The Porn Myth: Exposing the Reality Behind the Fantasy of Pornography

INTRODUCTIONSex has a relational context: marriage. When it is ripped out of this context and turned into a commodity, how can individuals, families, and society be expected to flourish? When we become a civilization that sells people, that takes something so central to who we are as persons -- our sexuality -- and industrializes it, we cannot be happy people.Human beings are wired for pair bonding. The neurochemicals oxytocin and vassopressin, which are released during love-making and orgasm, help create feelings of strong attachment. We can consciously choose to enhance our feelings of connectedness to our mates through smiling, eye contact, verbal compliments, skin-to-skin contact, listening, helping, cuddling, hugging, kissing, and sexual intercourse. Making these activities regular habits triggers a release of bonding hormones and transmitters.This bonding, plus the biological purpose of procreation, is the purpose for our sexual drive.These same chemicals are released when stimulated by pornography, but now we are bonded to an image, not a live person. In bonding with a real person during the act of sex, there is at least the potential to treat sex as a gift to another, not merely a selfish act.MYTH 1: PORN IS JUST "ADULT" ENTERTAINMENTIs porn really good for adults? Exposure to porn stimulates the release of dopamine, causing the brain to remember this source of pleasure, and go back for more. But continued exposure to porn gives the brain an unnatural high, beyond what it is wired to handle, and the brain eventually fatigues. The brain becomes desensitized and needs more porn to get the same high. Consequently, the pre-frontal cortex shrinks, the place where decisions are made, so that the porn user has little willpower or self-control. The attempt to make sexual deviancy appear like "adult" behavior is nothing more than the attempt of weak men to justify shameful behavior.Which activity sounds more "adult"? Making love for a lifetime to one real flesh-and-blood woman whom you are eagerly serving and cherishing, despite all her faults and blemishes (and despite your own), or privately trolling the Internet for hours on end, pleasuring yourself as you bond to pixels?MYTH 2: TO BE ANTI-PORN IS TO BE ANTI-SEXIt is precisely because I am FOR sex (in marriage) that I'm against porn. Whether porn is about misogynist women-hating or the girl-on-girl variety, it is pornography as a MEDIUM that is the problem. Porn is the business of presenting women's bodies to men for masturbation. To stand against this is to stand against a habit of solo sex that turns men into consumers, not lovers.MYTH 3: PORN EMPOWERS WOMENAsk the millions of wives whose husbands habitually turn to porn if they feel empowered?Pornography doesn't ramp up a husband's sex drive for his wife. It discourages empathy for her, especially if he tries to bring what he sees from porn into his bedroom. Porn shapes a husband's concept of beauty. Overexposure to erotic stimuli actually exhausts a healthy young man's sexual responses, making him impotent without the use of fantasy.MYTH 4: THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PORN AND NAKED ARTPornography comes from the Greek root meaning "prostitute". Its goal is to provide sexual stimulation toward a completed sexual act. True art attempts to capture beauty without sexual stimulation. Some art can induce sexual interest, but ALL pornography is made to cause sexual stimulation.MYTH 6: ONLY RELIGIOUS PEOPLE OPPOSE PORNGRAPHYA growing group on Reddit.com called NoFap is an online community of mostly men who are challenging each other to put away porn and masturbation. It was founded by agnostic Alexander Rhodes for the purpose of helping many men overcome problems such as premature ejaculation, a disinterest in sex, difficulty reaching orgasm, and erectile dysfunction. After quitting their porn habits, 60% increased their sexual function.MYTH 7: PORN PRODUCERS HELP TO MAKE THE PORN INDUSTRY SAFE FOR THE PERFORMERSThere is no mandatory use of condoms in the porn industry. Sixty-six percent of porn stars have herpes. Alcohol and drugs are often used to numb the physical and emotional pain. Many porn stars routinely binge on ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana, Xanax, Valium, and Vicodin. Brutality is not uncommon.MYTH 8: PORN ISN'T SEX SLAVERY. THE ACTORS CHOSE THE LIFESTYLE THEY LEADWomen and children work in the pornographic industry because of desperation, not intelligent choice. They often were sexually abused as children, are addicted to drugs and alcohol, are homeless, are trying to avoid being beaten or killed, have no income, and enter into the pornographic industry in order to survive economically.Even if a woman has forgotten her