Well, the Bible is quite clear that sexual
immorality in any form is not acceptable.
But what is super fascinating is how
we now have all these research studies that absolutely back up
what the Bible has been telling us for years, showing us how pornography
actually ruptures your attachment to your primary figure.
So when it says in the Bible,
“When you lust in your heart, you have committed adultery.”
That's because, we now know, that women's brains
react in exactly the same way as if they had been physically unfaithful.
It's the same rupturing. Pornography hijacks the reward center of the brain.
So whenever we do an activity that theoretically furthers our survival,
like eating food like highly calorific foods
or having sex, our brain rewards us.
So we get a squirt of dopamine and other highly feel good chemicals.
And that motivates us to repeat the activity.
Now the problem is this can be hijacked by artificial substitutes like pornography.
But here's the thing, with natural rewards things like having food and sex,
there's a natural built-in off switch, which means that eventually you leave
the bedroom, you leave the dining room and you get back on with your life.
But the thing is, with pornography, there's no off switch.
You can literally binge for days because all you need to do
to keep that dopamine surging is to click on something novel,
something new, something shocking, something taboo,
and there is no off switch.
You literally become enslaved, and the more you do something,
the more the brain makes it efficient for you to repeat the behavior.
We know this with neural pathways.
This is why you can play a piano or drive a car,
but the same thing is happening with pornography.
The association made between pleasure and pornography is made so fast,
that this is where our brain automatically goes.
And there's also a little chemical protein called DeltaFosB
that is produced when you watch pornography.
And this takes the neural pathway and basically it's like an asphalt paver.
It makes it so fast that you can be triggered by some pornographic cue
and your brain starts craving without you even being aware of it.
So that's what I mean when you get hijacked.
There are other ways you can be hijacked.
The brain has a tremendous capacity to regulate.
We were designed with checks and balances.
So these crazy levels of feel-good chemicals that you get
when you're watching pornography
we weren't designed for, we were never designed to experience them.
So what the brain does, it effectively numbs the pleasure receptors
so that what now was once effective no longer really does it.
So you have to up the ante the whole time you develop a state of what's
called tolerance and everything else in life feels lackluster. Boring.
Nothing can compete or compare with pornography.
And the final way
that it hijacks the brain is a condition called hypofrontality.
And this is what you get when you have a heavy use of porn
or you have a head on collision.
And it's an impairment of the
prefrontal cortex, which is your decision-making part of the brain,
which means that you no longer are able to weigh consequences
like my wife doesn't like this. But
you know, the cravings are still so strong that you go, it'll be all right.
You are no longer making logical, rational decisions.
Your brain has been hijacked.
It is tremendously exciting how we now see the neuroscience
catching up and all the sort of sociological studies
now backing up what the Bible has been telling us for years.