Wired for Intimacy

Mon Apr 9 13:21:18 PDT 2012

“*TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES*

*Jim & Marie Watt*

*Tel: 253-517-9195 - Email: jmbetter at gmail.com*

*Web: www.2rbetter.org*

April 9, 2012

 *2012-04-09 - “Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain”*

*by Dr. William M. Struthers, Wheaton College, Illinois*

*(Interviewed by <AlbertMohler.com> January 11, 2010, the Albert Mohler
Program.*

 WE ARE FAST BECOMING THE PORNOGRAPHIC society. Over the course of the last
decade, explicitly sexual images have crept into advertising, marketing,
and virtually every niche of American life. This ambient pornography is now
almost everywhere, from the local shopping mall to prime-time television.

 By some estimations, the production and sale of explicit pornography now
represents *the seventh-largest industry* in America. New videos and
internet pages are produced each week, with the digital revolution bringing
a host of new delivery systems. Every new digital platform becomes a
marketing opportunity for the pornography industry.

 To no one's surprise, the vast majority of those who consume pornography
are males. It is no secret that males are highly stimulated by visual
images, whether still or video. That is not a new development, as ancient
forms of pornography attest. What is new is all about access. Today's men
and boys are not looking at line pictures drawn on cave walls. They have
almost instant access to countless forms of pornography in a myriad of
formats.

 But, even as technology has brought new avenues for the transmission of
pornography, modern knowledge also brings a new understanding of how
pornography works in the male brain. While this research does nothing to
reduce the moral culpability of males who consume pornography, it does help
to explain how the habit becomes so addictive.

 As William M. Struthers of Wheaton college explains, “Men seem to be wired
in such a way that pornography hijacks the proper functioning of their
brains, and has a long-lasting effect on their thoughts and lives.”

 Struthers is a psychologist with a background in neuroscience and a
teaching concentration in the biological bases of human behavior. In *Wired
for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain**, *Struther presents
key insights from neuroscience that go a long way toward explaining why
pornography is such a temptation for the male mind.

 “The simplest explanation for why men view pornography (or solicit
prostitutes) is that they are driven to seek out sexual intimacy,” he
explains. The urge for sexual intimacy is God-given and essential to the
male, he acknowledges, but it is easily misdirected. Men are tempted to
seek “a shortcut to sexual pleasure via pornography” and now find this
shortcut easily accessed.

 In a fallen world, pornography becomes more than a distraction and a
distortion of God's intention for human sexuality. It becomes as an *addictive
poison*.

 Struthers explains: *Viewing pornography is not an emotionally or or
physiologically neutral experience. It is fundamentally different from
looking at black and white photos of the Lincoln Memorial or taking in a
color map of the provinces of Canada. Men are reflexively drawn to the
content of pornographic material. As such, pornography has wide-reaching
effects to energize a man toward intimacy. It is not a neutral stimulus. It
draws us in. Porn is vicious and voyeuristic at its core, but it is also
something more. Porn is a whispered promise. It promises more sex, better
sex, endless sex, sex on demand, more intense orgasms, experiences of
transcendence.*

 Pornography “acts as a poly drug,” Struthers explains. As Dr. Patrick
Carnes asserts, pornography is “a pathological relationship with a
mood-altering experience.” Boredom and curiosity lead many boys and men
into experiences that become more like drug addition than is often admitted.

 Why men rather than women? As Struthers explains, the male and female
brains are wired differently. “A man's brain is a sexual mosaic influenced
by hormone levels in the womb and in puberty, and molded by his
psychological experience.” Over time, exposure to pornography takes a man
or boy deeper along “a one-way neurological superhighway” where a man's
mental life is over-sexualized and narrowed. This superhighway has
countless on-ramps, but very few off-ramps.

 Pornography is “visually magnetic” to the male brain. Struthers presents a
fascinating review of the neurobiology involved, with pleasure hormones
becoming linked to and released by the experience of a male viewing
pornographic images. These experiences with pornography and pleasure
hormones create new patterns in the brain's wiring, and repeated
experiences formalize the rewiring.

 And then, enough is never enough. “If I take the same dose of a drug over
and over my body begins to tolerate it; I will need to take a higher dose
of the drug in order for it to have the same effect that it did with a
lower dose the first time,” Struthers reminds us. So, the experience of
viewing pornography and acting out on it creates a demand in the brain for
more and more, just to achieve the same level of pleasure in the brain.

 While men are stimulated by the ambient sexual images around them,
explicit pornography increases the effect. Struthers compares this to the
difference between traditional television and the new high definition
technologies. Every thing is more clear, more explicit, and more
stimulating.

 Struthers explains this with compelling force: *Something about
pornography pulls and pushes at the male soul. The pull is easy to
identify. The naked female form can be hypnotizing. A woman's willingness
to participate in a sexual act or expose her nakedness is alluring to men.
The awareness of one's own sexuality, the longing to know, to experience
something as good, wells up from deep within. An image begins to pick up
steam the longer we look upon it. It gains momentum and can reach a point
where it feels like a tractor-trailer rolling downhill with no brakes.*

 *Wired for Intimacy* is a timely and important book. Struthers offers keen
and strategic insights from neurobiology and psychology. But what makes
this book truly helpful is the fact that Struthers does not leave his
argument to neuroscience, nor does he use the category of addiction to
mitigate the sinfulness of viewing pornography.

 Sinners naturally look for fig leaves to hide sin, and biological
causation is often cited as a means of avoiding moral responsibility.
Struthers does not allow this, and his view of pornography is both biblical
and theologically grounded. He lays responsibility for the sin of viewing
pornography at the feet of those who willingly consume explicit images. He
knows his audience - after all, his classrooms are filled with young male
college students. The addict is responsible for his addiction.

 At the same time, any understanding of how sin works its deceitful evil is
a help to us, and understanding how pornography works in the male mind is a
powerful knowledge. Pornography is a sin that robs God of his glory in the
gift of sex and sexuality. We have long known that sin takes hostages. We
now know another dimension of how this sin hijacks the male brain.
Knowledge, as they say, is power.

 I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at
*<www.twitter.com/Albert<http://www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler>
**Mohler <http://www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler>**>.*

 I interviewed Dr. Struthers on January 11, 2010 edition of *The Albert
Mohler Program**. Listen **here**.*

 *NOTE**: *A friend of mine from Canada supplied me with a “dish”, by which
I can obtain 40 Christian Channels from “space net”. On Saturday April 7,
2012, I inadvertently turned on to a recent broadcast of Dr. William
Struthers” over “Mastering Life Ministries”, *<MLife at aol.com>*,
*<http://<http://www.purepassion.us/>
PurePassion.us>*, Tel: 615-507-4166.

 I immediately ordered this book by Dr. William Struthers, “Wired for
Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain.” Mothers and wives will
want to make sure that sons, husbands, grandsons, nephews etc., read this
book. It will save many from heartache and great frustration. J.A.Watt

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