BEWARE! TOXIC MATERIAL!

I decided to blog about pornography because I heard a pastor last week on the radio speaking about it.  My attention was caught when he described the five stages of pornography addiction. Because of the prevalence of this ugly habit all over the world and the heartbreaking results of porn addiction, I am going to give some info on it.

• What is pornography?

It is art, writings, cartoons, TV shows and movies or any other media that contains visual and/or pictures of sexual acts or of the naked body. These things are created to incite sexual arousal and some sort of action by the viewer. There are two main types of porn: hardcore and soft core porn, with various sub-genres. Searching for pornography is one of the most requested hits on the Internet.

There was a time that people thought that only men watch pornography, but studies has shown that women too look at porn. Even children are not immune to this invasion, and may have inadvertently come across it on cable or may have been deliberately exposed to it by  their peers or an adult. Whether child or adult, repeated viewing may eventually lead to addiction.

What are the stages of pornography addiction?

1. Early Exposure. It has been said by experts that if you get a child's mind before the age of 8, then you have the child for life. If boys and girls are exposed to porn at an early age, Satan would open a gateway into child's life.
2. Addiction. Just as someone can become addicted to drugs and alcohol by repeated use, so when someone continues to watch porn they become addicted to it.
3. Escalation. As the person gets used to watching the pornographic material, they get bored and start looking for more graphic sites.
4. Desensitisation.  Eventually the person gets so accustomed to even the most graphic, ugly and disgusting of porn material that porn once thought totally sickening and offensive now has no effect whatsoever on them. That person now need more drastic material to arouse them.
5. Acting out. This is the most dangerous part of the stages. Whatever type of porn that the person has been watching and thinking about is then acted out, to the detriment of the person. 

The pastor told the scary tale of a young woman who came to see him. She was terrified because she said that a guy in her area told her that he had been thinking about her and would come and rape her. Pornography tells demeaning falsehood about its victims to the addict, and this will be part of what I will be blogging about tomorrow, God willing.

"I will not set before  my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me."Psalm 101: 3 (ES V)