According to the World Health Organization, the companies that make birth control pills, the FDA, and the Mayo Clinic, yes.

In a July 29th 2005 press release, the World Health Organization declared that combined estrogen-progestogen Oral Contraceptives are carcinogenic to humans. Specifically, they said that “Use of OC’s increases risk of breast, cervix, and liver cancer.”[1] The data was presented by a working group of 21 scientists from 8 countries convened by the cancer research agency of the WHO, the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Click here to view the press release.

Companies that make birth control pills also have admitted a link between the drug and breast cancer. For example, the Physician’s Desk Reference (PDR) is a 3500 page book used by doctors that explains how drugs work. In it is the “exact copy of the product’s FDA-approved or other manufacturer-supplied labeling.” The PDR states that “a meta-analysis of 54 studies found a small increase in the frequency of having breast cancer diagnosed for women who were currently using combined oral contraceptives or had used them within the past ten years.”[2] The “meta-analysis of 54 studies” mentioned included data from over 150,000 women. It said, “The studies included in this collaboration represent about 90% of the epidemiological information on the topic, and what is known about the other studies suggests that their omission has not materially affected the main conclusions.”[3] Some might argue that the increase in breast cancer risk is only a small one. But with 80-100 million women on the pill across the globe, the numbers certainly add up.

More recently, the journal of the Mayo Clinic (Mayo Clinic Proceedings) published an article entitled “Oral Contraceptive Use as a Risk Factor for Pre-menopausal Breast Cancer: A Meta-analysis.” It revealed that 21 of 23 studies that followed women who took the pill prior to having their first child showed an increased risk of breast cancer.[4] The increase was especially steep among younger women. One of the authors, Chris Kahlenborn, M.D., stated, “Anyone who is prescribing oral contraceptives has a duty to tell women that 21 of 23 studies showed an increased risk.”[5] He added, “As more information comes out, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to suppress [the documented evidence from medical studies]. There’s a growing sense that it’s really just a matter of time before the lid blows on this thing. . . . We will start seeing a new attitude towards the pill, and it will be fueled by lawsuits.”[6]

In the Consumer’s Guide to the Pill and Other Drugs it also states that “Early-age use of the pill carries a greater risk of breast cancer, of developing larger tumors and having a worse prognosis”[7]. The Pill can cause plenty of other health problems as well, but click here for details on that.

Many doctors do not believe there is a link between the Pill and breast cancer. But considering that the World Heath Organization, the 2006 Physician’s Desk Reference, the journal of the Mayo Clinic, and other reliable sources openly admit such a connection, I believe there is reason for concern. Should a woman be prescribed the pill for medical reasons, she will be glad to know that successful alternatives exist. Click here for details on that.

Why does the Pill increase a woman’s odds of developing breast cancer? Chris Kahlenborn, M.D., explains: “Two of the most important types of hormones that control reproduction are estrogens and progestins. Birth Control Pills are made from synthetic estrogens and/or progestins. Experiments have shown that these hormones cause women’s breast cells to divide more rapidly, which makes them more easily affected by carrionogens—agents which cause cancer”[8].

___________________________________________________

[1]. World Health Organization, “IARC Monographs Programme Finds Combined Estrogen-Progestogen Contraceptives and Menopausal Therapy are Carcinogenic to Humans,” International Agency for Research on Cancer, Press Release 167 (29 July 2005). [2]. Physicians’ Desk Reference, (Montvale, N.J.: Thomson, 2006). [3]. Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer, “Breast cancer and hormonal contraceptives: collaborative reanalysis of individual data on 53 297 women with breast cancer and 100 239 women without breast cancer from 54 epidemiological studies,” Lancet 347:9017 (22 June 1996):1713-1727. [4]. Cf. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Oral Contraceptive Use as a Risk Factor for Premenopausal Breast Cancer: A Meta-analysis, Chris Kahlenborn, MD, et al., October 2006; 81(10): 1290-1302. [5]. Susan Boyles, “The Pill May Raise Breast Cancer Risk: Analysis Suggests Small Increase in Risk When Oral Contraceptives Used Before First Pregnancy,” WebMD Health News (Oct. 31, 2006). [6] Chris Kahlenborn, as quoted at www.physiciansforlife.org [7]. John B. Wilks, Pharm. M.P.S., A Consumer’s Guide to the Pill and Other Drugs, 2nd Edition, (Stafford, Virginia, ALL inc., 1997), p. 70. [8]. Chris Kahlenborn, M.D., Breast Cancer Risk from the Pill, available at www.omsoul.com

