What is the most dangerous addiction of our time? Is it gambling, video games, tobacco, alcohol, heroin or cocaine? None of those. We worry about keeping drugs off of our streets, taxing cigarettes, and keeping the bottle beyond our child's reach. But all too often we pay far too little attention to an insidious poison, a thief that can reach into our homes and snatch away our children, destroy marriages, and annihilate the family. I'm talking about pornography.
Porn is a dirty word. Though it has become far less stigmatized than in ages past - we have the sexual revolution to thank for that - we still shudder when we hear the word whether from the pulpit or at the dinner table. And this is good. At the same time however, we cannot allow our revulsion to keep our heads buried in the sand while we pretend pornography isn't a problem.
The fact of the matter is this: a lot of people are addicted to porn. The statistics are hazy because of the shame involved, but I would go so far as to say that three quarters or more of Americans are addicted to pornography.
Addicted? Isn't that a little harsh? Can't there just be people who watch it every once and a while, recreationally? Most people could just stop any time they wanted to, couldn't they? It's an innocent habit.
Absolutely not. There is no such thing as a casual porn-user just as there is no such thing as a casual heroin-user.
The relationship between pornography and heroin is closer than you'd think. When you see a pornographic image or ingest an opioid like heroin, the same thing happens in your brain. Both trigger the release of a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Neurotransmitters are like the brain's messengers, and dopamine is a reward message. It not only makes the brain feel good, the brain wants to feel that way again. But there's a catch. The high levels of dopamine released from stimulus like pornography and hard drugs dull the receptors in your brain - you build up a resistance. It's the addict's tolerance. So there is a need for more of the stimulus for longer periods of time and in stronger dosages. This applies whether the trigger is cocaine or pornography. Both lead to addiction. Pornography is highly, dangerously addictive.
If you think an addiction to pornography is just something you can step away from, just look up the symptoms for going cold-turkey with cocaine.
But porn doesn't just hurt the individual. It hurts society. It drives a wedge into relationships. If a man is watching pornography, he cannot love his wife with his whole heart as he ought to. He falls for the lies portrayed in pornography and inevitably his real wife cannot meet those absurd and distorted standards of beauty. The high divorce rate in our country is certainly influenced by the increased availability and perversity of pornography. There is also a well-established link between sexual trafficking and the porn industry. One study found that as many as 49% of women involved in sexual trafficking are also coerced into participating in the production of pornography.
And it gets worse. There is a proven correlation between pornography and sexual violence. Pornography trains the brain to view women as objects. It trivializes sexual violence. What type of men does this training create? Men like Ted Bundy. The day before his execution for the rape and murder at least 28 women, serial killer Ted Bundy gave an interview. Hours before he faced the judgement of God, Bundy did not blame society or his parents for his horrible crimes. He did not insist his innocence. Instead, he wanted to talk about the role pornography played in making him who he was.
He said that he came from a "fine, solid Christian home," but became addicted to pornography at the age of 12 or 13. He did not remain satisfied with the first magazine he stumbled across and was compelled to find more and more violent forms of pornography in order to satisfy his addiction. This played a huge role in the development of a sexual fantasy that he sought to fulfill by killing women.
It is incredibly significant that in his last chance to speak to the world, Bundy said that "If you don't want people like me, don't burn Catcher in the Rye, burn Hustler." The most chilling thing that Bundy said in the interview is that "There are lots of other kids playing in streets around the country today who are going to be dead tomorrow, and the next day, because other young people are reading and seeing the kinds of things that are available in the media today."
It's not an innocent habit.
While not every porn-addict is a Ted Bundy, every Ted Bundy is a porn-addict. He mentioned in the interview that the one thing all serial killers had in common was an addiction to porn.
The problem is that pornography trains you to see women, and human beings in general, as objects for your own pleasure, devoid of personhood. To see them as pieces of meat on display. And once you begin to look at people as meat, you are a fine line away from treating them like meat. Just like Ted Bundy did.
But the worst part of pornography is that it kills the soul. Christ tells us that adultery is not just an action: "But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28). In his masterpiece on our human identity, The Theology of the Body, St. John Paul the Great wrote about the "ethos of the image." He defines pornography as taking place "when the limit of shame is overstepped, that is, of personal sensitivity with regard to what is connected with the human body with its nakedness." Reproducing the image of the human body carries with it an ethical responsibility to ensure its dignity. Otherwise, a grave sin is committed. For as man was created in the image and likeness of God, destroying the dignity of the human body through its objectification in pornography is a blasphemy against God. Pornography isn't just wrong because the Church says so (in fact nothing is). Pornography involves violating the inherent dignity and beauty of the human body and using it for self-gratification.
