Porno

One day we will look back and realize that porn was the “smoking cigarettes” of our generation. Describing it, we’ll sound exactly like our grandparents and great grandparents.

“We had no idea it was bad for us. We used to do it everywhere, in the home, at the office, even on airplanes!”

Counselors do not often get asked “How do I stop looking at pornography?” Porn use is not a box to check somewhere on the intake paperwork and is only briefly mentioned in our diagnostic manuals. In my experience, the group most likely to ask for help in quitting is conservative Christian men whose wedding ceremony is imminent. They seem to view it as a shameful moral failing that’s sure to shipwreck their relationship and send them straight to hell. In response to this a whole industry of books, workshops, and classes have popped up in the Christian cultural world aimed at helping women and men kick the habit.

While these resources are better than nothing, they frame porn use as a something ‘sinful’ – a problem that will only be prioritized by the religious few.  But with time, I believe our kids and our kids’ kids will look back and see porn for the public health issue it was. A highly addictive activity that deadened souls, bankrupted relationships, and was bad for our health. 

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Porn is the new smoke break. Like cigarettes, it gives a little dopamine hit when you’re bored in the midafternoon. You want escape the present moment, and what could be more exciting than sex? Porn provides images to help you reimagine your dull surroundings: sex at the office, sex at the house, there’s probably even a video floating around of people having sex waiting in line at the DMV.

Much like cigarettes, porn offers to calm you down. It gives a brief sense of control, showing scenes of cleanly washed, tanned people. Unlike you, they are always well rested and have leisure time to screw the delivery guy or cheat on their wife with the neighbor. Their upper-class houses are immaculately clean (which is perhaps even more arousing than the sex). They never have a pile of laundry that needs to be moved to a different room before they can have sex on the couch. We are soothed by vicariously living through their fake lives on the screen.

Relational difficulties are a trigger for porn use, so it gives us sexual encounters with the nuances of relationship edited out.  The actors don’t get into arguments before, after, or even during sex. They aren’t worried about where they’ll spend the holidays or whether their partner is slowly pulling away emotionally. They just want to have fun and not ask too many questions. They aim to please and when the encounter is over you’re welcome to go on your merry way.

While the above mentioned make porn appealing, its true addictive power comes by acknowledging, normalizing, and even embracing your pain. The different categories of porn correlate to whatever pain you are experiencing in that moment: from an unpleasant boredom, to a tepid marriage, frustrations at work, all the way to deep childhood trauma.

There is no judgement, only acceptance. Porn seems to meet you in those shameful places and say “We know how you feel and its ok. We’ve had those ideas as well.”

Whatever you watch is not random, in fact it is a clue as to what within you requires attention. The human mind will return to a problem or traumatic memory over and over again, in an attempt to successfully resolve it. Porn recreates these painful situations, then attempts to process and bring resolution through the power of sex. It takes our problems and imagines an alternative ending – one in which we don’t end up hurt, rejected, failing, or unloveable.

What a potent offer, which explains why so many people give it a try and even continue to use when they know beyond a shadow of a doubt it’s not working.

The problem with porn is that it can’t bring that desired resolution, but rather becomes an addictive cycle moving you further from your goals. You get sucked in, and bogged down mentally. The momentary relief ends and you return to daily life worse off than before. And like cigarettes, a cancer begins to grow in your soul. Over time it metastasizes and crowds out your ability to love others, have zest for life, and see the world clearly.

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Everybody does it, so how bad can it really be?

Porn seems to be a private matter, a victimless crime. But it warps the way we see the world and damages the ways we interact. Gender inequality, discrimination and violence against women, racism and misogyny all put their roots in the fertile soil of our pornographic culture.

Yet it is hard to see clearly.

Even the #MeToo movement which brought to public awareness the widespread abuses of men against women, failed to name the deeper cultural crisis that touches nearly every corner of our society.

So maybe they should put warning labels on our cell phones and laptops. Surgeon General’s Warning: Porn can cause cancer of the Soul.

Let’s have doctors and school teachers tell us how dangerous it can be. Or better yet, bring in the porn equivalent of a tracheotomy patient to be a guest speaker at the elementary school.

For a long time, the cigarette industry was clever and ubiquitous. They pulled the wool over society’s eyes, though the damage seems so obvious to us now. You have to wonder if future generations will view us the same way.