Your Brain On, Or Off, Porn — Part 1

By Recuore, March 14, 2013

Sam Black had a post on Breaking Free, the blog of Covenant Eyes, recently in which he discussed what happen to our brains when they are on porn — as well as what happens when those neurological pathways are re-routed. The article actually very long, so i am going to work with it in sections.

Black references The Brain That Changes Itself, by Dr. Norman Doidge, who says that men and women were not born liking pornography.

Rather, the brain learns that viewing pornography and masturbating brings a “neurological reward.” The term used by therapists is “association”—you learn to associate sexual arousal with specific stimuli.

Doidge says that human brains demonstrate a remarkable amount of “plasticity,” by which he means our brains and our sexuality are molded by our experiences, interactions, and other means of learning. This explains why people vary in what they say is attractive or what turns them on. The brain actually creates neural pathways that say a specific type of person or activity is arousing.

Pornography hijacks this sex drive that God created, and we neurologically “bond” to images rather than our spouse.

But the good news is that God renews our minds with His truth. Each time we say “no” to porn or lust or masturbation we strengthen the prefrontal cortex of our brains. Each time we choose another healthy and rewarding behavior it further solidifies a new neural pathway, which — in Black’s words — allows the “grass to grow over” the old neural pathway for porn.