The Porn Circuit | Covenant Eyes Internet Accountability and Filtering

CHapter 5: ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby
Dr. Victor Cline’s research has shown that sexual arousal and excitement diminish
with repeated exposure to sexual scenes, leading people to seek out greater variety
and novelty in the pornography they view. 11
French neuroscientist Serge Stoleru reports on how overexposure to erotic stimuli
actually exhausts the sexual responses of healthy young men. 12
Dr. Dolf Zillmann reports when young people are repeatedly exposed to
pornography, it can have a long-lasting impact on their beliefs and behaviors.
Frequently, men who habitually view pornography develop cynical attitudes about
love and the need for affection between partners. They begin to view the institution
of marriage as sexually confining. Often, men develop a “tolerance” for sexually
explicit material, leading them to seek out more novel or bizarre material to achieve
the same level of arousal. 13
Dr. Judith Reisman summarizes it well: Pornography causes impotence — an inability to
function with your own sexual power. “If he has to imagine a picture, if he has to imagine
a scene, in order to actually reach the heights of completion with this person, then he’s no
longer with his own power, is he? He has been stripped. He has been hijacked. He has been
emasculated. He has, in effect, been castrated visually.” 14
In a survey of 63 wives of self-identified sex addicts: 15
70% met most criteria for a diagnosis
of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Porn and Erectile Dysfunction
70% 71%
The Porn Circuit | 26
71% demonstrated a severe
level of functional impairment
in major areas of their lives.
If the concerns above were not enough, many men become so habituated to pornography that
they experience erectile dysfunction when they are with their spouse. Rather than performing
better, as pornography promises, many men find that they can only achieve consistent and
sustained erections with porn.
Drs. Marnia Robinson and Gary Wilson explained in Psychology Today that overstimulation
with pornography creates changes in the brain that make a man less responsive to the physical