Billions of condoms have been shipped to Africa in order to prevent the spread of HIV.[1] However, countries that have relied on such “protection” to curb the epidemic are not seeing any great decline in the virus.[2]

One nation that clearly demonstrates this problem is Botswana. For over a decade Botswana has relied upon widespread availability of condoms in order to combat AIDS. Campaigns for abstinence and fidelity were not emphasized. Instead, billboards about “safe sex” lined the streets, while schoolchildren learned songs about condoms.

According to The Washington Post, “The anti-AIDS partnership between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and drugmaker Merck budgeted $13.5 million for condom promotion—25 times the amount dedicated to curbing dangerous sexual behavior. But soaring rates of condom use have not brought down high HIV rates. Instead, they rose together, until both were among the highest in Africa.”[3]

Unfortunately, Botswana was not the only nation to make this mistake. The journal Studies in Family Planning pointed this out in their article “Condom Promotion for AIDS Prevention in the Developing World: Is It Working?” Its authors noted that “in many sub-Saharan African countries, high HIV transmission rates have continued despite high rates of condom use. . . . No clear examples have emerged yet of a country that has turned back a generalized epidemic primarily by means of condom promotion.”[4]

However, there is a clear example of an African nation turning back the epidemic of AIDS by other means. In the late 1980s Uganda was viewed as the worst nation in the world in terms of HIV/AIDS infections.[5] In 1991, 22 percent of people in the country were infected with HIV. By 1999 the number had dropped to 6 percent.[6] Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni insists that their unique success among African countries is due to their behavioral approach. He said, “In comparison with other countries per capita expenditure on condoms, we spend far below other developed countries, which emphasize use of condoms in their fight against the disease.”[7] Instead of placing the primary emphasis on condoms, they emphasized abstinence and faithfulness first. As a result, they have experienced the greatest decline in HIV in the world.[8] According to the Journal of International Development, it was “the lack of condom promotion during the 1980s and early 1990s [that] contributed to the relative success of behavior change strategies in Uganda.”[9]

Some “safer sex” advocates attempted to claim credit for the success of Uganda’s AIDS decline. But Dr. Edward Green, a Harvard senior research scientist, ruled out such a connection, since “Uganda shows a significant decline in STDs in the absence of a male condom prevalence rate over 5 [percent].”[10] In fact, condoms were not widely used in Uganda until after much of the HIV decline had already taken place.[11] The real reason for the drop in HIV is that between 1989 and 1995 casual sex in Uganda declined by 65 percent.[12]

Some of the sharpest declines took place within the teenage population, which the experts said “took many of us by surprise, since we believed that teenagers are driven by ‘raging hormones,’ therefore abstinence is an unrealistic or impossible objective.”[13] In the words of Dr. Green, who has over two decades of experience in Africa and had previously advocated widespread condom distribution, “Weren’t ‘we’ supposed to teach ‘them’ how to prevent AIDS?”[14]

Unfortunately, the success in Uganda has been undermined in recent years. According to The Washington Post, “The Ugandan turnaround was well underway by the time foreign AIDS experts began to arrive in the early 1990s, bringing with them the Western public health approaches—and values. They began to retool Uganda’s AIDS prevention efforts away from abstinence and fidelity—goals that many Westerners felt were unrealistic. As condom use increased, the percentage of young singles having sex rose from 27 percent to 37 percent between 1995 and 2000.”[15] It seems that only sex-saturated Westerners (who have no handle on their own STD epidemics) are naive enough to expect that condoms will solve the AIDS problem.

