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.

• $13.3 billion in the United States; $97 billion worldwide (Internet Filter Review).
• U.S. adult DVD/video rentals in 2005: almost 1 billion (Adult Video News).
• Hotel viewership for adult films: 55% (cbsnews.com).
• Unique worldwide users visiting adult web sites monthly: 72 million (Internet Filter Review).
• Number of hardcore pornography titles released in 2005 (U.S.): 13,588 (Internet Filter Review).
• Every second- $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography
  Every second – 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography
  Every second – 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines
  Every 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is being created in the United States
• “The pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink.”
• Video Sales & Rentals and Magazine Sales decreased from 2005 to 2006 ($0.71 billion)
• Internet porn was a $2.84 billion industry  (2006)
• Cable / PPV / In-Room / Mobile / Phone Sex was a $2.19 billion industry  (2006)
• Exotic Dance Clubs remains a $2 billion industry  (2006)

This is a lot of money. Now, beyond the money spent, consider the money lost by pursuing such endeavors. There was one such report (and here) of a senior executive at NSF (National Science Foundation ) who spent 20% of his work over two years on pornographic endeavors costing the company $58,000 for his time alone (plus loss of productivity and potential revunue it would have produced either in cost savings or process improvement or ideas). This has potentially costed American companies $85 billion (See other stats here). While there are many free internet porn sites, over time, this does not satisfy.

I once had a friend who was an avid smoker, and he always complained about not having any money. So one day I told him, “Dude, if you’d stop smoking, you’d have so much more money.” Does this not apply to sex addicts? Does this not apply to porn addicts? See a smoker can smoke and if he throws out the pack after one cigarette he’s out at most $5. However, when a porn addict purchases a magazine or a DVD/video etc, the cost is much higher (except maybe with magazines).

Do you know how much you have spent on your porn? Do you want to encourage the porn industry? Do you want to place $5 more in Hugh Hefner’s pocket (or anyone else for that matter)? Could that money go to a better use with you or your family or your neighbor? I know I don’t. So commit with me not to use your money in this manner, even if we slip, we won’t be slipping with our wallets. Let’s commit to use our money elsewhere.

So how is the time lost? Well, as I said last time, Dr. Carnes in The Shadows of the Net, mentions that addicts enter a online trance where hours can pass by without notice. So what feels like 10-15 minutes was actually 3-4 hours. Medically, addicts are filled with adrenalin and dopamine and serotonin so much so that we don’t notice the passage of time. So for an addict, they can easily spend entire days looking at pornography without realizing where the day went.

Besides the amount of time that looking at pornography takes, I could not find the amount of time spent to cover up “the crime.” Think about it. How much time is lost covering your tracks? How much time is lost trying to see if anyone knows about your pornography usage? How much time is lost (and this one is the killer for me) fixing a virus that we got from looking at pornography?

I know in my life, I have spent countless hours re-formating my PC so that it will act normal again (and it never does). I have spent countless hours trying to remove spyware, adware, etc. so that my wife simply won’t know…really, to no avail. She just doesn’t understand why it takes me so long to do this or that. As far as she is concerned, I should not only have task A done, but task B, C, and D done as well. There have been times in my life where my wife went somewhere (an errand or work or something) and she gave me a list of “Honey-Please-Do’s” which I agreed that I would do (and we all have the freedom not to agree). Since I agreed, she rightfully expected me to have it all done. However, I cannot tell you how many times she came home and I had only accomplished one item on the list, if any. Simply because I lost track of time due to looking at pornography, then spending time to cover it up, then thinking of a lie to tell her why I couldn’t get it all done (which I couldn’t keep track and was often found out though she gave me chance after chance to tell the truth and to be trusted with my time, etc.).

And finally, how much time is spent worrying about whether you will be caught? How much time is spent manipulating people so that you can determine how much they know or don’t know about you in regards to your pornography problem? This is one area that I don’t spend so much time on if I can help it because I get so exasperated, frustrated, and desperate. I have come to a point where I choose not to think about other people, just another manifestation of my utter selfishness.

