I’ll never forget when the guys from XXXchurch came to my alma mater, Malone University in Canton, Ohio. Their visit to my school in October 2005 forced me to evaluate my own life. I was a student at a Christian college trying to figure out God’s plan for my life, yet a huge wall stood between me and God— a porn problem. I desperately needed to get control of my life, and XXXchurch sparked that change.
While I don’t remember all of the details, it was around the age of 7 that I was first exposed to pornography when my babysitter’s 15-year old son showed me his dad’s porn stash. As I look back, I now understand that as a 7-year old boy, my innocence was thrown out the window. Being exposed to “one little porn magazine” opened my life up to a lot of risky situations. Let me explain:
- It caused that 15-year old teenager to lock me in his room with him to look at porn on a weekly basis. My family did not have a clue, and I felt so ashamed that I didn’t tell anyone. This took place for several months.
- After several months, porn didn’t fuel his fire anymore. It soon turned into exposing himself to me, making me touch him, and forcing himself upon me. A full-year of sexual abuse and molestation took place.
His family ended up falling apart due to a divorce, and eventually communication was cut off between our two families. However, that didn’t end my openness to risky situations, and it didn’t end his perverted and dangerous desires either. In fact, he eventually was presented with a risky situation when he got a girl pregnant. I certainly grew apart from him, but I didn’t grow apart from porn. It was a life-long struggle for me, until at the age of 21, I finally told my family about my sexual abuse —15 years after the incident occurred and several months after I was inspired by XXXchurch! It was “one little porn magazine” that caused me to encounter a lot of risky situations in my life, but through counseling and by God’s grace and healing, I became a new man in Him at the age of 23.
The effect of pornography on an individual’s life has been a heated topic of debate for a long time. Based on my personal experience, my opinion is simple- pornography is damaging because it opens your mind to harmful situations, inappropriate lusts and adultery.
In 2009, Dr. Patrick F. Fagan conducted a study called “The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family, & Community.” The study can be found here. In his study, Fagan explains why he believes porn is a major threat to marriage, families, children, and individual happiness. The following are a few highlights from Fagan’s report:
The Family & Pornography
- Married men who are involved in pornography feel less satisfied with their conjugal relations and less emotionally attached to their wives. Wives notice and are upset by the difference.
- Pornography use is a pathway to infidelity and divorce, and is frequently a major factor in these family disasters.
The Individual & Pornography
- Users tend to become desensitized to the type of pornography they use, become bored with it, and then seek more perverse forms of pornography.
- Men who view pornography regularly have a higher tolerance for abnormal sexuality, including rape, sexual aggression, and sexual promiscuity.
- Child sex-offenders are more likely to view pornography regularly or to be involved in its distribution.
Think about your own life and experiences. Has pornography opened up your life to risky situations and/or adultery? Understand that pornography exposes you, your spouse, your children and other family members to many adverse effects. If it hasn’t caught up to you yet, I promise you it will. Don’t be fooled—you might be pornography’s next victim.