Some people ridicule the idea that abstinence education is a realistic way to deal with the AIDS crisis in developing nations. However, the evidence in favor of such an approach is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.[16] In his testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Green said, “Many of us in the AIDS and public health communities didn’t believe that abstinence or delay, and faithfulness, were realistic goals. It now seems we were wrong.”[17]

In a Washington Post article entitled “Let Africans Decide How to Fight AIDS,” he added, “Billions of dollars and the lives of countless men, women, and children will be wasted if ideology trumps proven health policy.”[18] Lest anyone think that such an emphasis on abstinence is the result of conservative religious leaders placing their ideologies above science, Green noted, “I’m a flaming liberal, don’t go to church, never voted for a Republican in my life.”[19]

His appreciation for the effectiveness of promoting abstinence comes from witnessing its results. Had South Africa implemented Uganda’s emphasis on self-control, one scientist noted, “3.2 million lives would be saved between 2000 and 2010.”[20] The effectiveness of the Ugandan approach has led scientists to consider it a “social vaccine” against HIV.[21]

Why has the behavioral approach of reducing sexual partners been so much more effective than condom distribution? There are a number of reasons.

One reason is that most people do not use the condom consistently and correctly, even after being given sex education. In one study of over five hundred couples who were repeatedly advised by their clinicians to use condoms, only 8 percent of them used it consistently, despite the fact that they knew one partner had herpes and the other did not![22] In studies of relationships where one partner was infected with HIV and the other was not, only about 50 percent of them always used a condom![23] If those couples were not motivated enough to use the condom consistently, it’s hard to imagine that perfect condom use will ever be seen in the general population.

Some might assume, “Well, at least some protection is better than none.” This would seem to be a logical argument. After all, condom use can reduce the odds of HIV transmission during an act of intercourse. However, one study of over seventeen thousand people in Africa showed that inconsistent condom use was not protective against HIV.[24] In the presence of an epidemic, unless a person changes his or her behavior, it may be only a matter of time before he or she is infected. For this reason Dr. Norman Hearst said that he feared that we are “raising a generation of young people in Africa that believe that condoms will prevent HIV.”[25] While condoms may reduce the risk of HIV transmission, they do not “protect” against AIDS. When people are not taught the difference and are left thinking that risk reduction equals protection, they are more open to taking risks that they cannot afford.

A second reason why the “safe sex” message has failed to curb AIDS is that the “protection” offered by the condom decreases with repeated exposures.[26] A study funded by the Centers for Disease Control followed sexually active young women (most of whom had a steady boyfriend) to assess condom effectiveness over time.[27] The study found that those who used condoms consistently and correctly were not statistically less likely to acquire at least one STD than the girls who used condoms inconsistently or not at all. According to Dr. J. Thomas Fitch, “This study illustrates what happens over time with numerous acts of sex with an infected partner even when a condom is used.”[28]

Similar observations have been seen in Africa. Edward Green remarked, “Twenty years into the pandemic there is no evidence that more condoms leads to less AIDS. . . . Over a lifetime, it is the number of sexual partners [that matter]. Condom levels are found to be non-determining of HIV infection levels.”[29]

A third reason why condoms have failed to stop AIDS is that when a person is infected with other STDs, they are up to five times as likely to get HIV if exposed. There are several reasons why this occurs.[30] One reason is that many STDs cause sores that can serve as portals of entry for the virus. For example, a woman’s reproductive tract is often able to protect her from HIV.[31] However, this natural barrier is compromised when she is infected with certain STDs.[32] Considering that the number one determinant of STD infection is multiple sexual partners, any strategy to stop HIV that does not reduce sexual activity will have limited effect. This is why one AIDS researcher remarked that safe sex “has not been safe in the UK, and in Africa it has been positively dangerous.”[33]

One final reason why condoms have not stopped HIV is that those who are promiscuous more easily catch the virus. In fact, there would be a massive decline in the sexual transmission of HIV if people practiced six months of abstinence between sexual partners. This statement might sound absurd to anyone unfamiliar with the infectivity rates of HIV. The infectivity rate of a disease or virus measures the likelihood of its transmission. For HIV it is estimated to be .001, meaning that, on average, the odds of being infected with HIV through a single act of intercourse (without a condom) is about one in a thousand.[34] However, when a person is first infected with HIV, he or she is highly contagious.[35] If this person were to get tested for HIV right away, the test would show that he or she is HIV negative, despite the fact that he or she does have the virus and can easily transmit it!

