Porn Causes Brain Damage

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Porn Causes Brain Damage

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Let's face it. After 20 years of exposure to thousands of hours of pornography, Jack's brain didn't work the way it did when he started secretly viewing it as a young adult. In fact, it hardly worked at all.

Eventually Jack's wife, Laurie Hall, left him and wrote her true-life experience in the book An Affair of the Mind. Mark Kastleman quotes from her book at NetNanny.com, including a quote from Dr. Ron Miller after he examined Jack. Dr. Miller told Jack: "You've destroyed your mind by fantasizing. You've dug a deep channel going in one direction. The rest of your mind is atrophied!"

The occasional use of porn for a few minutes of secret pleasure as a young adult planted the seeds of his neurological destruction. It reduced Jack's high-level engineering brain, trained through a college degree and years in a professional management position, into a bumbling nightmare of blank staring and the inability to remember even the simplest activities of daily living (such as boiling tea in the kitchen) or to hold a meaningful conversation.

Jack's good income as a regional manager had been reduced to a menial laborer's wage of packing bags of chocolates for $7.25 per hour.

Sadly, Jack's is not an isolated story. Vast numbers of people view pornography and suffer the consequences. But how does porn damage brain structure and function? And what can be done about this problem?

A rampant evil

A curse of modern society is that all people, including Vertical Thought readers, have to fight exposure to pornography in its astonishing array of forms. In our debased global culture, porn is not going away.

Consider these facts about porn from various news sources:

* 25 percent of search engine requests are pornographic (68 million per day).
* 70 percent of 18- to 24-year-old males visit porn sites in a typical month.
* 20 percent of men admit to watching porn on computers at work.
* 2.5 billion pornographic e-mails are sent daily.

In this porn-laced world, hundreds of millions of people are vulnerable to developing the psychological disorder of sex addiction. The porn industry's targeted destination is your brain. It bulldozes over the higher-thinking functions of the frontal lobes and cortex where logic and values and relationships are processed. Put another way, porn is designed to condition the human heart to be evil in its intents.
Porn changes brain circuitry

Mark Kastleman also quotes Dr. Gary Lynch, a neuroscientist at the University of California at Irvine, who explains what happens when the powerful imagery in pictures and action-packed pornographic scenes hit the human eye and when they are processed deep down in the many layers of brain structure.

"What we are saying here is that an event which lasts half a second, within five to ten minutes has produced a structural change that is in some ways as profound as the structural changes one sees in [brain] damage."

Mark Kastleman concludes: "Stored away in the cells of your brain and body are all the things you have ever seen, heard, felt, tasted or smelled. That's why Dr. Miller was able to tell Jack after 20 years of porn, ‘You've destroyed your mind by fantasizing. You've dug a deep channel going in one direction.' Jack had literally developed a one-track mind."

Overcoming this sin

God condemns pornography because it is horribly destructive of the spectacular and wonderful human potential. The human brain needs to be preserved and helped to develop the full capacities for vertical thinking for which this magazine is designed. So here is what we need to do to overcome this ever-present influence in today's media.

1. Immunize yourself from our world's porn-saturated media and culture by having a totally focused spiritual connection with God through regular prayer and Bible study.

2. Stay away from pornography in all forms. Understand that curiosity killed the cat. And it can kill you, too (spiritually speaking)!

The research shows that seeing is actually doing when it comes to how our brains work. Jesus Christ said that looking at a woman with lustful intent—and not just the physical act—is adultery (Matthew 5:28). He was 2,000 years ahead of the detailed findings of our neurosciences today. That's because He created the human mind.

3. Develop a "noble and good heart" (Luke 8:15). Be totally dedicated in upholding God's standards, words and character as the basis for your own thinking. You need a very strong conviction against pornography, to the point where you find it disgusting and repulsive. We must look at it as a form of mental illness and a destructive evil instead of pleasurable entertainment.

4. When you use the Internet, be very clear about what you plan to look up. Don't allow the natural boredom of life to lead you to explore things that will damage your mind.

5. If you have exposed yourself to pornography, realize that we have a Savior who will both forgive and will provide the spiritual help to overcome all our character flaws. Jesus wants us to repent and "sin no more" (John 8:11).

God designed the human brain as the physical mechanism for the development of the human mind, which He wants to transform within us to be like His (Romans 12:2). Our ultimate destiny is to be His children in His family forever! Don't let anything damage your mind and stop you from reaching that destiny! VT

