Pornography's Sales Pitch (Part Two)

(If you haven't read my first post on this topic, here's the link)

Less than a year ago, a study appeared in Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology, a respected, peer-reviewed journal. The basic claim of the article was that problems with sexuality stem from high desire, not from a disorder...in other words, that there's no such thing as sexual addictions. The effects of this study were significant--the American Psychological Association referred to it, in part, to justify not including sexual addictions in it's near-universally-used manual of disorders and addictions (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). This means that psychologists, mental health care workers, and anyone else won't find descriptions of sex addiction in the most influential book describing addictive disorders, which DID include newly added sections for gambling disorder and tobacco use disorder. (If you can't tell, I was appalled when I read about all this.)

I don't mention this to rally you behind a petition--I point this out to show how crazy our culture is in how it views pornography and sexual addiction. There is no conceivable study that could dissuade me (and probably everyone reading this) from believing that sexual addiction is a compulsive disorder every bit as destructive and real as those involving gambling or substance abuse. And since I've been talking about pornography as a "product" capable of having its own sales pitch, maybe it would be best to define what kind of a product it is along those lines: as an emotional painkiller.

Addictive substances aren't an end in themselves; sure, someone may like the taste of alcohol or find women attractive, but they also seem to soften the emotional hurt we feel, and deaden our hopelessness. Here's a video I found through Sharing My Recovery that describes this effect very well. The section where he talks about the hole in his life that substances (and by extension pornography, I argue) seems to shrink is :30-1:40, but the whole video is good:



Mark's story paints the whole picture of the real effect of addictive substances, but there are those who don't believe pornography fits into the same category. This hypothetical painkiller (aka pornography), according to many in our culture, is a helpful medicine with minimal side effects capable of helping most people. However, I contend that this painkiller is in fact a highly addictive drug whose effects are paltry and whose side effects are crippling. Even still, Satan is able to mask its devastating effects through half truths, exaggerations, and lies:

The Lie of Absolute Safety

One of the primary justifications people use to make themselves feel better about doing something wrong and harmful is either "It's not hurting anyone" or "Nobody's going to know" (aka, "what people don't know, won't hurt them"). This reasoning is bound to be popular with potential pornography addicts--sexual fulfillment through porn is something that happens in privacy, without any required involvement of anyone else. How could that hurt anyone? The underlying assumption is that the only person involved, the addict, has control over it. It's easy to think, "I won't let it affect anyone else." Of course you love your wife, or family, or boyfriend, or future spouse, and would never let something come between you. But the control is an illusion, and the lack of effects on others is simply impossible. It's only a matter of time until it twists you into the unloving, uncaring, hardened monster you never thought you'd "let it" turn you into.

In addition to the appearance of pornography as a victimless pastime, it also masquerades as a helpful medicine. I knew that what I was doing was wrong, and I was ashamed that I did it anyways. But that feeling of shame only added to numerous other insecurities and to my desire to numb them all. Which pornography did fairly well. I didn't really think about it, but some part of me was confused by the lack of consistency between what I experienced and what I was told about pornography. I was told it was a devastating, addictive terror, but I experienced it as the softest, most appealing thing imaginable. There were no hooks in it, nobody forcing me. How could this be the terrible thing people warned me about? They must be mistaken; I could stop at any time! I didn't realize that it could (and did) change me. I became unable to say no. What seemed like an innocent painkiller turned out to be a poison, slowly rotting me from the inside.

The Lie of No Cost

I know people can spend a lot of money on pornography--the Addo Pornography Addiction assessment questionnaire had this question: "how much money have you spent on pornography in the last year?" The highest option was "$10,000+." Also, at school I read a student essay about how pornography can make you happy (don't even get me started...one of the "joys" of teaching is reading essays you disagree strongly with, yet need to respond to neutrally), yet the author admitted that he had spent so much money on pornography that if he had saved it, he probably could afford the downpayment on a house by now.

That said, I've been deeply entrenched in pornography, yet I've spent a total of $0 on it. And don't be mistaken--that's the costliest $0 I've ever spent. Monetarily, anyone can get plenty of porn for free, especially now with the internet. But whether you spend $0 or $10,000 a year, there is a steep price that has nothing to do with money. It has nothing to do with people catching me either--despite some close calls, I have never been found out. Anyone who has ever known about my addiction is because I told them. Some people would say, "if you haven't spent a penny on it, and you're capable of keeping it a secret indefinitely, how is this costing you anything?"

What are some of these costs? I mention a bunch in this post, but here's another scary estimate: I've spent somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 hours of my life accessing, trying to access, or thinking about pornography. Wow--can that even be right? It makes me a bit sick to think about.


Is there such a thing as sexual addiction? 3,000 to 5,000 wasted hours of my life says there is. My numerous personality defects, including lack of self control, agree. Not only is pornography use not a victimless activity, but it causes devastation for those predisposed to it, if not everyone it catches. There is a steep, steep cost for its use. It is cunning, with an extremely hard-to-resist sales pitch for those who aren't actively trained to combat it. For those of us who fell for the lies about how innocent pornography is, we now have the responsibility to warn those who don't know how destructive it can be. In a spirit of humble honestly, we need reach out to others after we draw on the research-and-experience-backed resources about the effects of pornography, and our testimonies of the far more valuable offerings of the Lord--the Bread of Life and Living Water. Those are the "products" that are worth having, even if their sale's pitch isn't quite as flashy and appealing.