Here’s why: Technically the HIV test does not look for HIV, but for antibodies against the virus. Antibodies are what your body produces to fight off intruders. But viruses are smart and they are often able to avoid being detected. HIV can hide in your body for months before your immune system recognizes it (and years before you know of it). So if your body does not know that you have been infected with HIV, it won’t produce antibodies to attack the virus. According to Dr. Harvey Elder, a professor of HIV/AIDS Epidemiology and Care, “The patient’s ‘HIV’ test becomes positive 4–24 weeks after exposure.”[36] But if the HIV test doesn’t find the antibodies, the doctors will tell you that you’re HIV negative.

Meanwhile, inside the body of a newly infected person, the HIV plasma viral level is very high, especially in the genital fluids (semen and cervical-vaginal fluids), because antibodies haven’t been produced to reduce their levels. Since the viral load is extremely high, and the person is shedding viruses, the infectivity rate soars in the early weeks of infection. Dr. Harvey continued, “During the first few months, a person infects 20–30 percent of sexual contacts but [the] HIV test is negative. When the test is positive, 0.2–0.3 percent of sexual contacts become infected [if there are no other STDs present].” This means that if people abstained from sex at least six months between partners, the odds of HIV transmission would be decimated. Therefore, countries that encourage monogamy and self control enjoy much greater success in preventing HIV than countries that simply hand out condoms.

A key example of this is in the Philippines, where condoms are rare, and so is HIV. A New York Times article entitled “Low Rate of AIDS Virus in Philippines Is a Puzzle” reported that the Church in the Philippines is “conservative and politically powerful.” As a result, “the government has no AIDS-awareness program of its own and restricts the public campaigns of independent family-planning groups.” [37] But, the article reported, “public health officials say they are stumped by a paradox in the Philippines, where a very low rate of condom use [4 percent] and a very low rate of HIV infection seem to be going hand in hand.”

In this conservative Catholic country that shuns condoms, about twelve thousand of the eighty-four million residents are infected with HIV. Jean-Marc Olive of the World Health Organization said that he’s not sure why this is, but he thinks they’re “lucky.” One gets the impression that “experts” would rather look puzzled than be forced to give credit to a chaste culture.

To appreciate the wisdom of the Filipino approach to halting the spread of HIV, contrast their efforts with the “safe sex” program implemented in Thailand. Both countries reported their first case of HIV in 1984. By 1987 there were 135 cases in the Philippines, and 112 in Thailand. The World Health Organization predicted that by 1999, 85,000 people would die of AIDS in the Philippines, and 70,000 in Thailand. In an effort to prevent this tragedy, Thailand enacted a “one hundred percent condom use program” and promoted widespread availability of condoms.[38] Meanwhile, the Filipino government backed the Church’s plan to prevent the epidemic.

By 2005, Thailand’s HIV rate was fifty times as high as the Philippines (580,000 vs. 12,000).[39] But because Thailand’s rate of new HIV infections is not as high as it used to be, it is hailed by “safe sex” experts as the model of how to protect a country against HIV. Health officials warn that an HIV epidemic has “the potential to explode” in the Philippines, but they are slow to acknowledge that if Filipinos hold fast to their morals, they’ll have nothing to fear.[40] Compared to Western culture, Filipinos have a delayed sexual debut and a reduced number of partners.[41] They are living proof that self-control always trumps birth control.

