The distance makes you lonely.
As a result, we lose connection with real people. We lose intimacy, and the lack of intimacy causes severe loneliness. This is part of what causes the cycle of addiction, because what is the fastest way to get rid of our loneliness?
More porn.
It is a shortcut to intimacy, but it is hollow. We do not get to know the people in these films, we only see one side of them. They are not complete humans to us. Pope John Paul II put it well:
There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.
The cycle is cruel, because it creates feelings of loneliness, then promises to heal them, all the while digging a deeper and deeper hole in which to bury you.
I don’t like women.
After the viral video of me blew up, a number of people asked how I could possibly still be single. Naturally, a number intimated that there must be something wrong with him if he’s still single!
I’ve been telling everyone that I’m very picky. And this is entirely true. I am very selective with the women I choose to pursue and date. But largely, the way I view women as a whole has been impacted by pornography.
No longer am I satisfied with the cute girl next door. No, I need a strong Christian woman … with the body of a Kardashian and the smile of Melanie Laurent. And if she could have the lips of Emily Ratajkowski and the eyebrows of Cara Delevigne, that would be nice too.
Porn has made me not want women, but their pieces and parts.
I want all the ‘benefits’ without the effort of actually getting to know someone. To hear her deepest fears and insecurities, as well as her favorite movies and books. To cook up some inside jokes and share some memories. To get lost together in a big city, or run out of gas somewhere in the badlands.
Without my permission, porn has set the standard of beauty impossibly high, far too high for any real woman to attain. And therefore it has effectively prevented me from having any kind of romantic relationship the past several years.
There are studies proving that porn increases domestic violence, and I think this why. It trains us to not want humans, but body parts. And when these body parts are having a bad day, or aren’t in the mood, or don’t agree with us, violence ensues.
When we don’t see people as humans, it’s easier to treat them as objects … like punching bags.
Isn’t that what Hitler did to the Jews? If you dehumanize someone enough, anything is permissible. And porn is doing the exact same thing to men and women by way of our sexuality. It has dehumanized it and reduced sex, this God-given gift, to body parts on a screen.
For the sake of brevity, I will wrap up here, knowing that I’ve only scratched the surface of what I want to say on this topic.
I end with praise to God, who makes all things new, all things beautiful, all things clean. Even if our addiction seems cyclically hopeless and deathly permanent, He is greater and has overcome.
