My thirteen-year-old daughter and I were chatting last night. She asked me if I knew that the same part of the brain that can be addicted to cocaine is the same part of the brain addicted to pornography. She then went onto tell me a few more facts about porn.

‘Where are you getting these facts Bella’?

‘Oh youth group, Joel did a talk on it’

I APPLAUD a youth group that addresses and educates our young people on the facts and effects of pornography.

I LOVE when I hear of our young people (male AND female) find a safe place and admit they have a problem – finding a place of support, accountability and grace with our youth staff and volunteers.

As many of my readers here are not in our youth group I thought I would share some facts that you might not be aware of.

As you know from my post yesterday I am committed to ‘fasting from indifference’ for Lent.

Indifference: lack of interest, concern, or sympathy.

Indifference is also inconsequentiality. Pornography is far from inconsequential.

Read on…

90 percent of all porn comes from the Internet, Tech blog Gizmodo puts the number of porn sites at 24.6 million, which is roughly 12 percent of total web sites. The University of Montreal study reports that boys start searching for pornography by age 10.

A University of New Hampshire survey of kids ages 10-17 found that 42% said they had viewed online porn in the past 12 months, and 66% of those said that they didn’t go searching for it in the first place. We are living in a digital age where the most hardcore porn imaginable is available for streaming 24/7/365 on a device that fits into our pocket. So even if parents have the most advanced filters in place, today’s teens will still have no problem accessing it if they want to.

How parents address this issue with their kids is based entirely on their parenting style. Parents should be teaching their children one important and fundamental lesson: porn is not sex. Pornography is a hollow counterfeit that resembles an outward appearance of sex but is the furthest thing from real intimate relationships.Nothing will diminish its presence in our technological world, but with an open dialogue and a scientifically backed perspective, parents of the Playboy generation can help their kids of the PornHub generation navigate the online minefield they walk through daily.

PORN CHANGES THE BRAIN

Just like drugs and other addictive substances, porn floods the brain with chemicals, like dopamine. Over time, the brain gets overwhelmed by the constant overload of chemicals and starts to build up a dependency to pornography. As a result, the porn they were looking at in the beginning doesn’t seem as exciting, and many porn users go hunting for more porn or more hardcore porn to get the same rush. Eventually, the chemical release from regular healthy activities aren’t strong enough to register. This leaves the user feeling down or uneasy whenever they go for a while without watching porn.

PORN ADDICTION GETS WORSE & WORSE

The brain releases chemicals when it sees something shocking or surprising. That’s why frequent porn users often find themselves looking for more hardcore material. Also, because they’ve built up such a high tolerance to the porn they’ve been watching, many have to combine sexual arousal with the feelings of aggression.

PORN IS ADDICTIVE, LIKE A DRUG

Inside the human brain, there’s something called the “reward pathway.” Its job is to reward you when you do something that feels good by releasing pleasure chemicals. The problem is, the reward pathway can be hijacked. The way that substances like cocaine and meth make users feel high is by forcing the reward pathway to release high levels of chemicals, porn does the exact same thing. The surge of chemicals pulsing through the brain creates new brain pathways that will lead the porn user back to the behavior that triggers the chemical release. The more the user watches porn, the deeper those pathways are wired into the brain.

PORN KILLS LOVE

In real life, real love requires a real person. Research has found that after men are exposed to pornography, they rate themselves as less in love with their partner than men who didn’t see any porn. On top of that, another study found that after being exposed to pornographic images, people were more critical of their partner’s appearance, sexual curiosity, sexual performance, and displays of affection.

PORN IS INSEPARABLY LINKED TO PROSTITUTION & SEX TRAFFICKING

Men who look at porn have been shown to be more likely to go to prostitutes, often looking for a chance to live out what they’ve seen in porn. In one survey of former prostitutes, 80% said that customers had shown them images of porn to illustrate what they wanted to do. Porn is also linked to the global issue of sex trafficking. Porn is commonly made of victims of sex trafficking and put online or sold to distributors. These sex slaves are drugged, beaten, and forced into doing porn. For porn users at home, there is no way to know the dark origins of the porn they’re watching. Clicking porn is directly supporting the demand for sex trafficking.

10 PORN INDUSTRY STATS THAT NEED TO CHANGE:

★(1) Porn sites receive more regular traffic than Netflix, Amazon, & Twitter combined. (HuffPost)

★(2) 35% of all internet downloads are porn-related. (WebRoot)

★(3) 34% of internet users have been exposed to unwanted porn via ads, pop-ups, etc. (WebRoot)

★(4) Porn increased marital infidelity by 300%. (WebRoot)

★(5) 30% of all data transferred across the internet is porn-related. (HuffPost)

★(6) The most common female role in porn is women in their 20’s portraying teenagers. (Jon Millward. In 2013, Millward conducted the largest personal research study on the Porn Industry in the U.S. He interviewed 10,000 porn stars about various aspects of the business.)

★(7) Child porn is one of the fastest growing online businesses. (IWF)

★(8) 624,000 child porn traders have been discovered online in the U.S. (Innocent Justice)

★(9) Approximately 55% of teen girls living on the streets have engaged in prostitution. (Enough.org)

★(10) Child porn is a $3 billion industry. (TopTenReviews)

I hope this helps and offers a way to meaningful conversation with your children, teens, young adults, and others…be that person to bring up the conversation and help.

Let us take these facts and wrap them in the light – believing the promise that He came to give us abundant LIFE. I fully believe in the freedom that Christ offers to us ALL. No line crossed is too far. There is way back. I have seen many on this road find a place of healing and wholeness, of minds renewed, marriages restored and importantly a place of self-forgiveness.

Thanks for reading,

Love, Michelle

ALL facts and information were taken from fightthenewdrug.org an invaluable place for resources, blogs, honest stories and support.

Further posts:

An honest guest post on ‘a blog about marriage’

http://www.athingcalledloveblog.com/blog/5-ways-to-support-your-marriage-while-overcoming-a-pornography-addiction/overcoming-a-pornography-addiction/

Posts from young guys who are honest about their addiction

http://moralrevolution.com/8-things-i-would-tell-someone-who-is-struggling-with-porn/

http://moralrevolution.com/pornography-and-addiction/