own dignity, it is a manly thing to treat her with dignity nonetheless.MYTH 9: PORN STARS ARE JUST WELL-ROUNDED NYMPHOMANIACSThe image that the porn industry portrays is just a bunch of women, crazy about sex, allowing themselves to be filmed for our pleasure.There are three types of women drawn to pornography.1) sex addicts2) those addicted to money3) those addicted to fame.Many enter the industry because of desperation and hard times. But there is no such thing as a "well-rounded" nymphomaniac. Hyper-sexuality is a disorder. It is not the enjoyment of sex. It is the obsessive pursuit of sex to find emotional stability, usually by someone who was sexually abused as a child.MYTH 10: SURE, CHILD PORN IS A PROBLEM, BUT I WATCH ONLY ADULT PORN. NO HARM IN THAT.Choosing to avoid child porn and to watch only "adult" pornography may sound noble to some, but this still supports an industry that tries with all its might to sexualize youth. Pornographers push the envelope so that men can lust after what their brains interpret to be children. The most popular category for online sexual searches is "youth".MYTH 11: I DON'T PAY FOR MY PORN, SO I'M NOT CONTRIBUTING TO THE PORN INDUSTRY.A primary way "free" porn sites make money is through advertising. Porn sites might contain sidebar advertising or pop-up ads. Money is paid to porn sites every time someone clicks on the ad (pay per click), or every time an ad is shown (cost per impression), or every time a visitor buys the advertised product or service (pay per sale), or by giving a sliding percentage based on traffic volume (percentage program). In other words, by merely browsing porn sites, spending hours on end racking up page views, you are contributing to porn's profits.MYTH 12: WOMEN DON'T STRUGGLE WITH PORNWomen get addicted to porn as well.A majority of women who look at porn turn to it for stress relief and escape from the demands of everyday life.MYTH 13: NOT MASTURBATING IS UNHEALTHY FOR A GUYFrequent masturbation is associated with more prostate abnormalities, less ability to recover from erectile dysfunction, less satisfaction with one's mental health, less relationship satisfaction, depression, and less happiness.There is no documented health problem associated with refraining from masturbation.What is the impact of this escape into fantasy?C.S. Lewis said that a man's sexual appetite is meant to lead him out of himself, to lead him into a self-gift that both completes and corrects his personality -- first by sharing whole-life oneness with a married lover and second by procreating children.With masturbation, however, the appetite is turned in on itself and "sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides."What is the harm in this? Lewis says that masturbation makes a man prefer the fantasy world to reality. "For the harem 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. Among those shadowy brides, he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself...After all, 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 that retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison."MYTH 14: PORN PREVENTS RAPE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCESome think that the use of porn diverts would-be-rapists from committing rape.But porn does teach men to objectify women's bodies and use them for men's pleasure.Porn promotes male domination of women.Porn wrongly teaches men that women want to be hurt and that they get sexual pleasure from violence.Much of porn involves women being slapped, gagged, coerced, or dominated.In porn, women are objects to be used rather than persons to be respected.MYTH 15: PORN IS NOT ADDICTIVEIt is the overuse of the dopamine reward system that causes addiction. When the pathways are used compulsively, a downgrading occurs in the pleasure areas available for use, and the dopamine cells themselves start to atrophy (shrink). The reward cells in the nucleus accumbens are now starved for dopamine and begin to crave it. The dopamine receptors on the pleasure cells are downgraded. This "resetting of the "pleasure thermostat" produces a "new normal." In this addictive state, the person must act out in addiction to boost the dopamine to levels sufficient to feel normal.Over time, porn addiction causes a man to use it more and more in order to get the same high he used to get with smaller doses. Sex and porn addicts show all the signs of addiction: tolerance, withdrawal symptoms (such as irritability, violent dreams, mania, insomnia, violent mood swings, paranoia, headaches, anxiety, and depression), desensitization, and repeated failed attempts to quit, despite negative consequences.Addicts find freedom not by denying the power that porn has over them, but by admitting it to others and asking for help.MYTH 16: EROTICA IS A HEALTHY ALTERNATIVE TO