Harmful Effects of Porn 📵

The internet is a two-edged sword, bringing revolutionized communication, knowledge, time-saving, and entertainment while fueling some of our primal desires and emotions. However, it has also led many millennials to become overly dependent on it to fulfill these emotions, and among these desires, the desire for synthetic sex is the most lucrative and abused.

Unfortunately, internet pornography is king of the internet, and one of its most detrimental effects is its crippling effects on men and women. As an addiction recovery professional, I work with men who are addicted to porn and spend triple the amount of time I spent addicted to porn in helping them recover. Many children are exposed to porn by the age of 11, and the long-term effects are not worth the short-term thrill.

The following are a few ways in which pornography erodes our humanity and hurts our bodies and minds:

Porn promotes self-gratification, which leads to a lack of ability to delay gratification and underachieving in other areas of life.

Porn can destroy our values and encourage us to seek sex without boundaries, leading to unhealthy relationships and lowered standards sexually. Additionally, it creates unrealistic expectations of what real sex is like.

Porn can cause erectile dysfunction in men, where it can condition performance anxiety and lead to hardcore pornography as the only means of inducing an erection.

Porn promotes social isolation and shame, making it difficult to share true intimacy with others and inhibiting growth and maturity as a person.

To combat these detrimental effects, individuals can work on developing delayed gratification, feed their minds with respectful and healthy material, refrain from porn consumption, and seek help to overcome addiction and shame.