So how much time are you losing each day, each week or each month looking at pornography? How much time are you losing covering up your sin? Think about all the things you can do with that time. What else could you be doing?

We all know that men have a tendency to become sleepy after sexual intercourse; however, studies show that this is not the case with pornography or masturbation.

Prolactin…explains why men are sleepier after intercourse than after masturbation. For unknown reasons, intercourse orgasms release four times more prolactin than masturbatory orgasms, according to a recent study (Source).

So the idea that “if I masturbate, it will help me fall asleep” is actually a misnomer and a myth. Instead, many times the person is woken up even more, which can be quite dangerous. Studies have recently shown that it is worse to have a lack of sleep than to drink alcohol.

After 17-19 hours without sleep, corresponding to 10:30 pm and 1:00 am after waking at 6 am, performance on some tests was equivalent or worse than that at a BAC [Blood Alcohol Content] of 0.05%. Response speeds were up to 50% slower for some tests and accuracy measures were significantly poorer than at this level of alcohol…After longer periods without sleep, performance reached levels equivalent to the maximum alcohol dose given to subjects (BAC of 0.1%).  (Source). 

In In the Shadows of the Net: Breaking Free of Compulsive Online Sexual Behavior, Patrick Carnes begins the book with addicts’ stories of how they forsaked sleep to engage in online sexual behavior. Later, he says, “there is a quality of desparation that interferes with work, relaxation, and even sleep” (49). In the same book, Dr. Carnes speaks about how someone can enter an online trance-like state similar to those who enter a gaming trance, playing games hours on end thinking that only minutes have passed (4, 13, 18, 48-50, 105). If someone engages in pornography in the late night, then this surely costs someone sleep!

Then addicts enter this cycle, trigger leads to pornography which leads to less sleep which leads to being tired, which is often translated into a trigger, which then leads to more pornography, and so on. For most porn addicts, boredom, stress, and fatigue (tiredness) are triggers for their addiction.

Beyond all this, your spouse (let’s assume a wife for argument sake) also loses sleep. She lies awake thinking about what’s happened, why it’s happened, what she could have done differently, why she isn’t enough, etc. etc. Beyond her mind racing as she lies in bed next to you (or maybe in another room or altogether another place), she has dreams, bad dreams. They usually consist of the porn addict husband cheating on her in front of her with women she knows and women she doesn’t know, both unknown women, prostitutes, or even women you have mentioned that she hasn’t met. Arterburn, Stoeker, and Yorkey talk about this in Every Heart Restored. This is not some strange phenomenon. Instead it is God working and not allowing you to get away with it. This is a blessing in disguise. God wants to draw us near to him, even if that means that we must lose everything; he is after all the giver of everything good. But more on this later.

Are you tired of losing sleep? Then let this be an additional motivation for you and your recovery. I know it helps motivate me (because I LOVE SLEEP!). Let’s don’t allow pornography steal sleep from us anymore!

I know that in my marriage our intimacy has declined dramatically because of my use of pornography.  But let me just speak in generalities. I have heard men say that their wives look at them in disgust, can’t even have the thought of sex with them, sex has become more of a duty than a joy or an experience, and they feel dirty after having sex. All these are common experiences. I read in one book, Every Heart Restored, that women would have these horrible, graphic dreams of their husbands cheating on them. These often are the result of the man practicing pornography that day, and if she is having these dreams, whether caused by her unconsciousness or God, no wonder there is a loss of fellowship with our spouses.

