Cause and Effect of Pornography

Almost as lucrative as the oil industry; the omnipresent multi-media pornography industry is said to be more profitable than the music and video industries combined. The European Parliament (2003) estimates that more than two-thirds of the £252 million spent by European internet users during 2001 was received by various pornographic websites. This recorded expenditure does not, however, account for the widely available non-internet based pornographic literature, theatre and DVD trade, or for prostitution – the age-old trade from which the term pornography is derived (Potter, 1998); thus effectively deeming the pornography industry to be indescribably profitable.

“It can snatch any kid out of the home…It snatched me out of mine 20 years ago.” (Final Interview, 2:54-3:02 minutes). The addiction to pornography is often likened to that of a drug, “One should become addicted to it, and I look at this as kind of like an addiction. Like other kinds of addictions…you keep…I would keep looking for more potent, explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Like an addiction, you keep craving something that’s harder…something…which gives you a greater sense of excitement.” (Final Interview,

Pornography is commonly used in many cultures across the world. Within the United States, alone, roughly 40 million people regularly visit porn sites (Streep, 2014). And yet, despite its growing popularity, only a handful of studies have explored pornography’s potential effects on sexual satisfaction for those in exclusive relationships (Bridges & Morokoff, 2011; Daneback et al., 2009; Maddox et al., 2011; Stewart & Szymanski, 2012; Stulhofer et al., 2010; Zillmann & Bryant, 1988). As using pornography can potentially have negative effects on both the user’s and their intimate partner’s sexual satisfaction, it is important to

To begin, pornography has addictive characteristics and because of those characteristics intimate relationships often suffer. Today, men and women tend to become addicted to watching pornography and use it to masturbate. It has been proven that “problematic pornography is characterized by a predominant urge for behavioral engagement, referred to as a craving” (Allen 67). If both parties of a relationship have this urge or craving for pornography, this could cause their relationship to suffer. The sexual act lacks love and intimacy and becomes mechanical or second natured. Pornography has been compared to addiction and people who are addicted enable each other. Therefore, there is no

Another information I learned from organizations that want pornography to be abolished created porn addiction as a deterrent for online pornography viewing. They created these diseases as abstinence for sexual behaviors, which made abstinence even more

There have been many speculations about porn and its significance. Many would argue there is no sole purpose for it other then opening up doors for people to fantasize about things that generally do not happen in a normal sexual encounter. However, that is quite the contrary research has shown over the past decade that porn isn't entirely 100% bad. Although, there are negative connotations associated with porn especially for a female, researchers are finding that more

While many will argue that pornography is not harmful and a “victimless crime”, are not of the real effects that pornography can have on a family, or a society as a whole. First of all pornography is detrimental, because it treats humans as objects. Pornography depicts people, especially women, in demeaning and degrading ways. Even if the only ones involved were adults who freely chose to be involved in the production of pornography and even if they were compensated well enough to feel good about what they are doing, pornography does not build the integrity of persons who are made in the image of God. Another effect of pornography is that it is linked to different forms of violence. Pornography can be linked to rape, abuse, murder, and other felonies. Pornography is also harmful to society in that the outlets for obscene material are often outlets for other material such as prostitution, pandering, drug dealing etc. Finally, pornography harms the family. Like other sins, pornography is addictive and progressive.

What starts out as accidental exposure to sexual media can become a full-blown addiction (Kistler & Lee, 2010; Ouytsel, Ponnet, & Walrave, 2014). Early use of pornography is correlated with higher compulsivity as an emerging adult (Giordano, & Cashwell, 2017; Stinson, 2010; Willoughby, Carroll, Nelson, & Padilla-Walker, 2014; Willoughby, Young-Petersen, & Leonhardt, 2018; Ybarra & Mitchell, 2005). Virtually every individual who lives in modern society will be exposed to sexual media; even those who say they abstain still have a 20% likelihood of seeing pornography and sexual media incidentally (Willoughby, et al.,

For many years there has been a lot of arguments about the ethical and morality of pornography. pornography is defined as the depiction of erotic behavior intended to cause sexual excitement. When it coms down to pornography, people have different opinions about it. Some people might find it moral because it gives them pleasure and it satisfies them physically. some individuals see it as a form of art that describes the figure of a human body in an artistic form. Others see it as immoral because it harms and degrades an individual. Personally I believe that it all depends how pornography is conducted and how we respond to it. It can be morally healthy that we like it because it makes us happy, such as it helps with your marriage relationship in intimacy, and it can be immoral when it is used in an unhealthy that we do not like it because hurts an innocent person.

Temptation can be a hard thing to overcome, especially sexual. It can be found anywhere and everywhere, especially found in homes. It is so addictive that pornography itself can chemically hijack the brain. Matthew 6:13-

This article begins by discussing the varying definition and vacillating perception of the word, 'addiction'. The authors explain addiction as a disease of the brain that causes dysfunction of the brain's reward system, motivation, and memory. Consequently, it is apprised that these dysfunctions lead to problems with the characteristics of an individual's biological, psychological, spiritual, and social aspects of who they are. The article transitions by drawing parallels between the characteristics of pornography addiction and substance addiction. A noted similarity that the article refers to is that the same pathways in the brain that are triggered by drugs are also triggered by internet pornography. Furthermore, the authors found that

Pornography can physically change the brain. In the past few decades, a discovery has been found to have a better understanding of how the brain functions in what is called neuroplasticity, with “nuero” meaning the brain and “plasticity” meaning changeability (Doidge, preface). Doidge referenced this as to the brain playing a never-ending game of Tetris, always making new paths to one’s experience. Alongside the discovery of the neuroplasticity, it was found that pornography fills the brain with dopamine (Hilton, 2013, 5). Dopamine is a “chemical in your brain that affects your emotions, movements and your sensations of pleasure and pain” (Sorensen, 2015). With this dopamine chemical, it causes one’s emotions to run all over the place, and as time goes on, the more pornography one watches, the brain fights against the dopamine receptors (Watts and Hilton, 2011) and ultimately the pornography no longer seems to arouse, so one will search for more hard-core pornography to get the arousal feeling back (Angres and Bettinardi–Angres, 2008).

Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain looks into the consequences of pornography upon the male brain. The author does not deny the fact that porn has effects on both males and females, but men are primarily the ones that consume the product. The consumption has had a major impact on the way men look at women. Many authors and scholars present pornography as a spiritual matter, but Struthers thinks the matter at hand is also a physical problem. “Pornography is also a physical matter, rooted in the biological intricacies of our sexual desire.” (15) The purpose of the book is to look into the physical impact of porn.

One of the main issues with pornography is its addictive effect on the brain. A widespread issue that many people are unaware of is that pornography is biologically addicting. According to a studying done by German researchers that was published in JAMA Psychiatry in 2014, regularly viewing pornography seems to dull the response to sexual stimulation over time. The researchers found that the brain needs more dopamine in order to feel the same ‘high’, which causes a person to watch more porn. Furthermore, the German researchers found in the same study that pornography may actually be shrinking men’s brains. The researchers found that “the striatum area of the brain, which is linked with the motivation and reward response, shrank in size the more porn a person viewed.”

Pornography has many obvious as well as not-so-obvious consequences within society. Pornography has the power to ruin marriages, destroy trust, excite a person to the point of sexual crime, or create an unhealthy view of human sexuality and the opposite sex.” (WowEssays, Pornography)