HARD-CORE PORNGRAPHYErotica is sexually explicit material -- in paintings, photography, sculpture, or literature -- that is perceived to be tasteful. This form of art, while it can result in the sexual arousal of the viewer, is ultimately defined by a desire to portray sexuality as captivating and beautiful. But there is not a clear line between erotica and porn. They overlap, as do soft-core and hard-core porn. Whereas soft-core porn does not usually show genitalia and may use camera angles to hide body parts, much of it still portrays women in abusive situations.MYTH 17: ANIME PORN IS GREAT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T INVOLVE REAL PEOPLE"Anime" is a term used for animated productions created in Japan or with a distinctive Japanese comic style. "Hentai" is the Western label given to anime pornography and is derived from the Japanese word for "perverted".It certainly is good that no real women are harmed in the making of cartoon porn.But the purpose of hentai porn is to bring its viewers to orgasm. The women in hentai porn are degraded and objectified for the masturbatory pleasure of men. Women are portrayed as powerless, unless they are dominating other women. Hentai draws attention to specific body parts to provoke arousal and portray women in vulnerable positions. Hentai websites market their beautifully animated women as "sluts", "whores", "hussies", and worse terms.How can viewers feel any compassion for hentai characters who are mistreated or abused when they are not real?!MYTH 18: PORN IS ONLY FANTASY -- IT DOESN'T AFFECT OUR REAL LIVESPornography affects how men view women.In porn, women are hypersexualized.It sends the unrealistic message that real women are always ready and available for sex.Viewing pornography increases problems with erectile dysfunction.A physician who specializes in men's reproductive health tells men with ED to stop watching porn. After a few months, their functioning returns to normal. Men who view porn online are always looking for something new, the next girl, the next sexual buzz.MYTH 19: MARRIED LIFE WILL CURE US OF OUR PORN OBSESSIONSMany single men and women hooked on porn will say, "Once I get married, this won't be a problem anymore." They think that having a spouse will make porn lose its pull.This expectation fails to understand that a person with a pornographic habit is not merely after an orgasm. He is hooked on what comes next, the rush of moving from one body to the next, always looking to trade the one in front of his eyes for the "ultimate" sexual experience.Porn is destructive to marriage because it portrays sex outside of marriage (premarital sex and adultery) as exciting and normal. Husbands often want their wives to mimic the sex they view in porn.Who would willingly give up real sex for masturbating in front of a computer screen?To a porn addict, the high they get from chasing sexual fantasies can seem more appealing.Real relationships require work. Viewing porn is easy.MYTH 20: MEN WOULDN'T TURN TO PORN IF THEIR WIVES WERE MORE SEXUALLY ATTENTIVE OR PRETTIERHusbands who engage in porn will often state they want more sex than their wives.But desiring sex in marriage is not the same as desiring porn. A desire for porn is a desire to binge on a variety of women in fantasy experiences, instead of husbands making the effort to coordinate their desires and wants with their wives' desires and wants. The porn user has trained himself to believe that sex should be on tap and made-to-order.The problem is with him, not his wife.Wives who discovered their husbands porn habit often compared themselves with the images their husbands consumed. They reported feeling hurt, betrayed, rejected, abandoned, lonely, isolated, humiliated, jealous, and angry.In his book, "The Brain That Changes Itself", Dr. Norman Doidge says that we have two pleasure systems, one for exciting pleasure and another for satisfying pleasure. The exciting-pleasure system is fueled by bursts of dopamine and stirs our anticipation. The satisfying-pleasure system releases opiate-like endorphins and generates a calming, fulfilling pleasure of peace and euphoria.Porn is all excitement and no satisfaction.Dopamine responds to things that are new, novel, and varied. Internet porn promises new sexual encounters around every turn, so excitement is generated.However, the satisfying pleasure system is left starving for the real thing – there's no touching, kissing, caressing, or connection.MYTH 21: PORN SHOULD BE USED AS A SEXUAL AID TO ENHANCE INTIMACYStudies show that porn does not complement sexual intimacy with one's partner. It competes with it.Impotence means without your own power. When a husband depends upon porn to get aroused, he decreases his ability to get aroused with his wife.People who watch porn have lower levels