Is Porn the New Smoking? — “Smoking was once cool and widespread, but now it’s in disfavor”

Here’s an insightful article suggesting we should treat porn like we treat smoking: it’s not healthy or cool! Good plan, don’t you think?

[By Sheila Wray Gregoire] — Let’s talk about the slippery slope of our culture.

Plane rides as a young child were always filled with trepidation for me. It wasn’t crashing that I was afraid of. It was being assigned the first row in the “no smoking” section–meaning that the row right in front of you was lighting up. In the 1970s half the population smoked.

A few decades earlier King George VI was even told to smoke for his health. It would keep him less stressed, and would help his stuttering problem. Unfortunately, he died in his fifties of complications from smoking.

It wasn’t too long ago, then, that smoking was considered harmless, and even kings did it. It was cool, it was fun, and it helped you relax! Today if you smoke you’re a pariah. Don’t you care about your health?

Smoking was once cool and widespread, but now it’s in disfavour. I wonder if porn will follow the same trajectory, because it has all the same ingredients. People think it’s cool. It’s a way to relax! It’s harmless.

And yet, drip by drip, little by little, researchers are starting to realize how destructive it can actually be, both to relationships and to the person using porn him or herself. Porn rewires the brain so that what becomes arousing isn’t a person; it’s an image. And pretty soon arousal requires that stimulus. Being with a live human being isn’t enough anymore.

In fact, sex and relationship counselor Ian Kerner reports on a new term for this–Sexual Attention Deficit Disorder, or SADD. Consume enough porn, and not only do you find making love with a person boring; often men aren’t even able to function without the external stimulus.

Pornography actually works in the brain very similarly to the way cocaine does–except that it’s more addictive. Using porn releases the naturally occurring “pleasure” hormones dopamine, norepinephrine, oxytocin and serotonin in high levels. The dopamine spike in the brain from porn lasts even longer than regular sex–even longer than cocaine. So you go from craving a real relationship to craving porn, at an even greater intensity than drug users crave drugs.

And unlike other drugs, which do leave the system, those images are imprinted there. Once you see something, it’s hard to get it out. Even if you want to just be romantic and concentrate on your spouse, these pictures flood back.

Those pictures give a dangerous message, too: sex is only about the physical, and never about an emotional connection. I worry that people are losing the ability to make love, and all they’re doing is having sex, with porn videos running through their heads the entire time. That’s not loving someone; that’s using someone.

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AT THE LINK BELOW: (And please don’t forget to like, comment and share to spread the word and support the cause. Thanks! )

http://tolovehonorandvacuum.com/2013/08/porn-smoking/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please support the cause by following us here at this blog, liking us at Facebook, subscribing to our YouTube channels, and following our Twitter accounts. Thanks! ~~

FACEBOOK: AntiPornography.org – Nonreligious, Pro Free Speech, Pro Healthy Sex & Love ~~ http://www.facebook.com/ENDSexploitation ~~

YOUTUBE CHANNELS: AntiPornographyBlog ~~ AntiPornographyOrg ~~ SayNOtoProstitution ~~ ENDSexTrafficDEMAND ~~ PornAddictionHelp ~~ SayNOtoSadomasochism ~~

TWITTER ACCOUNTS: @AntiPornography ~~ @ENDSexTraffic ~~ @ENDProstitution ~~ @NoSadomasochism ~~ @PornAddictHelp1 ~~ @HealthySexNLove ~~

Post created by AntiPornography.org Nonprofit Organization ~ Preventing and combating the devastating harms of pornography, prostitution, sex trafficking and sexual slavery, while supporting safe, healthy, equality-based sex, love, and relationships ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTE: To comment on this post please do not click on the "Add a comment" link above. Instead, if you're viewing this post on the main blog page, please click on the "# comments" link further down and to the right, next to the time of this post. Or, if you're viewing this post on its own page, please click on "Post a comment" below the tags of this post. Also, apologies for if there are any unclickable URLs in this post. They will be fixed as time allows. In the meantime, please feel free to just copy any unformatted link and then past it into a browser address bar and then hit ENTER, in order to get to the desired page. Thanks!

NOTE: There is no more of this post at the "Read more" link below. (If anyone knows how we can make sure that that link doesn't show up in any future posts, please let us know. Thanks!) Sorry about any confusion or inconvenience, and thank you for your patience and understanding while we work on resolving this technical issue and any others at this blog that need addressing.