Real men and women are far more beautiful than the lies sold by porn. Love is far more than meaningless sex. Each and every one of us has a uniqueness given to us by God, a soul. We are far more than things to be used.
A great group, Fight the New Drug, uses "Porn Kills Love" as their slogan. And it doesn't get any simpler than that. Pornography is the antithesis of love. It seeks your wants and needs before the dignity of the human being you see on the screen. Real love puts the good of the other before yourself.
Pornography is not okay. We cannot accept it in ourselves, in our spouses, in our families, or in our society. What we face today is not a new problem. Porn has been around for a long time. The issue is that it has become so available. Nearly everyone of us can just whip our smartphones and have access to pretty much anything you could think of through the Internet. And I mean anything. Yes, it's convenient, but without the proper safeguards, it is also incredibly dangerous. Whereas a few decades ago you actually had to get your hand on a dirty magazine, today you have an unlimited supply of pornography through a device that has become ubiquitous.
And what is inexcusable is that parents give their children these Pandora's boxes, sometimes before they are even in school, and expect them to exercise a level of self-control that most adults don't have! To quote one of my favorite priests yet again, "Giving a child access to the Internet is like leaving them alone in an adult bookstore." The Internet can be a very nasty place. In caving to the fad of for every kid a smartphone, we are exposing them to incredible temptations.
If a kid stumbles across pornography, it's rarely even their fault. The porn industry is just that, an industry. They profit from every new user they get hooked just like your everyday neighborhood drug dealer. Matt Fradd is one of the greatest Catholic writers of our generation and a leading voice in the battle against pornography. In his podcast, Integrity Restored, he addresses this reality: "The pornography industry is looking for our children.... because our children, to the porn industry, are like dollar symbols." Pornographic websites target children through meta-tagging. They're sort of like hashtags in Twitter. That's why when you type "awesome Catholic blogs" in your web browser, you get The Crusade for Truth, even though that's not my URL (or you would if I paid Google for advertising). Porn sites use meta-tags like the names of cartoon characters so that children will accidently stumble upon their material and become addicted. What could be more despicable or perverse?
Brothers and sisters, we have to make a stand against pornography. We have to protect ourselves, our families, our friends, and our children. Pornography is not just an idle pleasure. It is the crowbar of the Devil. It pries apart the soul from God, husband from wife, child from family, man from masculinity, and woman from femininity. Pornography reduces us to inanimate objects for the fulfillment of a passing pleasure.
What can you do? First, protect yourself. You can't defend anyone else if you are addicted yourself. "Cast first the beam out of thy own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to take out the mote from thy brother's eye" (Luke 6:41). If you are controlled by your passions, you must let God set you free. Do not let shame keep your sin in the dark and out of the light of the Confessional. Know that you are not alone. I have struggled with porn, many of the strong Catholic men I look up to have struggled with porn. Know that this is not something you can beat alone. No slave can remove his own shackles. The Lord is "the strength of my salvation" (Psalm 139:8), "our refuge and strength: a helper in troubles" (Psalm 45:2). Trust in God and His mercy, discipline your spirit, avoid the near occasion of sin, and you will find freedom. For a practical, Catholic approach to beating your porn addiction, Integrity Restored is a great place to start.
Next, you must protect your family. There's a lot of great software out there like Covenant Eyes that will block pornographic sites from your computer or even your Wi-Fi network. If your husband or wife is struggling, support them. Do not tolerate the sin, but remember to love the sinner. Maybe your kid really doesn't need a smartphone. It can be useful and convenient, but it can also be a door to sin.
Finally, we must protect our society. There is something deeply wrong in a culture that has no shame. Our culture of death is also a Playboy culture. Just look (or rather don't) at the music videos, red carpet, or the beach. Listen to our music. It has become acceptable to expose our bodies in the name of expression. It has become acceptable to treat women like objects in the name of sexual liberation. Remember that the ways of the world are not the ways of God! The Truth of our faith tells us that these things are not acceptable!
And so we must preach the Truth. In our dress, our thoughts, our words, and most importantly our actions, we must bear witness to the inalienable dignity of the human body. We must defend love as being more than sex and sex as being more than pleasure. Fight porn with purity and love!
DEUS VULT!
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