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committed adultery with her in his heart.

—MATTHEW 5:28

I(Mark) don’t remember many days of my childhood, but one particular day when I was maybe nine or ten years old is embedded in my mind.

I was using a bathroom in a home, and there was a sink with drawers right next to the toilet. I needed something, probably a Band-Aid, so I pulled open one of the drawers. In it was a glossy magazine with a beautiful woman on the front. I took the magazine out of the drawer. Page after page had photos of beautiful, unclothed women. At that moment, I simultaneously felt curiosity, excitement, discomfort, and shame. I had no idea what the magazine was, suspected it was something forbidden, but found it enticing.

Shortly thereafter I became aware, while hanging out with the boys in my neighborhood, that most of their dads had similar magazines. The boys would steal the magazines and then add them to a collection in a fort they had built in the neighborhood woods. To get to the fort took some skill. It was hidden in the back corner of a dense woods and was only accessible from a narrow, worn path. Until you learned where the path was, you would be unlikely to find it. But once you found it, it seemed easy to find and follow.

Little did the young boys who ventured down the path know, but they were carving an entirely different path in their brains as well. Writing on the issue of pornography, William M. Struthers, a Christian biopsychologist who is specially trained to give the physical and spiritual reasons for pornography addiction, provided in his book Wired for Intimacy an insightful look into the physical consequences of porn, in addition to the spiritual. Christians have already written many books from a spiritual perspective, and his book is meant to fill an ignored gap in Christian circles by providing an integrated physical, psychological, and biblical perspective. Struthers said that as we

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fall deeper into the mental habit of fixating on these images, the exposure to them creates neural pathways. Like a path is created in the woods with each successive hiker, so do the neural paths set the course for the next time an erotic image is viewed. Over time these neural paths become wider as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography. They become the automatic pathway through which interactions with woman are routed. . . . They have unknowingly created a neurological circuit that imprisons their ability to see women [and men] rightly as created in God’s image.1

Mirror neurons are one part of the brain that pornography affects. Mirror neurons are “motor system cells that activate when you see a behavior.”2 They are in action when you see someone frightened and you, too, respond with fear. Similarly, in viewing pornography, mirror neurons cause people to “vicariously” participate in the pornography through viewing it, including watching the woman’s face during the sex act, which is particularly enticing for many men.3

One study showed that human orgasm affects the same parts of the brain that heroin and cocaine do. “Because of this activity, many have referred to being “addicted” to sex. The orbitofrontal cortex is our emotional modulatory system. This is our decision-making system. To be addicted to something is to release dopamine, which causes you to want it and to make the decision to pursue it. That’s our addiction pathway.”4

Viewing pornography while masturbating traces a similar path. Struthers wrote,

When sexual images come through the visual system they stimulate sexual arousal. When there is a male performer, they can (via the mirror neurons) vicariously participate in the sexual act. If they arouse themselves and masturbate to pornography, they now begin to set in place a neurological habit. The images, arousal, masturbatory act and ejaculation are all associated with one another.

This is how a pornography addiction and sexual compulsion is built from scratch. It involves the visual system (looking at porn), the motor system (masturbating), the sensory system