The Not So Pretty Fantasy World Of Porn
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Surveys show that most Americans do not consider the continuing explosion of the amount of pornography to be a problem.
They do not see how looking at pictures or movies of sexual activity could be anything more than harmless fun.
Related Article: Record Number Of Americans Think Porn Is ‘Morally Acceptable’
But the path to sexual addiction begins early, with most children exposed to pornography by the age of 11. As they mature, so does their desire for more and more porn.
Unfortunately, many porn addicts reach a point where they slide into a deeper fantasy world and begin to blur the line between reality and fantasy. The results create far-reaching damage for the man that affects personal relationships with his family and friends, may jeopardize his job, and disrupts almost every aspect of his life.
Internet porn has become known as the crack cocaine of sexual addiction. “It works so quickly and it’s so instantly intense,” says Dr. Robert Weiss of the Sexual Recovery Institute in Los Angeles. “We’re seeing a whole population of clients who have never had a history with the problem, but for the first time, they’re beginning one particular activity and getting hooked.”
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Law Of Diminishing Returns
A listener of FamilyLife radio explained his unfortunate slide from reality into the fantasy world of porn and the tragic effects it had on his family and himself.
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“The last 18 months have been the worst because of the easy access I had to pornography on the Internet. I progressed to the point where I would spend hours at a time to find pictures that would stimulate me. Just as with a drug addict, it took more and more pornography to satisfy my addiction. I began to push my wife away in many direct and indirect ways. I would delay going outside to play with my six-year-old son because I was on the Internet …”
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“My wife gradually spent more and more time with her best girlfriend across the street because I was emotionally dead inside. The life had literally been sucked out of me. I felt as though my ability to think clearly was greatly affected. I had trouble repeating phone numbers because I was consumed with guilt and shame, gradually losing respect for my wife as a person. It was almost impossible for us to carry on a conversation. These changes occurred so gradually that I did not realize it was the pornography that was affecting me.”
Related Article: Restoring Intimacy To Your Relationship
Before You Know It
According to a statement from Sexaholics Anonymous,
“Many of us felt inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid. Our insides never matched what we saw on the outsides of others.”
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“Early on, we came to feel disconnected—from parents, from peers, from ourselves. We tuned out with fantasy and masturbation, plugging in by drinking in the pictures, the images, and pursuing the objects of our fantasies. We lusted and wanted to be lusted after.”
“This produced guilt, self-hatred, remorse, emptiness, and pain, and we were driven ever inward, away from reality, away from love, lost inside ourselves.”
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“Our habit made true intimacy impossible. We could never know real union with another because we were addicted to the unreal. We went for the ‘chemistry,’ the connection that had the magic, because it by-passed intimacy and true union. Fantasy corrupted the real; lust killed love.”
Escaping Reality
Carl Jones, pastor at The Freedom Center in Fenton, Michigan, describes how his addiction to the fantasy world of porn progressed in his life.
“When I was barely in double digits, I was introduced to pornography by a friend. As intriguing as it was, I knew it wasn’t right. What I didn’t know though was that I would choose to walk down a road that saw me addicted to that nonsense for over 15 years. Spending money on my addiction, I lost relationships because of my addiction, becoming numb toward God because of my addiction.
I reached a point in life where I had literally spent more of my life addicted to porn than not.
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“I found that I had a lot of wars between fantasy and reality. The crazy thing is that when you are done with fantasy, reality is always sitting there waiting for you when you come home. Just like with any other addiction, if you look at porn in order to cope with stress, or because you are dissatisfied with life in some way, you aren’t actually solving the problem, you’re compounding it.”
When a man is a porn addict, it devastates his family.
Allan Schwartz, Ph.D., explains, “Part of the reason why women are so angry about internet pornography is that it takes their men away from the family and from themselves. How can a father be engaged in fathering his children if he is locked in his office at home spending countless hours viewing porn sites on the internet? “
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Fantasy vs Reality
Porn addiction affects all areas of a man’s life, including work, social activity, ability to focus or concentrate, sleep and even appetite. Unfortunately, viewing porn to relieve stress doesn’t work. Viewing porn results in more stress as you constantly deal with the shame and fear of being discovered.
Related Article: How Toxic Shame Keeps You Trapped In The Destructive Cycle of Porn
As therapist and co-founder of Uncommon Knowledge, Mark Tyrell, noted,
“Like any addictive behavior, porn ultimately never delivers what it seems to promise. First there’s the feeling of building expectation before you start viewing. At first there is excitement but then, bit by bit, you start to feel hollow as the ‘pornographic gorge’ gathers pace. And, as with all binges, you start to feel overloaded, bloated with images. When you do finally stop, you feel worse than you did to start with as you experience the post-binge comedown.”
Kenny Luck, men’s pastor at Saddleback Church and founder of Every Man Ministries, said, “God is not a fan of fantasy. God is big on truth and reality. It is God’s will that we grow up into our realities and become mature adults who know how to navigate the tensions of life; tensions which Jesus said would be there."
He goes on to say,
"Satan, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. He wants you to escape the pressure, the tensions, and the realities of life and enter his world of fantasy and escapism. He wants you to escape reality—not embrace it.”
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The Conquer Series
There is hope for men struggling with addiction to porn and its harmful fantasy world. The Conquer Series is a powerful cinematic study series.
It uses Biblical principles and dynamic video presentations to help men break loose from the grip of pornography and experience the reality of living in total freedom.
The Conquer Series has a Study Guide packed with insightful strategies and exercises.