It is good to be back on this platform again to continue our anti-pornography crusade. Precisely on May 28, 2011, I shared with you esteemed readers how, by God’s grace, I escaped, by the whiskers, from the clutches of pornography.

I am glad to report to you that that story has not changed today. Grace, in the midst of myriads of temptations, has been my liberating factor. Now I am back on this page to share with you the dangers inherent in pornography.

Note that this is not purely a message from the pulpit, but an appeal to commonsense, morality and reason.

Global war against pornography
There is a global campaign against pornography called the anti-pornography movement.

According to the Free Wikipedia Encyclopedia, this concept is used to describe those who argue that pornography has a variety of harmful effects on the user, such as sexual desensitization and dehumanisation, sexual dysfunction and inability to maintain healthy sexual relationships, and to others, in the form of encouragement of abuses, such as human trafficking, pedophilia and sexual exploitation.

People involved in the anti-pornography movement include religious groups, feminists, ex-porn stars, psychologists and individuals who feel pornography plays a major role in the breakdown of marriages and relationships.

Sociological argument
Also from Wikipedia, Dolf Zillmann asserted that viewing pornographic materials produces many unfavourable sociological effects, including a decreased respect for long-term, monogamous relationships and an attenuated desire for procreation.

He describes the theoretical basis of these experimental findings as follows. First, the values expressed in pornography clash so obviously with family concept and they potentially undermine the traditional values that favour marriage, family and children.

Secondly, pornographic scripts dwell on sexual engagement of parties who have just met, who are in no way attached or committed to each other and who will part shortly, never to meet again.

Thirdly, sexual gratification in pornography is not a function of emotional attachment, kindness, caring and especially not of continuance of the relationship.

As such, continuance would translate into responsibilities, curtailments and costs.

Additionally, some researchers claim that pornography causes unequivocal harm to society by increasing the rate of sexual assaults.

Others hold that there is a correlation between pornography and increase in sex crimes.

Commonsensical argument
From the angle of commonsense, porn loses out completely. Blogger Stu Larkin categorically points out that porn, with its unrealistic portrayal of sex, inevitably leads its users unsatisfied with the reality of real sex within the sheets.

The fact that such people end up masturbating alone in their bedrooms while watching porn stars in their act can lead users to misguided ideas of sex and relationships together with unrealistic body images.

The result is a lifetime of sexual pathology and unhealthy sexual behaviour.

Consequently, indulging in porn is bereft of any rational defense. It is a stupid and costly act that ruins healthy sexual formation in people who seek a healthy and normal lifestyle.

Morality standpoint
From the moral perspective, pornography also fails the litmus test. Blogger Matt Watsh frankly states that there is no more efficient way to make your wife feel betrayed, used and violated than to pick up the porn habit.

“Porn is adultery. Porn is poison. There is nothing harmless about it. Nothing innocent. Nothing fun. It is prostitution by proxy. It lessens us.

“It pulls us away from our families, our wives, our God. It makes us aliens and hypocrites.

“Porn will wreck your marriage, guaranteed,” he argues.

For singles, porn usage is just like visiting a prostitute. Does any responsible person do that?

Psychological viewpoint
Without any doubt, porn alters and distorts the mindset. Like I said somewhere before on this platform, once a person encounters porn, a hormone called epinephrine is released into the bloodstream and sent into the brain, creating a drug-like dependency in the user, akin to an addiction to heroine.

This is the biological basis for addictive nature of porn. It is precisely where it is very difficult to break the porn habit once a person gets hooked.

Porn changes how a person views himself or herself, his or her body and automatically alters how he or she views others.

It reduces humans to objects of sexual gratification and creates a craving so great to the point of criminality.

Porn users who resist the criminal trap become abnormal, unable to have normal, healthy relationships.

In other words, porn reduces the user to a level lesser than humanity, leaving him or her at the complete mercy of animal sexual desires.

Existential perspective
Life is a wise teacher. One of life’s many lessons is that any person who fails to control his or her libido is doomed and on the path of self-destruction.

Existential instances abound of great and small men alike who fell from grace to grass due to their inability to control their sexual urges.

David and his son, Solomon, are good examples of this scenario in the Bible. The former lost God’s favour because he couldn’t take his eyes off Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba and the latter, incensed God through his marriage to an astronomical number of foreign wives, whom God forbade.

In contemporary times, all too fresh in our memory is how former United States President Bill Clinton nearly got impeached from the American presidency due to inappropriate sexual relationship with Monica Lewinski.

That singular affair nearly ruined an otherwise glorious eight-year term in office for one of America’s most popular and successful Presidents.

Porn underlies the same carnal urge to satisfy the libido and if not curtailed, it will run down the individual.

Last word
There are people who see nothing wrong in consuming and producing porn. In fact, in Las Vegas and California in the United States, porn is legal and publicly shown in theatres and cinemas.

The porn market, called the Adult Industry, actually has its own Oscars, which rewards porn stars annually for their performances on set.

Here in Nigeria, there are individuals and probably groups who see nothing wrong in consuming porn, because they think it is harmless fun and edutainment.

I certainly hope that reading this piece will change their mindset!

Let me know what you think
Please, let me know your thoughts on this matter. Follow me on Facebook by sending a friend request to Isaiah Ogodo and join the Facebook group #Let’s expunge pornography from the world today.

Follow me on twitter @isaiahogodo. You may call or text on 08026229520 or email to [email protected].

Let us have a lively conversation and tear down the walls of pornography.