Besides the sexual aspect, a man loses fellowship with his wife because he also begins to retract and retreat. Instead of giving himself, he now becomes more introverted, more selfish, and more self-focused. He begins a journey towards isolating himself from his spouse. Filled with shame, guilt, and anger, the man blames himself (and maybe even his spouse if he does not guard himself). I know I have. For some, pornography is just a physical issue (and at some degree it is for all men) while for others its an emotional or psychological issue which he has kept (or is keeping) to himself. With other men, they may find “release” through alcohol, drugs, or even becoming workaholics or fanatics about something else. Regardless, these tendencies, especially those who struggle with pornography, brings a current that pulls us away from our spouses.

Just as we talked about yesterday, the Bible says one cannot serve two masters; I will either love one and hate the other (Mt 6:24; Lk 16:13). Same goes with the spouse and pornography; I will either love one and hate the other. Not only this, but is using pornography keeping the marriage bed undefiled? Hebrews 13:4 says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” Not only this, but worse is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Mt 5:27-28). How many of us have looked at those magazines or online sites with lust in our hearts!

So the first two costs and consequences of pornography are: (1) a loss of fellowship with God and (2) a loss of fellowship with our spouse. While both of these are very serious costs and consequences, God can and does restore. He wants us to be in right relationship with Him. He wants us to be in right, peaceful relationships with others. It takes less than a minute to have your relationship with God restored. While it takes longer with your spouse, God will help and guide us along. But the question is: do we believe it? Do we believe that God will restore us with Him? Do we believe that He will help us renew and restore our relationship with our spouse? I know I find it incredibily hard to believe it. Do you?

I remember several years back when I was a vibrant new believer with a struggle with pornography. I felt like there was a glass ceiling between God and me, and I felt I was banging my head against it trying to prove to God that I could have both Him and my sin issue. I felt this disconnect, even though I often returned in sorrow and guilt though I am not sure if I have ever repended with godly sorrow. Yet, the Bible clearly states that we cannot serve two masters (Mt 6:24; Lk 16:13). Note that it says, “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to one, and despise the other.” At any point that I choose my pornography over God, I am holding to pornography while despising God (and vice versa). I never thought that I would despise God though. But as Piper has pointed out in Desiring God that when we sin, it is becase we lack faith in God. And without faith, it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6).

To push this point further, we simply just need to turn to 1 John 1. 1 Jn 1:6 says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” When we practice pornography, we are walking in the darkness. Think about it. Not many Christians walk around touting that they look at pornography. Not many Christians will pull out a Playboy or something else at church or invite their church friends over to look at porn. While there may be some, they are few and far between, and some would doubt that they are even Christian. Usually most Christians inherently know that this stuff is bad, evil and has no place in the Christian life. Most of us feel shame and guilt simply because we are Christians who are partaking in something despicable. Yet, what we do in secret will one day be shouted from rooftops for there is nothing secret from God (Mk 4:22; Lk 8:17; 12:2-3; Eph 5:11-13). Jesus will reveal our hypocrisy one way or another. For a long time, I read these verses and said, “That’s impossible. God won’t do that to stain His church.” But now, I am not so sure. He doesn’t need my help in protecting His reputation. Instead, I believe I am and my relationship with Him are of greater concern than the reputation of my local church. So I can either cooperate with Him, or I can push against Him, and I will force His hand in discipline (Heb 12:6; Mt 21:44). So when I engage in or practice pornography, I am walking in darkness. However, notice what the text says, “yet walk in the darkness.” “Walk” means to consistently and habitually live. John is talking about the person who says that they are a Christian yet are hiding their sin, living in secret, living a double life in hypocrisy. The text is not necessarily talking about someone who openly shares about his/her struggle because they are walking in the light looking at their sin and calling it sin. However, a person walking in darkness does not recognize their sin in the same way that God does; they are not in agreement with God.