While some people see the Catholic Church as an obstacle to HIV prevention, the British Medical Journal noted, “The greater the percentage of Catholics in any country, the lower the level of HIV. If the Catholic Church is promoting a message about HIV in those countries, it seems to be working. On the basis of data from the World Health Organization, in Swaziland, where 42.6 percent have HIV, only 5 percent of the population is Catholic. In Botswana, where 37 percent of the adult population is HIV infected, only 4 percent of the population is Catholic. In South Africa, 22 percent of the population is HIV infected, and only 6 percent is Catholic. In Uganda, with 43 percent of the population Catholic, the proportion of HIV infected adults is 4 percent.”[42] In the Philippines, over 80 percent of the population is Catholic, and only .03 percent of the population has HIV![43]

The Catholic Church, like any good mother, wants what is best for her children. If your son or daughter had the chance to be sexually active with a person infected with HIV, what message would you give him or her? Would you entrust your child’s life to a piece of latex? Would you buy him or her a package of condoms, and then attempt to deliver a convincing abstinence message? Odds are, every loving parent would deliver an uncompromised message about abstinence. Why then would the Church do any less for her children?

Some argue that the Church’s opposition to condoms isn’t realistic because “some people are going to do it anyway.” But who are these “some people” who are incapable of being reached with the message of self-control? When I played college baseball, we were expected not to use steroids. Sure, some athletes do it anyway, but no coach would walk into the locker room and say, “We want you all to abstain from using performance-enhancing drugs. But since we know some of you will do it anyway, we’ll have a basket of free, clean syringes in the dugout.” Odds are, his players would not be inspired by his lack of confidence in them. If the coach truly cared about his players and wanted only the best for them, he’d motivate and empower them to make the best choice. In the same way, the Church will not give up on any human being but will continue to deliver the safest and healthiest message: chastity.

All of these considerations should offer more than enough evidence that the Church’s stance on contraception does not stem from naïve traditionalism. It comes, in the words of one Vatican reporter, “from a profound analysis of the need to integrate sexuality in an exclusive and permanent relationship open to life in the context of marriage. The wisdom of this view is becoming increasingly clearer.”[44] Critics may belittle the Catholic Church now, but as the saying goes, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self evident.”[45]

For more information on AIDS and Africa, visit our the “Research” tab above.

