In his book, Your Brain on Porn, Gary Wilson wrote, “Until recently, erectile dysfunction was rarely seen in men under forty. Now it is seen in teenagers as young as fifteen.” Why? Because of porn. He went on to explain:

“By the time they find a real partner, perhaps as much as a decade later, some guys discover they have trained intensely for the wrong sport. These young men had simply conditioned their sexual response to screens, isolating, constant novelty, shock/surprise, fetish porn and watching other people have sex… you become numb to real partners.”

The cover story of the April 2016 edition of Time Magazine was entitled: Why Young Men Who Grew Up on Internet Porn are Becoming Advocates for Shutting it Off. The article is about a group of twenty somethings that have porn induced erectile dysfunction. These men are saying that porn has ruined their ability to even have sex. This article went on to say that in 1992 only 5% of men under age 40 had Erectile Dysfunction (ED) but in 2014 the percentage jumped up to 33%. You may have thought that all those Viagra and Cialis commercials were for the old guys but apparently not. ED is actually a growing issue among teenagers. A Canadian sexologist study showed that of the 53.5% of teenagers who reported sexual problems, ED and loss of interest were the two biggest issues.

You have probably seen commercials for the Roman App? It was designed to help young men avoid the embarrassing conversation with their doctor about ED so now they can get Viagra or Cialias through the App. The cheaper, better and longer term solution to stop PIED is to stop watching porn. When many try to stop, that is when they realize they are addicted because they can’t. Porn promised sexual fulfillment but it actually takes away the ability to enjoy sex and in the case of PIED even the ability to have it at all.

Shame is Toxic

Shame is different from guilt. Guilt says “I’ve done bad” but shame says “I am bad.” At the core of shame is self-loathing and a sense of worthlessness. A person’s shame declares some version of “I am not enough;” “There is something wrong with me,” “I am bad,” or “I don’t matter.”

Shame researcher Brene Brown defines shame as, “an intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.”

When a person believes they are worthless and have a sense of self-hatred, it is hard for them to receive love from God or others. This spurs isolation from both God and others which, in turn, multiplies the negative emotions that the porn addict has learned to medicate with porn.

Another harmful consequence of the shame that comes from a porn addiction is how it impacts a person’s religious service. Over a six year period, a study looked at impact of pornography on a person’s service and leadership in their place of worship. If someone did not watch porn, they had a 1 in 3 chance of serving in their congregation. But if they started watching pornography monthly their chances of serving shrunk to 1 in 10, and, if they were watching porn on a weekly basis, it went to 1 in 20. If they started watching daily, it went to almost zero.

This is exactly what the Bible talks about in Hebrews 12:1. It says, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”. It’s not just that porn is keeping God’s people in sin, it is keeping them from running the race God has for them to run. We want to help people run free so they can reach their God given potential in Christ. God has a race for you to run but porn is keeping you from running it like you should.

Porn Slowly Crushes Relationships

A study of thousands of Americans on the impact of pornography on relationships showed clearly that “pornography use is an indicator of poorer relationship quality”. Out of 31 measures of relationship quality, pornography did not positively impact any of them with one exception that was declared inconclusive. Porn was zero for thirty one on showing a positive impact on relationships according to the 31 measures taken. Porn is toxic to relationships.

Dr. John Gottman founded the world-renown Gottman Institute. All they do is study relationships. In the past, Gottman said pornography didn’t harm couples. He has completely changed his stance! He wrote an open letter retracting his earlier position. He is now against pornography in marriage. Gottman says, “use of pornography by one partner leads the couple to have far less sex and ultimately reduces relationship satisfaction. We are led to unconditionally conclude that for many reasons, pornography poses a serious threat to couple intimacy and relationship harmony.”

Even secular psychologists are seeing the effects.

The Benefits of Living a Porn-Free Life

The benefits of breaking a porn habit are immense. When you quit porn, you quit sinning against yourself so you don’t reap the negative consequences in your brain, in your relationships and in your life. I want to start a list and encourage you to add to it yourself.

• More confidence. Without shame and the guilty conscience, you are more confident. Few things kill a person’s confidence like guilt.
• More sex and more satisfying sex. According to research and personal accounts, instead of increasing sexual enjoyment, porn often leads to less satisfying sex in the long run and, for many porn consumers, no sex at all.
• Closer relationships. When you are fully known and not hiding, you can be fully loved. Research shows that porn users report less love and trust in their relationships, and they are more prone to separation and divorce, and often see marriage as a “constraint.” From our National Survey of Christian Students, six out of ten admitted their porn use negatively impacted their relationships.
• You avoid Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction.
• Makes for a stronger marriage or future marriage (if you’re single)
• You will view people as people instead of sex objects.
• Happier and less depression. When people watch porn, their brains have elevated levels of the pleasure chemical dopamine. This means that it takes more dopamine than usual to feel normal. The results are that the simple pleasures of life are not as enjoyable as they used to be.
• Quitting porn improves your leadership. For someone to quit porn, they must grow in their emotional awareness. This is essential for identifying and then addressing emotional triggers. This is why we built an App so people can check in daily and evaluate their emotions. When someone does this, they grow significantly in Emotional Intelligence. The more emotionally intelligent a person is, the better they are at relationships and in their leadership.

