Wednesday, February 6, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Merely “reducing”
porn use is a fantasy
By Ryan Moffat & Justin Durham
Guest Columnists
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s name, address and phone number. Let-
ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be
no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.
To the Editor:
My wife and I have been homeowners and
part-time residents of Tollgate for about seven
years, and we9ve seen the battles re: change
of any kind in The Nugget, and the arguments
never cease to amaze us. The idea that refur-
bishment of an existing trail so that it could be
used by kids to safely get to school is a threat
to privacy for this group of private property
owners is puzzling. How would it affect their
privacy on an existing trail of which only 222
feet is on Tollgate land?
A letter to the editor in the same edition
of the paper suggested that people might use
that improved access to burglarize homes in
Tollgate. I really had to laugh at that one 4
wouldn9t it be easier just to drive in rather than
trying to carry that 65-inch flat screen down
the gravel path on foot?
The trail surface pretty much sucks unless
you are on foot 4 loose gravel is not an
inducement for getting kids to ride to school.
Sure I could probably ride my mountain bike
on it in any conditions, and I did last weekend
just to see what it was like as I had never been
on that trail. But that was in wet conditions
and it was fairly compacted with the melted
snow and ice. I imagine it9s pretty loose and
ugly in the summer months.
I9m personally very much in favor of
improving that trail. If STA is successful in
getting the job done, I9ll be riding my road
bike that way as well (I promise to wave,
say hi, and be respectful of your privacy).
As someone who rides to Sisters and up
McKenzie Pass frequently, the thought of an
alternative to Highway 20 is beyond attractive.
And with a safer and better-maintained surface
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<Can a man carry fire
next to his chest and his
clothes not be burned?=
3 Proverbs 6:27
In the January 23 issue of
The Nugget, T. Lee Brown
stressed the importance
of healthy male touching.
Overall, the content was well-
intentioned and helpful. She
cites pornography as a hin-
drance to healthy touching,
stating, <Some porn addicts
lose the ability to become
aroused with real part-
ners&Even non-addict porn
users often develop social
and relationship issues.=
This is important and cor-
rectly identifies a huge prob-
lem. After all, according to
the Huffington Post, more
users access porn sites every
month than Netflix, Amazon,
and Twitter combined.
However, her solution
utterly fails to address the
problem when she suggests,
<Reduce online porn con-
sumption for better chances
at real-life intimacy&=
<Reduce= your porn con-
sumption? As in, <Just man-
age it; try to cut back (and
definitely don9t get caught.)=
This is terrible advice. It9s
like she9s treating porn
like eating donuts: <just
reduce your consumption.<
Unfortunately, porn treats
the brain less like donuts and
more like heroin.
According to an article
published in 2013 by the
Witherspoon Institute, enti-
tled, <The New Narcotic,=
neurological research has
revealed that the effect of
Internet pornography on
the human brain is just as
potent 4 if not more so 4
than addictive chemical sub-
stances such as cocaine or
heroin. According to psychi-
atrist Dr. Jeffrey Satinover,
<...the delivery system for
this addictive stimulus
[Internet pornography] has
become nearly resistance-
free. It is as though we have
devised a form of heroin
100 times more powerful
than before, usable in the
privacy of one9s own home
and injected directly to the
brain through the eyes. It9s
now available in unlimited
supply via a self-replicating
distribution network, glori-
fied as art and protected by
the Constitution.=
This is bad news. We9re
talking about an <addictive
stimulus= that9s <nearly
resistance-free.= This isn9t
some sugary treat you should
merely reduce: it9s an evil
drug that you should avoid at
all costs.
So how does porn affect
the brain? Again, citing the
aforementioned article, <The
same parts of the brain react
to both illegal chemical sub-
stances and sexual arousal.
Dopamine, the chemical trig-
gered by sexual arousal, is
also the chemical that trig-
gers addiction in the brain.
Exposure to pornographic
images develops pathways
that, over time, become
more and more 8well-paved9
as they9re repeatedly trav-
eled with each exposure to
pornography. Those neuro-
logical pathways eventually
become the pathway in the
brain by which sexual inter-
actions are routed. Thus,
a porn user has unknow-
ingly created a neurologi-
cal circuit that makes their
default perspective toward
sexual matters ruled by the
norms and expectations of
pornography.=
The more you watch,
the more you want, and so
on 4 until your sexuality
is warped, perverted, and
lost. This is the essence of
addiction.
We do not come to this
topic to judge and assert
superiority. We simply have
witnessed the pain and addic-
tive power of pornography in
our society and as husbands
and fathers are laboring to
show our families a better
way.
If either of our sons were
to come to us and say <Dad,
I saw some porn and I feel
bad about it,= neither of us
would say, <Just be mindful
of your consumption and try
to reduce it.= In the words
of the Apostle Paul, when
it comes to sexual sin, we
would tell them to <flee.=
To stay away from porn is to
fight it.
There9s hope, there9s
forgiveness, there9s grace
for the sexually broken, but
the way to receive healing
isn9t to normalize unhealthy
behavior; healing begins
with a conviction that our
sexuality won9t be free from
shame until it9s submitted to
the God of the universe who
created it.
As the great Richard
Foster said, <Conformity to
a sick society is to become
sick.=
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.