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<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER">“<b>TWO
ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES</b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>Jim
& Marie Watt</b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>Tel:
<a href="tel:253-517-9195" target="_blank">253-517-9195</a> - Email:
<a href="mailto:jmbetter@gmail.com" target="_blank">jmbetter@gmail.com</a></b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>Web:
<a href="http://www.2rbetter.org/" target="_blank">www.2rbetter.org</a></b></p><p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER">April 9, 2012</p><p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER">
<br></p>
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<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>2012-04-09
- “Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain”</b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>by
Dr. William M. Struthers, Wheaton College, Illinois</b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><b>(Interviewed
by <AlbertMohler.com> January 11, 2010, the Albert Mohler
Program.</b></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="CENTER"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
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.</p>
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<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
By some estimations, the production and sale of explicit pornography
now represents <u>the seventh-largest industry</u><span style="text-decoration:none">
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.</span></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">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.</span></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">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.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">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.”</span></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">Struthers is a psychologist with
a background in neuroscience and a teaching concentration in the
biological bases of human behavior. In </span><i><u><b>Wired for
Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain</b></u></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none"><b>,
</b></span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">Struther
presents key insights from neuroscience that go a long way toward
explaining why pornography is such a temptation for the male mind.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">“<span style="font-style:normal">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.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
<span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">In
a fallen world, pornography becomes more than a distraction and a
distortion of God's intention for human sexuality. It becomes as an
</span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><u>addictive poison</u></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">.</span></span></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in" align="LEFT">
<span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">Struthers
explains: </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration:none"><b>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.</b></span></i></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">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.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">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.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">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.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">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.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">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.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">Struthers explains this with
compelling force: </span><i><span style="text-decoration:none"><b>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.</b></span></i></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<u><i><b>Wired for Intimacy</b></i></u><span style="text-decoration:none">
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.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">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.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">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.</span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">I am always glad to hear from
readers. Write me at </span><span style="text-decoration:none"><b><<a href="http://www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler">www.twitter.com/Albert</a></b></span><u><a href="http://www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler"><b>Mohler</b></a></u><span style="text-decoration:none"><b>>.</b></span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none">I interviewed Dr. Struthers on
January 11, 2010 edition of </span><u><i>The Albert Mohler Program</i></u><i><span style="text-decoration:none">.
Listen </span></i><u><i>here</i></u><i><span style="text-decoration:none">.</span></i></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<u><b>NOTE</b></u><span style="text-decoration:none"><b>: </b></span><span style="text-decoration:none"><span style>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”,
</span></span><b><span style="text-decoration:none"><<a href="mailto:MLife@aol.com">MLife@aol.com</a>></span></b><span style="text-decoration:none"><span style>,
</span></span><b><span style="text-decoration:none"><<a href="http://www.purepassion.us/">http://</a>PurePassion.us></span></b><span style="text-decoration:none"><span style>,
Tel: 615-507-4166.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top:0.01in;margin-bottom:0in;font-style:normal" align="LEFT">
<span style="text-decoration:none"><span style>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</span></span></p>
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<br>
</p>
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<br>
</p>
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