I know for a while I lived in this way hiding my sin and my shame appearing to have it all together and even lying to people that I ever viewed pornography. Once I was in a dorm room with a bunch of friends as a new Christian taking a lot of heat from my friends (both guys and girls) about being a Christian. Somehow the conversation turned sexual since everyone in the room (except me) had been sexually active. Then they asked how I dealt with my sex drive accusing me of masturbation and looking at pornography. I responded with the patent answer that Christians do not partake in such exercises and that God has enabled me to remain pure to date and that I had not viewed pornography. They surprisingly accepted my argument though they mocked me and God. But this was a straight lie because I thought it was not permissible for me to be open and honest about my pornography issue with non-Christians. Realizing that it worked to be super-spiritual, I then began lying to everyone about it living a dual life. However, I really did not have fellowship with God. 1 John 1:6 is clearer than we would like it to be, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” I said that I was a Christian yet I clearly walked in darkness, lying and not practicing the truth. However, now, I believe I am walking in the light. My sin has been exposed though not voluntarily at first. I attend Celebrate Recovery, and I am attempting to walk in integrity though this is quite difficult since I have gotten so good at doing the opposite.

So the first cost is the gravest cost and should go without saying. Simply, we lose fellowship with God. While some of us have never had any fellowship with God, this cost is of no great concern. However, almost all 12-step recovery groups force a person to recognize that there is a higher power by the second step (except The 12 Step Journal by Claudette Wassil-Grimm, M.Ed. who is writing from an obvious secular viewpoint). While I do believe that non-Christians can recover from their addiction to a degree, they will always have a harder struggle than Christians who can walk not only in recovery but in victory. But relax, I will be talking about some costs that all people would agree and some costs that are quite controversial in nature, after all I do have 50+.

While with Jesus there is cost associated with being a Christian, to become a Christian it is completely free (Rom 6:23) and open to whomever chooses Him (Jn 1:12). Please do not get me wrong here, the gospel is gracious, abundant, and free! Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (Jn 8:32) and “if therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed” (8:36). And when someone becomes a Christian they are set free from their bondage to sin (Rom 6:5-7, 18; 8:2). The New Testament is clear that with Jesus there is liberty (2 Cor 3:17; Gal 5:1). Yet while all things are lawful for me, not all things are profitable nor shall I allow them to master me, as sin does (1 Cor 6:12). It is completely faulty and wrong to believe that Jesus has set you free, period. Free to do whatever I want, whenever I want. No. He has indeed set us free. However, he has set you free from sin to freedom in Christ. The freedom to choose that which is right, good, and beneficial. Previously, we were dead in our sins and trespasses (Eph 2:1). But now, in Christ, we are alive and able to choose good and righteousness. We are now capable to choose to be bondservants to Christ (Rom 6:18), not to feed our own selfish appetites. Yet, this is a process of putting to death the deeds of the body (Rom 8:13), those things that may be previously habitual or learned that must be unlearned and stopped. We are to carry our crosses (Lk 14:27), and this is a painful experience! Sometimes too painful for my tastes. We are free but we are to watch our freedom so that we may not become slaves to sin again. Our freedom in Christ has its limitations, and just because it has its limitations, it does not cease to be freedom. Take the United States for example. We are a free country; however, there is a fine line between your freedom and mine; between where your freedom ends and mine begins. So even in the U.S., which is recognized as a free country has its limitations. Likewise Christian freedom has its limitations, and your freedom stops where the weaker brother’s freedom or even stumbling begins (1 Cor 8:9; 9:19; 1 Pe 2:16).

So now with pornography there are costs, yet there are also “rewards” with pornography (otherwise why would it be so enticing?). However, these rewards are without the deep rewards that Christianity offers and are competing and antithetical (or completely opposing) to the rewards with Jesus Christ. So we will look at these gains and rewards in light of their cost(s). So please join me as we will look at the cost of pornography over the next month. As it currently stands I have over 50 costs, which I am trying to get down to 50.

Pornography distorts reality. Men who battle with pornography are not engaged in a world of reality. Almost all pornographic material is brushed or doctored and staged. It has nothing to do with love and everything to do with lust (and primarily the lust of the man, not the woman), which grieves the heart of God. Furthermore, the images and videos often lead men to believe that the woman is always “this beautiful, even in the morning;