Is Porn Bad For the Single Adult?: Craig Gross Answers
It should be a no-brainer to know that pornography destroys marriages.
After all, habitually viewing pornography "sets up formidable walls between couples: guilt, unrealistic sexual expectations, addictive behaviors, and the erosion of trust, to name just a few." Another words, as "The Intimate Couple" puts it, pornography can be a "barrier to intimacy."
As a $14-billion per year industry in the U.S., studies show that an increased number of marriages are harmed by men and/or women viewing porn. Often leading to divorce, the affairs of the heart (and mind) include an addiction to cyber porn.
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The reality of pornography inside a marriage is that "it introduces another person into a couple's sex life," as an article in MarriageToday states.
Another person? That is serious and that is more than sad.
MarriageToday properly attributes Jesus as saying that "simply looking at another person in a longing and lustful manner is equal to adultery." The article continues: "Inevitably, we begin to compare our spouse's body and sexual performance to the person or people in the pornography we are viewing. Also, we are making a very damaging statement to our spouse that they simply aren't enough for us. Of course, when stimulated by pornography, no number of women or men could ever satisfy us. It is an insatiable appetite."
However, what about porn for the single person? Is pornography that bad for an unmarried person? Can it be harmful for one's dating life?
Craig Gross, founder of XXXchurch.com told me recently that the misconception single people often have is that they can "look at porn" because they believe it's harmless and "it's not effecting anybody."
Gross, whose ministry includes speaking before an audience full of high schoolers, has been on the battlefront of this viral epidemic. He has been creating an awareness and providing a solution through Jesus Christ since starting XXXchurch 14 years ago.
But, why speak to kids in high school?
Every Man Ministries founder and president Kenny Luck points out that one recent report says the majority of males consuming porn online are ages 11-15 years old, "creating a future of men with distorted visions of romantic love."
Gross says, "When we talk about purity and we talk about sex and porn, to me it's a larger discussion. It's not, 'How do I get by without having sex.' It's about stuff that you play with in high school is going to play with you, and in marriage it's going to stay with you."
He explains that it's hard for people to realize that an addiction to porn at almost any level will not stop simply when you enter a relationship or when you get married.
"Porn is so easy, it's so accessible," Gross continued. "It's teaching you so much so to be selfish… That when you get married or when you get in a relationship that it's so much easier than pursuing your spouse or your partner, when you're not going to know what to do.
"We see it every day where people are saying 'Hey, I'm not having sex, but I just look at porn.' I think in the Christian world the mindset is 'Ahh, but I'm still a virgin' … This is cheating made pure… but in reality it's like you're not helping anybody. You are probably hurting yourself more by bringing that addiction into your future relationship."
At XXXchurch.com, according to Gross, 16,000 people signed up last month to fill out a short survey that asked the question: "Are you addicted to porn?"
As he gave me the stat, he sounded a bit amused by the large number of those taking the survey. "If you're wondering if you're addicted to porn, I would say 90 percent [of those wondering], probably higher, are addicted," he said, ending soberly.
He said people suffer a disconnect between what they are watching on the screen and what their current or future sex life might look like.
"You end up getting disappointed with real sex because it's not what you've seen on a video," he said. "You are setting yourself to want something by watching something that you're not going to be able to get in marriage…
Ultimately, it's teaching to you to treasure just all about what you want, what you desire. But in reality you can't approach sex or marriage that way and have a successful marriage. You know, there's two people involved with needs and feelings and emotions, thoughts and desires, and porn gets you to think only about what you want.
It's all about just what you want. It's that culture that we live in."
He says it's wrong for the church to shuffle aside the pornography issue and place a higher priority on holding Christians accountable to having no sex at all before marriage.
"I'm going to say [that if] you are saving your virginity by feeding your porn addiction, is that what you really want? Are you really going to trade one for the other? You may walk into a marriage with your virginity but addicted to porn for 15 years," he explains. "It's like comparing a kid that lost his virginity on prom night compared to a kid that's been looking at porn for 15 years, but he's still a virgin."
For those who choose porn as a way to prevent the loss of virginity, he remarks, "If you think you are doing yourself justice, I think you've got it all backwards. You're not helping yourself one bit."
Bio: Alex Murashko is currently working with One Ten Pictures as an associate producer, developing and working on projects that include stories about people and organizations making a difference in this world as ambassadors for Christ. He previously was a Church & Ministry Editor/Reporter for The Christian Post. He also worked at the Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition and at the Press Enterprise in its Southwest Riverside County bureau. Website: AlexMurashko.com.