of satisfaction with their spouses. They also have lower levels of relational commitment and don't communicate as well with their partners.If we believe that one of the chief goals of sex is intimacy, why would anyone think watching strangers have sex is a way to achieve this goal?MYTH 22: WE CAN'T PROTECT OUR KIDS FROM PORN IN TODAY'S WORLDParents must active gatekeepers.Internet filtering and monitoring is crucial.Cell phones should be monitored and filtered and should stay out of their bedrooms at night.Be vocal about your values and ask critical questions: "Is a woman's true value bound up in how she looks?"Teach young children about the dignity and value of their bodies.Teach them the names of their body parts and how to honor their bodies and others' bodies through modesty and privacy.Around the age of six or seven, children begin to reason with logic and imagination. This is the time to give warnings about sexual predators.During the middle childhood years, parents should teach children about the nature and purpose of sex, its power and its beauty. Contrast the goodness of marital love and the wrongness of exploiting another's body.Parents need to examine themselves.Do I show respect for myself and others by the way I dress, speak, and act?Do I honor and cherish my spouse?Am I careful to govern the things I look at and think about?Do I set boundaries to protect my children?If you are a father, be the dad who turns away from or changes the TV channel when an inappropriate image is shown. Show affection to your daughters, protect them with curfews, meeting their friends, and restricting their social media when necessary.Talk frankly to your sons about sexual self-control.If you are a mother, be the mom who affirms her own inner beauty and doesn't obsess over her looks. Set an example of modesty. Married couples should show affection to one another in front of the children so the allure of pornography can't compare with how their parents treat each other.MYTH 23: I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO REGAIN MY SPOUSE'S TRUST AFTER SNEAKING AROUND WITH PORNGRAPHYDo you want to be the kind of person who loves someone for the rest of you life, gladly sacrificing yourself for the good of that person -- experiencing an intimate personal and sexual bond? Or do you want to be the person that sneaks off late at night to have an "encounter" with your computer?Which of these sounds closer to your wedding vows?A husband who wants to rebuild his wife's trust:1) Fully acknowledge the wrong-doing of looking at porn. Acknowledge that her mistrust of you now is warranted. Listen to her without being defensive.2) Never shift the blame. Tell your wife she is not to blame at all, especially when she asks, "What did I do to cause this?"3) Purge all access points to porn: your iPhone, your computer, your route home from work that passes the "adult" book store, your private e-mail account, wherever you isolate yourself.4) Encourage your wife to seek advice and help. Counselors trained to help spouses of sex and porn addicts can be found in the Association of Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists (APSATS).5) Be incredibly patient with your wife. She has been crushed, so her recovery will take time. Pursue emotional engagement and nonsexual physical affection. Spend quality time together.6) Become accountable for your technology use. Use accountability software (like Covenant Eyes). It sends an e-mail report of your websites visits to someone of your choosing (friend, mentor, spouse, or counselor).7) Seek man-to-man accountability. This is someone of your gender who can help you avoid porn.MYTH 24: I WILL ALWAYS BE ADDICTED TO PORNNo wife should ever accept her husband's use of porn.Self-control is possible:1) Identify what triggers your desire to look at porn right now. Say, "This is a trigger." Then do a U-turn and snap out of it.2) Identify your emotional response to the trigger (excitement, curiosity, anticipation).3) Identify your first thought: "I want to watch porn now", What will I see if I click on _____?"4) Your body anticipates the previous pleasure from porn and begins to release chemicals.5) As the chemicals are released, heart rate increases, palms become sweaty or cold, eyes dilate, the muscles tense up, etc. Say, "My body is preparing to look at porn because of a chemical release. I need to do something else right now."6) Your mind will battle back and forth with "Will I?" or "Won't I look at porn?"Engage your mind. Remind yourself that porn promises freedom but causes enslavement. Think about the purpose of sex: for the creation of life and the creation of love. At the moment of temptation, remove yourself from the source of pornography. Use blocks and filters on your electronic devices. Resolve to be strong for today.

