Pornography
Why is pornography wrong? Christians and just about everyone else may instinctively condemn it as evil, but why exactly? Are advocates of sexual license like the ACLU and many Libertarians right in condescendingly saying opposition to pornography is based on "prudishness" or "being old-fashioned" or "out of date"?
Science is beginning to give insights into why pornography (and sexual infidelity in general, as will be related elsewhere) is so evil and destructive. According to Dr. James Dobson, the nationally famous psychologist and past member of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography:
[Dobson] related that men are extremely visual and that when a male views sexually stimulating material a chemical called epinephrine is released in the brain that locks images in place for hours, weeks, months and, in some cases, even years. A man can then recall sexual images years after he has viewed erotic imagery. As we read newspaper accounts about men molesting daughters, raping babies and even molesting women in their nineties, we need to understand that pornography is a stimulant far more powerful than what the media would report, or the secular world would have you believe. (Bill Johnson, "Pornography Still Destroys Lives," Journal of the American Family Association, Nov./Dec. 1996, Michigan Affiliate News, p. 24)
It is my understanding that this epinephrine release is essentially identical to that which occurs under other severe psychological episodes, such as during traumatic events during wartime. The well-known tendency of some Vietnam veterans to suffer "flashbacks" is one such experience. People find it unable to get the images out of their heads, whether they want them there or not.
The effects of pornography cause a sort of emotional scarring as time wears on, destroying the ability of the individual to relate in an intimate manner with someone whom they truly love. The tragedy is that they often literally don't know what they are missing, because they have trashed their own brain to a degree such that they cannot experience the full depth of intimacy obtainable between less "polluted" minds.
Please note that this degradation is caused not only by pornography, but by any intimate experience sufficient to cause epinephrine release. Thus, intimacy with anyone other than your spouse before marriage will degrade the potential for emotional intimacy in the marriage bed. Much commonly accepted "dating behavior" falls into this destructive category.
The lockhold pornography can have on the brain can also drive compulsive behavior, as in the case of serial rapist and murderer Ted Bundy, who identified pornographic material as the causal factor for his murderous spree before he was executed.
God's moral law is not arbitrary or "out of date," no matter what self-proclaimed "modernists" may try to argue. We will always find that scientific evidence is best understood in the light of God's Word and reveals a little more of His truth.
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