Cost of Pornography Addiction

Jonathan Daughtery from BeBroken Ministries and Stephen Cervantes  from Hope Counseling Center speak a simple and frank message: “Don’t Use Porn!” You may already think that avoiding porn is a good idea, but why? This broadcast is a rapid-fire offering of multiple reasons why porn is dangerous and unhealthy. Listen in as Jonathan & Stephen fire off over 20 reasons you should avoid porn.

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1. It is like a Gateway Activity and Porn is step one with any one who is addicted (fetishes, adultery, prostitution, strip clubs, etc.). It starts with porn and has gotten worse. Where did the bad, evil activities (e.g. prostitution, strip clubs, child porn, etc.) start? “Well, I was 9 and found my dad’s stash of porn.” Don’t use porn.
2. Porn is wasting life. Wasting part of your day, time, money, emotional energy, and sexual energy. You’re growing something…a big nothing. We squander time and money. If you think, “I’ve always gotten it free,” ask yourself: “Have you done it at work or thought about the next time while at work?” Don’t use porn.
3. Porn makes you really good at fantasies (create, build, etc). You may have multiple fantasies. Doesn’t help grow great reality. It makes you great at unrealistic fantasies. It helps you escape and daydream. Fantasies is also a building block of sexual addiction. This is not imagination (image how life is like in a marriage, doing things with spouse, etc), which can be healthy, but fantasy is self-focused. Don’t use porn.
4. It won’t make you better: a better man, woman, child, husband, father, worker, citizen, etc. There is nothing that will enhance your life. Don’t use porn.
5. You are not entitled to porn. “I’m lonely; I’ve had a sad life; Things aren’t going my way.” It’s not good for you. It will break you down. Entitlement has been promoted so much in our society. Entitlement says because who I am and my station and what I’ve done, I don’t have to give reasons why (even ministers). Don’t use porn.
   
6. Porn is all about false intimacy. You think you understand women. You think women are being attracted to you. You think you are a sexual superstar. It’s not about true intimacy. It’s fake, false intimacy. There is a component of false intimacy that seems legitimate. Our sexuality helps us feel things in a geniune, deep, way. When you are engaged in sex, everything feels real, powerful and legitimate. Immoral pornography doesn’t improve intimacy. Don’t use porn.
7. It creates very unrealistic supersized sexual expectations. We live in a real world with real women/wives with a real God. They are falsehoods. There is no truth. It won’t tell you what healthy sexuality is about. It won’t show you anyone with bad breath, losing an erection, etc. Won’t show you real sexual relationships. Don’t use porn.
8. Porn is not a solution to loneliness, embarrassment, sadness, stress, grief, or loss or any other emotional problem. It is a temporary band aid. Don’t use p as a cheap solution to a real emotion problem. We all will experience these real emotional problems. Porn became our escape and depend on porn to provide a real relief. At best it is only temporary. It will not improve your station in life. (It may make it worse!) Don’t use porn.
9. Porn is excitement without a cost. There is a cost. It impacts your ability to engage spouse, children. It can come in many different ways. It can be emotional, time-wasting (even seeking it out), relational, financial, and spiritual. We sow seeds of unrighteousness. Count the cost. Don’t use porn.
10. Porn is bad sexual training. If you want to learn about sexuality, great! Find a good Christian author about this (like Ed Wheat). However, porn is bad for male/female sexuality. Unfortunately, many of us learned about our sexuality through porn. Everything that porn will tell you is pointing you to the wrong direction. It is not pointing you to healthy, intimate, selfless relationships. Don’t use porn.
11. Average men, men who struggle, below-average looking men, men with low intellect, etc, find this as a way to relate to females. It instead leads to more shame. Using porn to find confidence to approach a female will fail. It doesn’t provide any confidence with a real female thus producing more shame. It provides no legitimate conversation, dialogue, relationship, etc. Don’t use porn.
12. Porn robs you. It takes from you. It robs you of life. It is not some great gift. It does not enhance your life. Every time you engage it steals from you and your life. You become less human, less of a man, etc. It does not enhance your relationships. It pulls a part of you away every time. It pulls you apart from the seams. Don’t use porn.
13. Porn will clutter your mind with all kinds of stuff you don’t need. The images will not set you free. They burn in your brain. They create a battle inside you that you don’t need. They come up when you don’t want them. Can you remember that first image? These are not images/messages that we need burned into our brain. They are traumatizing. They don’t teach us anything about purity, life or goodness. Don’t use porn.
14. Porn will worp your view of women. It is not going to give you a healthy view, a reasonable view. It won’t help you understand them. These women and their sexual positions are not realistic. You will begin to think that every women is like a pornstar and will enjoy these positions, etc. It is false. Some of these women pull muscles to do the film. Don’t use porn.
15. Porn will make you a divided man. You have to keep your secrets somewhere. It invites you to be an image builder, to tuck this part away into a closet. It’s your part, your secret. Thus you must present yourself one way, something you are not, to the world. Don’t use porn.
16. Porn is bad training for manhood or leadership or dying to self. It is great at teaching you to be bad at manhood. The reason is what porn trains you to use, to take, to not focus on the interest of your spouse/relationships but on your own urge. That’s not good manhood. Good training is about good boundaries, bigger-than-me objectives, delayed gratification, and restraint. If you want great sexual education in a marriage read Song of Solomon. Porn won’t teach this. Don’t use porn.
17. Porn says, “Run away from God. I’ll take good care of you. I’ll give you happiness.” Porn is in direct opposition to good and what God says. If you want great sexual education in a marriage read Song of Solomon. See what real romantic sexual love is. Don’t use porn.
18. Porn is not about purity. It’s the opposite. You were made for purity. Porn says, “You were made for pleasure and sexual pleasure. You could be a sexual hog.” Porn opposes God at every single turn. Porn keeps pointing you inward to yourself, your desires, your feelings, etc. It says, “Do whatever you have to do” that has something to do with your sexuality. It promotes, “Look at yourself. Look at yourself.” Not true. We need to look to God as our provider and defender. Don’t use porn.
19. Porn will help build a pile/mountain of shame within you. Want to feel embarrassed? Want something to hide? Want to feel shameful? Want to feel less of a man? Look at porn! Porn promotes this level of shame by making men feel completely inadequate by creating an impossible sexual standard resulting in feelings of shame, not measuring up, value-less. Don’t use porn.
20. Porn is so good, it will destroy you and will help you destroy your wife. Put it in her face, break down her self esteem. Compare her to those images. Tell her she is not good enough. It will destroy you, your wife, your marriage, and all that is important to you. It does this through objectifying women, even men. They are nothing more than objects of sexual pleasure. It promotes violence. If I see a person as an object, they are no more valuable than a coke can. I can step on a coke can right? Why not another human being? Don’t use porn.
21. Porn is sin. Sin means apart from God. Won’t you leave your God? I can make you satisfied. I can sustain you. I can fill you up. Porn is a false god. Porn is sin. Romans 3:23 says that the wages of sin is death.  If you keep paying into the bank of porn, there is a slow death of self. Thus porn produces death in you emotionally, spiritually and even physically. Don’t use porn.

Do not use porn. Don’t use porn. It will make you a weak man. Don’t use porn. It helps you waste your life, destroy your confidence, and destroy you. It is dangerous. It won’t leave any satisfaction. We are scared for you and what it can take from you. Don’t use porn.

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