I read this entire book the same day I got it. It's very compelling and debunks the many justifications society uses to watch pornography. Highly recommend.

This book is a sobering account of the cultural phenomenon known as porn saturation. In it, the reader is allowed to look upon critically to what is happening to the viewer of pornography, as well as to all of the collateral damage that comes in its wake. Make no mistake about it, our brains are under attack and have been for a long time. Pornography exploits the brain chemical dopamine, and it seeks to overload all of the wiring of our thinking minds to the point that dependence is the outcome. To be clear, this is not happening only through the use of pornography, it is happening in regards to all media. The choice of reports and stories that are selected to be portrayed in news updates and broadcasts, are intentionally chosen based on the dopamine rush that it can illicit. The only difference is that with pornography, the rush comes from hijacking the natural sex drive, while in media, the purpose is to hijack our natural tendency for fear, and self preservation. Personally, I have chosen to avoid both pornography and media. Although pornography may elicit a greater chemical rush, there are natural limits to how much it be do the exploiting. On the other hand, media can be consumed perpetually, sending the mind into a non stop tizzy of excitement and fear. The contents of this book bring a valuable objective perspective to what’s going on, while the activity itself brings one to a tunnel vision state. It’s high quality reading, and I highly recommend it..

Matt Fradd does an awesome job synthesizing a library of psychological research about pornography and making them easily accessible to anyone without the background (and time...) to dig into such a massive body of scientific research. On top of that, he shares numerous personal accounts and testimonies from people who work or worked in the porn industry that really shed light on the shady nature of the porn industry, as well as the devastating effects for individuals, families and society as a whole. It is an epidemic and its damage is not even fully understood, but luckily Fradd points out strategies, solutions and hope that overcoming the detrimental effects of pornography is possible, and even preventing them in the first place, starting by educating people, especially youth and children.To me personally, who am a prospective mental health professional and regularly exposed to psychological research, this "mini-library" will be tremendous help for working with future clients - educating, exposing the myths, providing help and resources and to restore relationship damaged by pornography (To mention just one example: "The U-Turn on the Porn-Superhighway" based on the activation sequence by Dr. Kevin Skinner). The amount of literature found in this book in order to convince people is amazing - and a constant resource in my pocket when engaging in dialogue with other trained mental health professionals and scientists who "operate" on that level of the science world.Even though there is a lot to say about the moral aspects of why pornography is objectionable, which are often dismissed by many as "religious badgering", the book is entirely free of religion in any of its arguments. It provides a rich example that there is a case to be made about pornography completely separate from (I would prefer to say: in addition to) faith. Fradd does an amazing job walking the fine line of dealing with a topic that inherently touches on the essence of what it means to be human (i.e. faith), and yet not making this book one that uses or imposes his faith perspectives.After reading this book, I would be astonished anyone not being convinced of the harm porn is doing to people on both ends of the industry - producer or consumer. Very highly recommended to both anyone affected by and interested in the effects of pornography as well as professionals dealing with this topic in a clinical setting.

Matt Fradd focuses on one of the most important issues facing our culture and society today that we may not have even really known to be an issue. Every young man (and woman) must read this book. As fish may not be aware of the water around them, so too may young people who grew up on porn not be aware of the negative consequences that porn has on their lives and relationships. This is not a religious book, in case that may be an issue for you. Personally, the most important part of the book was the part about how porn messes up your dopamine function and all that that entails. Also great are the resources and other articles provided for us in the appendixes and within each chapter. There are all sorts of articles and websites that you can easily search up and learn more. Scientific findings and studies are neatly organized and summarized in the appendixes.

This book was quite informative but I think there are books out there (e. g. Your brain on porn, from Gary Wilson) that treat the subject in a more pragmatic way; not only focusing on studies but also on actual testimonies from porn addicts, which makes it more relevant if you truly want to know the effect that porn has on someone's life. This read was OK.

We live in very difficult times, and pornography is one of the greatest plague we have to face. Especially the new generations have been profoundly wounded by it, and we are only starting to see the consequences.Matt Fradd wonderfully exposes our current situation, presenting also the science that gives evidence of porn's detrimental effects.

Very interesting read perfect size book and letters shipping was fast and product came undamaged

An excellent well researched and informative book on the dangers of porn....it made me realize just how much pornography has permeated our culture.