Real Marriage_ The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together - Mark Driscoll [77]
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This is, at least in part, because oxytocin and vasopressin are released slowly during sexual activity, and released in much larger quantities in conjunction with an orgasm. These chemicals so heighten pleasure for a man that they essentially bind him to whatever caused it.6 As an example, two-thirds of men who frequent prostitutes use the same prostitute rather than multiple women for a variety of experiences, perhaps because they have chemically caused themselves to desire that one person physically above all others.7
The natural chemical “high,” what some call a “biochemical love potion,” resulting from sex and orgasm was designed by God to bind a husband and wife together. In the best sense of the word, God intends for a devoted married couple to be “addicted” to each other, bound together in every way. Tragically, when the source of this binding is someone or something other than one’s spouse, the person becomes so habituated to the pleasures it brings that it leads to an addiction. This explains why, for so many men, pornography becomes a neurological pathway to sinful masturbation and addiction that becomes increasingly difficult to escape as each new “high” causes the path to become a deep rut.
This also explains why God intends sexual pleasure to be experienced solely within marriage. God is good, and His commands are good. When He forbids sex outside marriage, He is not being prudish, outdated, or prohibiting our joy.
First Timothy 3:2 says, “A bishop [Christian leader] then must be blameless, the husband of one wife [literally a “one-woman man”].” Since Hebrews 13:7 instructs God’s people to follow the life example of their leaders, the normative pattern of the church is people whose eyes and desires are directed solely toward their spouses. Similarly, as biology catches up with theology, Job 31:1 makes incredible sense:
I have made a covenant with my eyes;
Why then should I look upon a young woman?
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Those who fail to heed the wise warnings of Scripture run the risk of ending up like the musician John Mayer, who, despite having dated and slept with some of the most beautiful women in the world, still prefers porn to an actual woman. Here is a segment of his Playboy interview that is admittedly disturbing but serves as an honest warning:
MAYER: Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generation’s expectations.
PLAYBOY: You seem very fond of pornography.
MAYER: When I watch porn, if it’s not hot enough, I’ll make up backstories in my mind . . . This is my problem now: Rather than meet somebody new, I would rather go home and replay the amazing experiences I’ve already had . . . What that explains is that I’m more comfortable in my imagination than I am in actual human discovery.8
Porn
Defining pornography is terribly difficult, as evidenced by the inability of our nation’s Supreme Court to clearly articulate exactly what it is. For the purposes of this book, we do not necessarily include as pornographic such things as nude works of art or a romantic scene in a movie without nudity, while also acknowledging that some people can use such things for sinful lust. We do include as pornography such things as porno movies, magazines, Web sites, online sexual chat, romance novels, phone sex with paid operators, explicit movies, lingerie catalogs, and even the swimsuit issues of sports magazines, and the increasingly base men’s and women’s magazines. They show more skin than pornographic magazines did just a few generations ago, for example, such as when Playboy debuted in 1953. In essence, yesterday’s porn is today’s mainstream pop culture.
In our increasingly brazen and desensitized culture, we have to be careful not to define pornography in terms of only harder forms while neglecting the softer forms. As an example, on an