Porn Kills Love

I am constantly asking young people that I meet thought-provoking questions. Where do you want to see yourself in five years? What's the biggest misperception people have about you? What's your biggest vice? To the latter question, many of these young people will inform me that pornography is their worst bad habit. Here's some facts I've found about the effects of consuming pornography:

Negative effects on the individual: 

Many people turn to porn to cope with negative emotions like loneliness or grief, but research shows that porn is associated with: more loneliness, lower self-esteem, poorer mental health, negative body image, and lower life satisfaction. 

Negative effects on relationships: 

When it comes to relationships, porn can be incredibly toxic. Reproach shows that porn is associated with: decreased relationship quality, increased couple conflict, decreased relationship satisfaction, and poorer romantic attachment. 

Negative effects on society: 

Most major porn sites are owned by one company called Aylo (formerly MindGeek), which is currently being sued by multiple survivors of child sex trafficking for reportedly hosting and profiting from videos of their exploitation. 

Celebrities such as Terry Crews, Orlando Bloom, Chris Rock, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, have spoken out about how pornography has damaged their lives. 

The virtue to which we are called with regard to sexual relationships is called chastity. Through integrity and self-control, the chaste person observes the true meaning and intimacy of sexual relations. Porn is gravely offensive to this. Porn perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. 

Whether you've never watched porn or you actively struggle with it, it makes no difference. You deserve a happy life, free from porn's toxic influence. For anyone struggling with this addiction, go to Fight the New Drug.