numerous operations and treatments to enhance their sexual appeal. This creates an artificial standard of beauty that is far-removed from its natural counterpart. People who watch pornography consciously and unconsciously compare their current and prospective partners to what they see on screen. As a result, pornography users are harder to please and less likely to be satisfied in their relationships. Their baseline for attraction is unrealistically high, which has a detrimental effect on their love life. It follows that when people quit porn, their appreciation of natural beauty increases.
Pornography GIVES US UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS OF WHAT LIFE IS SUPPOSED TO BE, AND CERTAINLY WHAT LOVE OR SEX IS SUPPOSED TO BE.
Gordon-Levitt
3. It makes it harder to love one man or woman.
Monogamy is the global norm for relationships. Cultures around the world generally agree that relationships work best when they involve two committed people (see Is Monogamy Against My Nature?). For people in such relationships or those who have monogamous aspirations, it pays to keep in mind the relevant detriments of pornography.
in one pornography session, a Male viewer is likely to see more naked women than their grandfather did in his entire lifetime.
Pornography entails access to a never-ending catalog of people doubling as sexual objects. As soon as the user can be slightly more stimulated by someone else, they discard the subject in front of them. Pornography, it follows, is training in polyamory. It foils the patience, contentment, and self-sacrifice inherent to monogamous relationships.
The harem [of lust] is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions, which no woman can rival.
C.S. Lewis
4. It increases feelings of isolation.
Many people attest to feeling lonely and depressed after watching pornography. Indeed, this is a common side effect of turning sexuality, a naturally reciprocal act, into a solo mission. Neuroscientists say that a chemical called oxytocin is released after sexual activity. Known as “the love hormone” or “cuddle chemical,” oxytoxin is associated with “trust, sexual arousal, and relationship building” (oxytocin). Unfortunately, none of which is possible in isolation.
When you escape onto the screen, you’re teaching your brain that isolation is safe and that connection and socialization are not safe.
Trish Leigh
In addition, the isolating effects of pornography are compounded by knowledge of its harms. Most people know from experience that pornography is bad for them, and those who have been educated on the issue experience a double dose of negative emotion.
Loneliness, along with stress and boredom, belong to a class of pornography triggers. However, pornography has the effect of exacerbating these symptoms. Sadly, people who self-medicate with pornography only magnify their problems.
If you just relapsed, listen up. Stop feeling shameful. It makes you want to do one thing: isolate. Studies show that when you isolate, you become extremely stressed out. That stress builds and builds and makes you want to do one thing again, go and relapse. Relapse, shame, isolation, stress, relapse, all the way to your inevitable hell.
Josh Hudson
5. It is a waste of time and energy.
Time and energy are finite resources. Time and energy spent doing one thing are necessarily time and energy that can’t be spent doing anything else. After using pornography, people feel less motivated to take dynamic action; normal daily activities no longer have the same appeal. Post-nut clarity in the form of shame and regret has a demoralizing effect; few people can honestly say they believe that watching pornography is good for them.
Masturbation can turn a roaring lion into a dead dog in a few seconds.
Stephen Chant
One of the most salient effects of quitting pornography is increased productivity in other areas. Quitting frees up time and energy to do better in school or at work, learn a new skill, practice a favorite hobby–or simply to be in a more wholesome manner with no progressive agenda. Habit replacement is both a strategy to beat porn and an opportunity of quitting it. In sum, pornography di-verts resources and has no redemptive value to offset any of its downsides.
The entire time you’re watching porn, you’re bombarding your brain with dopamine levels equivalent to those caused by some hardcore drugs. And when presented with levels that are not natural, your brain reacts by decreasing your overall number of receptors. This is a big reason why so many men out there have mental disorders, such as social anxiety, de-pression, and lack of motivation.
Richard Riliy
Oftentimes, what will happen is the [addict] only has excitement and can achieve dopa-mine release to the same extent doing that behavior and not other behaviors. And so they start losing interest in school. They start losing interest in relationships. They start losing interest in fitness and well-being. It depletes their life.
Andrew Huberman
Walk In Integrity
6. It keeps you from evolving relationally.
On July 21, 2021, I wrote the following:
Absent pornography and masturbation, a man’s sexual urges motivate him to go out and interact with women. Through these interactions, a man receives feedback on the qualities that women find attractive in a partner. The end result is typically a more sexually attractive man, and a stronger person overall. Pornography and masturbation severely hamstring this process. Unlike women, they demand nothing and communicate nothing of value. It follows that pornography and masturbation are an enemy of personal growth. (Pornography Versus Women).
It’s still true today (for both men and women).
The most loving women are the women who will test you the most. She wants you to be your fullest, most magnificent self. She won’t settle for anything less.
David Deida
One of the absolutely pathologic situations for any animal or human is to be able to access repeated dopamine surges without effort or any sort of adaptive action pursuit.
Andrew Huberman
7. It is a violation of the second great commandment.
YOu shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus Christ
To love is to will the good of the other.
St. Aquinas
Love is silence. Lust is a roar. Love is a sacrifice. Lust always wants more. Love is giving. Lust only takes. Love is a mending of hearts. Lust only breaks.
Sebastian Temple
We sense that the human body is a precious thing, worthy of our reverence. It is not a tool, not an object of consumption like a steak or a keg of beer, not an animate provider of pleasure. It is the outward expression of a profound mystery, that of another human being.
Anthony Esolen
But my issue was and is with pornography it chang-es the way you think about people. People become body parts–things to be used, rather than people to be loved.
Terry Crews
In Christian theology, lust has been classified as one of the seven deadly sins, which are “abuses or excessive versions of one’s natural faculties or passions. (The other six are pride, greed, wrath, envy, gluttony, and sloth.) Lust is antithetical to love and the divine nature; it fosters spiritual alienation and leads to the forfeiture of spiritual blessings.
Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
Jonah 2:8
Finally, a healthy reminder, as I’ve reiterated numerous times on this site: Pornography is one area of life. It is not the be-all, end-all of our struggles here on earth. However, for anyone hooked on pornography, quitting is a giant leap in the right direction.
For more, see #NoToPorn: 50+ Reasons To Turn The Other Way.