To study the success of abstinence education and the failure of “safe sex” promotion in Africa, you may wish to read Evidence that Demands Action by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, or Rethinking AIDS Prevention by Edward Green, a Harvard senior research scientist. _______________________________ [1]. Sue Ellin Browder, “Dirty Little Secret: Why Condoms Will Never Stop AIDS in Africa,” Crisis (June 1, 2006). [2]. Tim Allen and Suzette Heald, “HIV/AIDS Policy in Africa: What Has Worked in Uganda and What Has Failed in Botswana?,” Journal of International Development 16:8 (November 8, 2004), 1141–1154; Michael Cassell, et al., “Risk Compensation: The Achilles’ Heel of Innovations in HIV Prevention?” British Medical Journal 332 (March 11, 2006), 605–607. [3]. Craig Timberg, “Speeding HIV’s Deadly Spread,” Washington Post Foreign Service (March 2, 2007), A01. [4]. N. Hearst and S. Chen, “Condom Promotion for AIDS Prevention in the Developing World: Is It Working?” Studies in Family Planning 35:1 (March 2004), 39–47, emphasis added. [5]. Allen and Heald, 1141. [6]. Edward Green, et al., Evidence That Demands Action (Austin, Tex.: Medical Institute for Sexual Health, 2005), ii. [7]. Yoweri Museveni, 11th International Conference of People Living with HIV, as reported by Panafrican News Agency Daily Newswire (October 29, 2003). [8]. Joseph Loconte, “The White House Initiative to Combat AIDS: Learning from Uganda,” The Heritage Foundation: Backgrounder 1692 (September 29, 2003). [9]. Allen and Heald, 1141, emphasis added. [10]. Arthur Allen, “Sex Change: Uganda v. Condoms,” The New Republic (May 27, 2002). [11]. Allen and Heald, 1149. [12]. D. Low-Beer and R. Stoneburner, “Behavior and Communication Change in Reducing HIV: Is Uganda Unique?” African Journal of AIDS Research 2 (2004), 2. [13]. Edward Green, “Testimony before the Subcommittee on African Affairs,” Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate (May 19, 2003) 2. [14]. Edward Green, “The New AIDS Fight: A Plan as Simple as ABC,” The New York Times (March 1, 2003). [15]. Edward C. Green and Wilfred May, “Let Africans Decide How to Fight AIDS,” The Washington Post (November 29, 2003), A23. [16]. S. Gregson, et al., “HIV Decline Associated with Behavior Change in Eastern Zimbabwe,” Science 311:5761 (February 3, 2006), 620–621; Richard Hayes and Helen Weiss, “Understanding HIV Epidemic Trends in Africa,” Science 311:5761 (February 3, 2006), 620–621. [17]. Testimony of Edward C. Green, Ph.D., before the Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives (March 20, 2003), 3. [18]. Green and May, A23. [19]. Allen. [20]. Rand Stoneburner, quoted in Allen. [21]. Low-Beer R. Stoneburner, 1. [22]. AnnaWald et al., “Effect of Condoms on Reducing the Transmission of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 from Men to Women,” Journal of the American Medical Association285 (June 27, 2001), 3103. [23]. J. Thomas Fitch, “Are Condoms Effective in Reducing the Risk of Sexually Transmitted Disease?” The Annals of Pharmacotherapy 35:9 (September 2001), 1137; A. Saracco, et al., “Man-to-Woman Sexual Transmission of HIV: Longitudinal Study of 343 Steady Partners of Infected Men,” Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes6:5 (May 1993), 497–502; I. de Vincenzi, “A Longitudinal Study of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Transmission by Heterosexual Partners,” The New England Journal of Medicine 3331 (August 11, 1994), 341–346, as quoted in Fitch. [24]. S. Ahmed, et al., “HIV Incidence and Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevalence Associated with Condom Use: A Population Study in Rakai, Uganda,” AIDS 15:16 (November 9, 2001), 2171–2179. [25]. “New Research Confirms Condoms Not Effective in HIV Prevention,” LifeSiteNews.com (January 14, 2004). [26]. Joshua Mann, et al., “The Role of Disease-Specific Infectivity and Number Of Disease Exposures on Long-Term Effectiveness of the Latex Condom,” Sexually Transmitted Diseases 29:6 (June 2002), 344–349. [27]. R. E. Bunnell, et al., “High Prevalence and Incidence of Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Urban Adolescent Females Despite Moderate Risk Behaviors,” Journal of Infectious Diseases 180:65 (November 1999), 1624–1631. [28]. Fitch, 1137. [29]. “New Research Shows Dangers of Condoms in HIV Prevention,” Culture & Cosmos 1:23 (January 13, 2004), emphasis added. [30]. D.T. Fleming and J.N. Wasserheit, “From Epidemiological Synergy to Public Health Policy and Practice: The Contribution of Other Sexually Transmitted Diseases to Sexual Transmission of HIV Infection,” Sexually Transmitted Infections 75 (1999), 3–17. [31]. Peter Greenhead, et al., “Parameters of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection of Human Cervical Tissue and Inhibition by Vaginal Virucides,” Journal of Virology74:12 (June 2000), 5577–5586. [32]. Nancy Padian, et al., “Heterosexual Transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in Northern California: Results from a Ten-Year Study,” American Journal of Epidemiology 146:4 (August 15, 1997), 350–357. [33]. Dr. Daniel Low-Beer, as quoted by Alisa Colquhoun, “Ugandan Lessons?” Public Health News, February 6, 2004. [34]. Fitch, 1137; Ronald Gray, et al., “Probability of HIV-1 Transmission Per Coital Act in Monogamous, Heterosexual, HIV-1 Discordant Couples in Rakai, Uganda,” Lancet357 (2001), 1149–1153; I. de Vincenzi, “A Longitudinal Study of Human Immunodeficiency, 341–346; Medical Institute for Sexual Health, Sex, Condoms, and STDs: What We Now Know (Austin, Tex.: Medical Institute for Sexual Health, 2002), 13. [35]. Bluma Brenner, et al., “High Rates of Forward Transmission Events After Acute/Early HIV-1 Infection,” The Journal of Infectious Diseases 195 (April 1, 2007), 951–959; M. J. Wawer, et al., “Rates of HIV-1 Transmission Per Coital Act, by Stage of HIV-1 Infection, in Rakai, Uganda,” The Journal of Infectious Diseases 191:9 (May 1, 2005), 1403–1409. [36]. Harvey Elder, “Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV),” a presentation at Health on the Horizon, sponsored by The Medical Institute for Sexual Health (June 13, 2002). [37]. Seth Mydans, “Low Rate Of AIDS Virus In Philippines Is a Puzzle,” The New York Times (April 20, 2003). [38], Human Life International, “Condom Exposé” www.hli.org, 16. [39]. UNAIDS “Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic,” 2006, Annex 2, 511, 514. [40]. Mydans. [41]. Cecile Balgos, “Philippines Proud of its Low Infection Rate, Number of Cases,” San Francisco Chronicle (May 21, 2003). [42]. Amin Abboud, “Searching for Papal Scapegoats Is Pointless,” British Medical Journal 331 (July 30, 2005), 294. [43]. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, “International Religious Freedom Report 2004,” U.S. Department of State (September 15, 2004); UNAIDS “Philippines” Country Situation Analysis (www.unaids.org). [44]. “Doubts About Condoms: Science Questioning Their Efficacy in Halting HIV/AIDS,” Zenit Daily Dispatch, Nairobi, Kenya (June 26, 2004). [45]. Commonly attributed to Arthur Schopenhauer.

