Warning: Graphic Content. The worst part of Noah Church's story isn't that he was exposed to pornography at age nine. It's that he didn't stop watching it until he hit his mid-twenties. By then, his life and relationships had been completely consumed by the habit, which most millennials will tell you, is as normal for today's teenagers as acne and homework. But, as Time magazine's cover story warns, far more dangerous. The men who came of age in an era when pornography is only a click away are finally speaking up about how it's destroyed their lives and the women in them. Time tells the heartbreaking tales of three of these survivors, who were so hooked on pornography at a young age that by the time they had girlfriends, they couldn't function sexually without it.
And theirs isn't an isolated story. Young men everywhere are so physically and emotionally broken by this addiction that they're downing pills to be effectively intimate with real people. In 1992, Time points out, 5 percent of men under 40 needed drugs to treat ED. Today, that number is 26 percent -- and even higher in the military. It's no wonder, says former professor and author of Your Brain on Porn. "Porn trains your brain to need everything associated with porn to get aroused. That includes not only the content but also the delivery method. Because porn videos are limitless, free and fast, users can click to a whole new scene or genre as soon as their arousal ebbs and thereby condition their arousal patterns to ongoing, ever changing novelty."
As with most problems, this isn't a victimless one. As Noah Church laments, his body's cravings destroyed his girlfriends and led to the greatest pattern of sexual dysfunction anyone could experience. Like most young men, he couldn't replicate the feeling with women that he had online. "Quitting porn," he now tells men "is one of the most sex-positive things people can do." In a world where 88 percent of pornography is violent, this new drug, as people are calling it, is particularly dangerous for young women, who are being asked to do things and act in ways that abuse and dismay them.
A 2014 Cambridge report explained it this way: "men with compulsive sexual behavior responded to explicit clips in the same way users of drugs respond to drugs; they craved them, even if they didn't like them." But if you think the church is immune from this disease, think again. A recent Barna Group study sent shockwaves through the pews when it reported that 54 percent of churchgoing men confessed to looking at explicit images and videos once a month -- and many, several times a week. That's just 11 points less than the nonbelieving population. Among young men, the trends are even worse. Seventy-nine percent fall into the trap of porn monthly.
Obviously, it's not an easy time to be a virtuous man. And unfortunately, this is a microcosm of a macro problem, which is the acceptability of all kinds of perversion. Is it any wonder that young people are more accepting of same-sex marriage and homosexuality when they themselves are trapped in their own form of sexual immorality? Today's teenagers don't even know what normal sex is -- and there's no one to blame for the country's cultural condition but us. Too few families are drawing a clear line on sexuality of any kind. Premarital sex is through the roof among young Christians. And yet some teenagers say their parents have never brought up the harms of that or pornography. Not once. Yet both are killing more marriages and true intimacy than any other factor combined. Pornography devastates God's vision for human sexuality and debases everyone involved in it.
As discouraging as Time's stories -- and others' -- are, they may be exactly what parents and pastors need to hear. It's time for America to wake up to the fact that too few Christians are talking about the problem of pornography. And until they do, the battle for the family can never be won. Are you or someone you know struggling with porn addiction? Check out these resources offered by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
