Rewiring Our Brains From Pornographyনমুনা

How Porn Addiction Affects the Mind

With addiction to porn, a weaponized body is only one side of the equation. Porn use doesn’t just affect the body; it also corrupts the mind. 

The trajectory of sin in Romans 1 is that God gives us up to the lusts of the heart, to dishonorable passions, and to a debased mind. Paul echoes that sentiment in Ephesians 4, where he describes unbelieving Gentiles as those who walk in the futility of their minds, who are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the divine life, and ignorant because of their hard hearts (vv. 17–18). He then reminds his readers of what it means to follow Christ—that they have put off the old man with his corrupt and deceitful desires and instead have put on the new man and are being renewed in the spirit of their minds (vv. 20–24).

When it comes to sexual sin, we become especially skewed in our view of men, women, and sex. So a significant part of being renewed in the spirit of our minds is learning to view these three fundamental realities rightly.

Men and Women in the Image of God

Men and women are made in God’s image. We reflect God and represent him in the world. Being made in God’s image means we have a particular calling or vocation in the world. In Genesis 1:28, God gives humanity a mission: be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and exercise dominion over its inhabitants.

God divides the human race into male and female in order to better accomplish this mission. This is our fundamental identity in creation—we are sons and daughters of God, bearing his image. This fundamental identity means that both men and women have incredible dignity and worth. Like God and the angels, we are persons, made to know ourselves and others and ultimately to know our Creator.

While both men and women bear God’s image and are called to God’s mission, we fulfill that mission in distinct ways, ways that are fitting for us as men and women. There’s an asymmetry, a complementarity, between men and women. We are both different from each other and different for each other. The Bible instructs us in these differences by telling the story of how God made us in Genesis 1 and 2. 

So what do we learn in Genesis 1–2 (and in the later parts of the Bible that build on it)? We learn that men and women are incomplete without each other, unable to fulfill the mission by ourselves; it’s not good for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18). We learn that Adam was formed first, and then Eve, making him the head of his wife. We learn that the woman was made out of the man, as God builds her from Adam’s rib. We learn that the woman was made for the man in a way that the man was not made for the woman (1 Cor. 11:9). Finally, we learn that man and woman are mutually dependent; the woman was made from man, but now every man is born of a woman (1 Cor. 11:12).

Now in Genesis, God divides the human race into man and woman in order to reunite them. Woman is taken out of man, and then brought to the man so that they can become one flesh. Sex is the consummation of this union and is designed for fruitfulness. The fruitfulness begins with the couple together as they grow in knowledge of each other. The common biblical euphemism for sexual union is “knowing.” Adam knew his wife. Sex is about knowing and being known. Sex binds husband and wife together and then bears fruit, first in children, which are the fruit of the womb and the glory of the marriage, and then in producing households, and then societies, and then civilizations. Marital intimacy and procreation are the good and proper goals of sex.

When we consider how our bodies have been weaponized and our brains hijacked, when we consider how porn teaches us to view women as objects of consumption and turns us into guilt-ridden beasts that devour image after image, covering God’s good gift of sexual intimacy with layers of shame, when we feel the weight of porn’s affordability, accessibility, and anonymity, it’s easy to feel hopeless and overwhelmed. So at this point, I want to say to you as clearly as I can: there is hope.

Jesus is real, and he is mighty to save. God’s call to you is to consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God, to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and to present your body parts to God as tools of righteousness. He has given you his Spirit to make all of that possible.