Porn can change your brain

People who use porn wonder, "'How... can something that isn't a drug, isn't an extra-marital affair, isn't actually sex with someone else, cause such devastating problems as divorce, getting fired, and not being able to get sexually aroused by a real live partner.'

"The truth is, using pornography can make you go blind-- blind to the power and control it can eventually have over your life.  Though we might stare intensely at it, we don't see, often can't see see, how and why it is so powerful.  Did you know that porn can actually rewire your brain?  That's one reason why some people who use porn become preoccupied with sex, develop problematic sexual desires, and experience sexual functioning problems.  And if your brain has been changed, it can be difficult to see clearly exactly what is happening and how it's affecting your life.

"Porn is an extremely alluring and compelling 'product,' capable of delivering sexual pleasure while at the same time setting one up for the great pain.  Porn is like other controlled substances, such as alcohol and cigarettes, that promise good times, sometimes deliver them, but can end up causing much more damage than pleasure.  And unlike booze and tobacco, no one warns us of the potential side effects." - Wendy Maltz, LCSW, DST and Larry Maltz, LCSW in The Porn Trap

Porn can change your brain.  Porn can become an addiction to the user.  I work with addicts, spouses and their families everyday whose lives are being severely affected by pornography.   Devastated, in fact, nearly in every area of their lives are having side effects.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a licensed counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

The problem with porn

"But our view on pornography began to change in the mid-1990s.  It was then that we started seeing a troubling increase in the number of clients coming to us with porn-related problems that were interfering with their ability to maintain healthy relationships.  It soon became clear how easily sexual interests and desires could be twisted by pornography, away from real intimacy, and toward technological devices, people and situations that didn't actually exist.  Porn's emphasis had moved from helping couples becoming more sexually intimate with each other to arousing the user to have a sexually relationship with it.

"That's an important distinction: unlike many early erotic videos, magazines, and books that were produced to help spice up lovemaking for couples, porn began to offer itself as the object of desire.  Today's porn teaches users to think only about body parts and specific sexual actions, robbing them of the ability to experience romance, passion, and emotional and physical closeness with a real partner.  It competes with partners as a sexual outlet....

"Because using porn often involves high levels of dishonesty and secrecy, those who are caught up in it often say they feel isolated, ashamed, depressed, phony, morally compromised, and even in some cases, suicidal.  Many are angry, irritable, and unable to sleep.  Some tell us porn is leading them on a dangerous path into illegal and risky activities, such as viewing child pornography, having affairs, having anonymous sex at adult bookstores, hiring prostitutes, and viewing porn at work.  What we have found really troubling is that many of our clients confide that they are unable to stop using pornography even when they are aware of the negative consequences it is having on their lives.  As with alcohol, drugs or cigarettes, this is one of the signs of a true addiction." - Wendy Maltz, LCSW, DST & Larry Malts, LCSW in The Porn Trap

Porn can be an addiction.  It can mess up those lives who are involved with it.  Being a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, I deal with these broken lives every day in my counseling office.

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928

UK reduces porn

UK reduces Internet porn:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23401076

Renee Madison, MA, LPC, CSAT is a counselor in Colorado.  She can be reached for appointments at 303-257-7623 or 970-324-6928