Besides these, there are significant spiritual benefits from quitting porn:

• Quitting porn increases closeness with Christ. “He who has my commandments and keeps them he it is who loves me… and I will love him and disclose myself to him” (John 14:21). The appetite we feed grows. Our desire for God and the things of God diminishes. Our survey showed that half of the students said their porn use decreased their desire to read or study God’s word.
• Porn use keeps us from loving God supremely. Porn use keeps God from revealing Himself to us the way He wants to. This hurts our fellowship with Christ. Our relationship is forever secure, but the intimacy of our fellowship is diminished. Any sin, including porn, we actively pursue is an affront to God and hinders our intimacy with Him. So quitting porn increases our closeness to Christ.
• Frees you from a harmful master: You deepen the porn pathways in your brain with each pursuit of porn. This makes breaking free more challenging. Porn use causes us to cultivate an appetite for more porn and more immorality. There are more consequences than we think.

• Quitting porn helps you fulfill your destiny to be more like Christ

God’s plan for every Christian is to make us like Jesus. His primary method of transformation? Renewing our minds. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” Romans 12:2. God reprograms our mind to make us like Christ. Porn is a toxic pollutant that undermines God’s work in our lives and builds the enemy’s strongholds in our minds. Don’t let porn undercut God’s work in your life to be like Christ.

Quitting porn makes you more usable. Nothing compares to being used by God to serve others and glorify Him.

This verse reveals some are prepared for every good work and some are not. Part of preparation is fleeing youthful lusts. Over half of monthly porn users from our survey said their porn use decreased their desire to serve in a spiritual capacity. The guilt, shame and feelings of hypocrisy that result from porn use destroy the confidence to lead spiritually. Quit porn and become more usable.

“The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much (James 5:16).

Our influence with God through prayer is affected by obedience. After writing about how a man can have his prayers ‘hindered’ because of how he treats his wife, Peter says, “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil” 1 Peter 3:12. Author E.M. Bounds captures this principle of scripture. “We must learn this lesson well that righteous character and Christ-like conduct give us a peculiar and preferential standing in prayer before God.”(7) Don’t allow porn to make your prayers less effective.

God’s word says, “But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith”. 1 Timothy 1:5. God’s desire for us is to live a life without the hypocrisy and shame that porn brings to a Christian’s life. This is the opposite of what a believer experiences when they are stuck in a porn habit.

Sin, like porn, doesn’t affect our position in Christ but it does impact our ability to experience the fullness of life in Christ. Quitting porn moves the believer from worldlines to godliness. From distant fellowship to intimacy with Christ. From a lack of influence to influence with God in prayer. From polluting the mind to renewing the mind. From being unusable to a degree to be usable. Living a life without the guilt, the shame and the lies. Porn is costing us more than we realize and quitting porn has more benefits than we think.

“The Freedom fight has been a huge blessing and weapon in my fight for sexual purity and has made all the difference. It has been almost a year and a half since my last relapse and the freedom is indescribable. It has really increased my intimacy with the Lord and helped shape my ministry. I feel as though I used to have a huge weight around my neck holding me back, but now it is gone. I am so thankful for the freedom and trajectory of purity God has used the Freedom Fight to establish in my life.” – Nathan

Find Freedom Through God’s Word

All truth is God’s truth. This is why, in addition to building our program on God’s word, we seek scientific understanding as we address the porn problem. Brain science, in particular, is essential to have an accurate view of what is taking place with a pornography addiction. Understanding emotions, like shame, is also important to have a full picture of the forces at work in a porn addiction. The same God who created the soul also created the brain and emotions. The Freedom Fight will continue to have a blended approach to addressing the porn issue that is biblical and scientifically informed. Sexual sin like porn impacts the whole person so the solution must be holistic.

Accountability is essential for people to reach their potential. This is why there is built-in accountability with those things we must succeed in like school and work. Accountability is even more important for an addiction that part of you doesn’t want to give up. Many alcoholics who join Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) commit to ninety in ninety. This means they attend an AA meeting every day for ninety days. They must immerse themselves in accountability and recovery. Accountability is essential especially in the early months and years. We created the FF App in part to make checking in with your accountability something easy to do each day. In two minutes or less, you check in and it is sent to accountability partners of your choosing.