Your Brain on Porn: William M Struthers

The following are excerpts from William M. Struthers book, Wired For Intimacy: How pornography hijacks the male brain.


   "As men fall deeper in to the mental habit of fixating on these images, the exposure to them creates neural pathways.  Like a path is created in the woods with each successive hiker, so do the neural paths set the course for the next time an erotic image is viewed. Over time these neural pathways become wider as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography.  The become the auto-traveled pathway through which interactions with women are routed.  The neural circuitry anchors this process solidly in the brain"


    "With each lingering stare, pornography deepens a Grand Canyon-like gorge in the brain through which images of women are destined to flow.  This extends to women they have not seen naked or engaged in sexual acts with as well. All women become potential porn stars in the minds of these men.  They have unknowingly created a neurological circuit that imprisons their ability to see women rightly as created in God's image"


So this was part of the tragedy of my long marriage which over time became humourless, disrespectful and abounding with verbal and emotional abuse.  Pornography was a sure fire weapon for taking the intimate and trusting bonds of my marriage and turning them in to a one way rewired upchuck, courtesy of the pornography industry of which I (and every other woman he encountered) became unsuspectingly collateral damage.  WOW.  It explains so much.

Later in that same chapter he adds hope to those who have created this damaged pathway.

  "Because the human brain, the source of our mental life, is such a remarkable organ, it is important to have a good understanding of how it operates.  Knowledge about how it is put together and the regions having greater responsibility for the various aspects of our psychological experience help us understand why pornography affects us the way it does.  When we understand how the brain is flexible and plastic and also how it is unyielding and rigid, we an see not only how pornography can lead a person to a place of mental depravity, but also how hope for redemption and sanctification can be achieved."


This is very much aligned with what I posted earlier about the real possibility for "transformation" in the lives (and most critically the brains) of those who are afflicted with compulsive sexual behavior.  So at the bottom of Pandora's Box, there is HOPE for those who are willing.