Should You Date a Porn Addict? (18+)
Whenever you date someone who struggles with porn addiction, you’re fighting against a powerful force—a fantasy world. In the movie “The Matrix,” people live in a virtual reality where they experience a simulated reality. It’s not too far from real life.
The digital age has changed our experiences and perceptions drastically. Gold, silver, and USD were the favorite investments of many for a long time. Today, we have the Bitcoin, which cannot be held with your hand. Investors are beginning to invest in land offered in the Metaverse. We now live in a “Matrix” where alternative tangible assets, life, fun, and adventure are readily available.
Many people who watch pornography suffer from low self-esteem, depression, and other mental health problems. Should you date such a person? I would discuss the topic from two angles; from the perspective of a counselor and secondly as a Christian.
Porn addiction is a real thing
In 2021, a survey was conducted amongst 986 college students in Penang, Malaysia, to determine the frequency of usage of pornography in their daily lives.
The study showed that about 75% of male students were actively engaged in the usage of pornography, while a much smaller number of female students in the sample population were active users of pornography.
We can say that pornography and other explicit content are readily and commonly used by adolescents and adults in this era and will continue to be so.
Defining pornography
Pornography is defined as any material that creates or increases sexual emotions or sexual thoughts. The materials may contain images or descriptions of sexual organs or sexual acts.
When color printing was the in-thing, paper prints of images were popular. Over time, VCDs, DVDs, and adult TV programs began to offer choices and competition to the traditional media on pornographic content. In the last 15 years, internet pornography has dominated the growing market for explicit adult material.
What exactly is pornography addiction?
Pornography as we know it uses a brain reward pathway by enabling the brain to produce a chemical compound and hormone known as dopamine. It is also known as a “happy drug” that raises your moods when released and received within the brain.
Anyone who has reached the top of a Himalayan mountain after three exhausting days of climbing feels ‘on top of the world’ because plenty of dopamine is produced in the brain on reaching the top of the mountain.
If an individual finds his first encounter with porn images fascinating and stimulating, his brain will release dopamine to produce the feeling of elation and satisfaction.
As the individual repeats his experience with the same content, he finds it less satisfying. As a result of high dopamine levels, the brain may reduce the number of dopamine receptors to restore balance. The individual is led to try hardcore porn and combine it with sexual acts like masturbation to produce the same amount of elation or satisfaction or even try to experiment with actions that could hurt himself physically.
Pornography lovers become addicted in the same way that drug users get their fix in stronger concentrations each time. Thus, a porn lover finds himself addicted to explicit content more and more. And he needs a fix almost every day, taking away the time to be used for work and relationships with others.
A porn lover can become dysfunctional as an employee, husband, or friend and ignores other personal interests like careers, self-care, spiritual life, and financial management. The conclusion at that stage is that the individual has developed a very problematic mental disorder.
Porn ‘lovers’ or porn addicts?
But is this statement true?
Porn lovers, in reality, are porn addicts. There is a fixation in mind on an alternate reality that gives new excitement and stimulation.
It is not easy for a drug addict to be weaned off drugs by wishing to reduce the amount of heroin injected into the arm each day. The withdrawal comes, and the addict needs a quick fix to sort things out for the day because of the need for fast dopamine production in the brain.
The same applies to a porn addict. He needs a regular fix daily to manage his stress and withdrawal symptoms. As the porn lover has learned many acts from the movies, he would try to duplicate the moves in these movies with his spouse or lover.
He would ask for more dramatic performances using all kinds of methods and tools to bring about orgasms. The trouble does not stop there. The use of alcohol, anal sex, and sadomasochism are learned online through these porn movies and content. These are also practiced amongst couples which could tear the fabric of love, tenderness, and understanding.
We might like to check it out, but in most porn movies, the scenes are unreal or faked. The sounds and noises of satisfaction and orgasm in porn movies are fake and are created to produce stimuli for our minds to enjoy. That is where porn lovers are deceived. Sexual performance does not depend on what you have seen. It depends on physical fitness, emotional bonding, communication, and knowing each other’s bodies.
As a Christian
What is my take as a Christian on the subject of porn addiction? We can ask several questions of spiritual interest even as we have contemplated some of the pros and cons of this habit.
- Do you think you could openly watch a porn movie if God sits with you in your living room? (Yes, that God who appeared to Moses from the burning bush saying, “I am who I am.”)
- Is it alright to look at naked bodies at entertainment outlets or watch love-making scenes online?
- Can you watch porn and read the Bible in parallel each day?
What then are your responses to these questions?
The Biblical truth
Jesus taught that a man with lustful eyes has already committed adultery (Matthew 5:28). Watching a porn movie, whether we enjoy it or not, is committing adultery! This is a sin that God condemns, and the one who commits it will receive the wrath of God. One who continues to watch pornography after receiving the Lord is denying the Lord and is inviting judgment upon himself. So, let us beware.
James 3:11 gives us an excellent analogy to apply in our lives about porn: “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?”
Can we read the Bible, believe in God, and watch a porn movie in parallel? No, brothers and sisters, we should not be deceived by the devil. Porn and the Bible do not mix. Neither will the Spirit of God tolerate the pornographic scenes.
Porn poisons our minds, and we must be careful not to participate in anything connected with it. A man or a woman who uses porn as a lifestyle cannot walk with God and does not know God.
In conclusion
Returning to the original question, what should we do about our boyfriend or girlfriend who is addicted to porn? Especially if he or she is open about it and feels no shame about being a regular consumer of porn.
Whether you are a Christian or not, remember that it is very challenging for any addict to be persuaded by love or otherwise to stop the habit.
However, if you are open to the practice of pornography in your relationship, be prepared to experience intense sexual demands from your partner to be. The demands will go higher and higher each time.
And because in pornography, there are no moral values and no fidelity in a relationship. You should expect your relationship to be open to multi-partner orgies to ensure a constant stream of uphill ecstasies. You must also be prepared for your partner to have multiple sexual relationships on his own, with or without you.
You should rethink your relationship with a porn addict if you are in this situation today.
As a Christian, you would know that pornography is against the will of God, and it is a bad mismatch for any Christian to date a known porn addict. No matter what sweet promises are made, the promises of human beings cannot be the moral compass for your life. An unrepentant porn addict is not a Christian and lives in deep sin. Hence, we must reject such relationships as they are living outside the will of God.
If anyone claims to be repentant of porn addiction, he has to go through counseling with the church to gain healing for his soul and mind. It is not going to be a simple confession and the shedding of some tears to prove repentance, but it is a long road to recovery.