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Comments

  • PaulPeter
    Im very thankful that I found this article, this is the todays biggest form of addiction. It can really destroy one's life completely, problem is most people are afraid to talk about it, Keep up the good work.God bless you all
  • Sandria
    I and my children have received in full the awful collateral damage suffered by years of my husbands secret sin, porn use. After 30 years of marriage I saw his character change from bad to worse. After years of verbal, financial, and emotional abuse I was forced to leave (7 months ago) my home and live out my days in peace with my son and disabled sister. I am saddened that he has chosen the base things of this world as opposed to the love and care of his family, given by the Lord to him. Yet he remains blinded by the prince of this world, and bound to this sin! Choice. He knows the truth which frightens me more for him. Christian men and women are deceived into thinking That they are not hurting anyone. Not so, I and countless like me are living proof that this sin has far reaching repercussions! My motive in writing this is to warn those who are flirting with this poison. Flee from it! The loss of a right relationship with God, family, friends, church, home, reputation etc, are hardly worth it. Thank you for listening. Sandy
  • KARS
    I agree with you Sabrina. Clapclap9, how the brain is damaged is this: When the young adult begin sexual activity as a game, they will expect there partner to know the moves already. Let's face it, some of the activity can be harmful and hateful. No; it's only meant for a loving married couple who has waited. They have a lifetime to explore and don't need a sick minded person teaching them. If you want to read about a love story then read; The Song of Solomon. There one will read about falling in love and the blessings for waiting. As always God our Father made sure he left instructions.
  • Sabrina Peabody
    Clapclap9 - How about the risk of those teenagers when they become adults? They will have a distorted view of what sex should be like with a loving partner in marriage. This can lead to much heartache and trauma that may not be healed easily because those images are seared in their minds. It should be mentioned that teenagers do need to be educated about sex and its proper time and place -- and this can be in the form of books, or discussing it with close family members or church mentors. The point of this article though, don't watch porn.
  • clapclap9
    Is watching porn bad for teenagers? Teenagers are well versed in the online world, and growing concerns have been raised about teenagers watching pornography. According to a report from Computerworld, a study from Australian researchers links teenagers watching porn to an increased likelihood of real-life sexual behaviors. The study included many countries, but was focused primarily in the United States. According to the research, teens who watched pornography “were more likely to have higher numbers of sexual partners, engage in a wider diversity of sexual practices, and use alcohol or drugs in association with sexual encounters.” These teenagers were also more likely to have a high occurrence of sexually transmitted infections. Though the research indicated exposure to sexually explicit images may result in earlier sexual experiences, it did not prove that watching porn causes any harm to teens, but rather only exposes them to the risks associated with being sexually active.
  • macnana
    Satan has use his various means to draw human away from Jehovah. But the porn industries don't care and they are making money out of it. Why this world? When will the Kingdom Of God comes? We hope it soon!! I was once addicted but reading the bible daily and prayers am able to overcome such evil deeds I Thanks Jehovah for this, his word is truth. I also thank Howard Davis and all team of Beyond Today
  • Faustinki

    The information is very useful .The business of pornography is really a shame for this world which does not any more care about the world of God .And we must know what we need to feed our brain which the engine of our thinking .No brain , no intelligence ,we are like animals .But we have been created in the image of God and we must take and consider seriously our nature to be holy and God is Holy by rejecting sin.WE must understand to beauty of marriage .But you need abstinence , just to it when pleasing your God .We cannot change our feet to serve the evil .We see people today who , than having a partner of another sex ( woman and man ) , they specialize by making love with toys .This is another spiritual slavery.God did not create sex to enjoy yourself or having pleasure with yourself and for yourself, but God did it for a purpose as a mark of love to another person like you or me , a person of different sex ; and men and women cannot become partner of things like toys which is another form of rebellion and proof that than providing or giving love to one another , people who cannot talk to each other and who cannot communicate ,become now very selfish because they replace or have changed the true mean of love and it is another form of idolatry .This must change because this affects the human brain by it available to do the evil job against the world of God who told :<< It's better for man for not being alone .>> God provided an help to man :Eve >> Pornography is destroying the meaning our marriage and family in the corner stone of our civilization.This must change and it is possible when people understand the risk of sex abuse .may God bless you. Bye

  • kosimov

    This information is very useful to me personally, as I have long wanted to know more about what porn can do to us if we let it "take over", as well as what it does even if we think we don't use it enough to worry about. Apparently, every use of porn is dangerous and can cause damage to the brain! I hope information such as this will impress especially the young men who may not yet have become enmeshed in the porn challenges that they will face as they mature. As I grew up, I recall that there was no particular concern about porn, even the "soft porn" that was more prevalent when I was young. In fact, there were times when adults seemed amused by a young man's interest in porn, as though it was a sign that he was nearing his "right of passage", and would soon "become a man". Of course, I did not grow up in a family which was particularly "religious"; though there was mention of the bible and other religious items, we did not read it regularly and thus, were not blessed with the knowledge we could have had from reading what the Lord had to say about this subject, nor were we warned by the same words about the dangers involved. Too often, we think of the words of the Lord as something coming from "somewhere else", commanding us to follow His rules but not really seeming to be the fatherly advice He is intending them to be, full of love and compassion and concern for us. At least, that was my experience. Now I see His commandments as full of love, full of compassion for the way we must face evils in this life. I wish I had felt this sooner, but I am thankful I know it now.
    I am afraid I have not been active enough in working to stop this terrible influence in those I am with from day to day. Fortunately, I did take a firm stand and taught my five children how harmful porn is, and they turned away from it. But I have nephews, and maybe nieces?, who have struggled terribly with it. I hope I can influence them more with this information to show them.
    Thank you so much for this site and for putting such real, useful information here for our benefit. My prayers will have yet another subject to consider from now on.

  • GaryM

    The article about porn causing brain damage I found quite interesting. I find the statistics alarmingly high. I don't hear much about this issue. However, I appreciate the pointers given in how to overcome this addiction. I would add that persons need the power of the Holy Spirit in overcoming porn or any other addiction as well.

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