This is a myth. When a man’s body needs to release seminal fluid, this will come in a natural manner during nocturnal emissions (wet dreams). There is not a constant buildup of pressure that will harm an individual unless he masturbates.

The next time you hear a claim like this, ask the person to show you the scientific evidence to support what he is saying. Odds are, he won’t have anything convincing to offer you. In the scientific realm, it’s not enough to say “I saw a study once that said so and so.”

Researchers not only need to perform rigorous scientific experiments, but they also should have their work reviewed by peers and published in a reputable science journal. The findings should also be repeatable, and confirmed by other similar studies. Unless these things are present, don’t give much weight to what others tell you they heard.

If anything, the scientific evidence seems to show that masturbation is detrimental for both men and women.

Despite what many modern sex educators may say, evidence shows that masturbation is detrimental to both men and women. If you have ever taken a class in psychology, you probably learned about Pavlov’s dog. Pavlov was a guy who rang a bell every time he was about to feed his dog. By doing this, the dog came to associate the bell with food, and would begin salivating at the sound of the bell. This is known as a trained response.

The human mind can be trained in the same way. In fact, the pleasure center of the brain is the most easily trained part of the human mind. This place in the brain is called the Medial Pre-optic Nucleus (MPN), and when the body experiences great pleasure, as in a sexual release, this part of the brain is rewarded. According to the research of Dr. Douglas Weiss, when a person experiences sexual arousal, the brain releases endorphins that help train the MPN to associate pleasure with whatever the person is doing, looking at, smelling, and so on.[1]

Unconsciously, a person forms a bond between a particular image, scent, or person and the feeling of sexual pleasure. (That’s one reason porn magazines have perfume samples in them).

During sexual pleasure, this bond is further solidified by the release of a neuropeptide called oxytocin. This also creates a bond between people during a sexual act. If a person is alone, it still creates a mental bond with whomever he or she is fantasizing about. However, this bonding mechanism is damaged through casual sexual arousal.[2]

This scientific discovery sheds new light on Paul’s words: “Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two shall become one flesh.’ . . . Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body” (1 Cor. 6:16–18).

When a person experiences sexual pleasure while masturbating and lusting after another in his imagination, he is training his brain to be stimulated by fantasy images in his own mind. If this is what a person’s brain identifies as the cause of sexual joy, then where does this leave his or her spouse one day? A spouse is not a fantasy image that you act upon, but a real human being with his or her own personality, feelings, emotions, etc. Yet instead of being able to take joy in the actual person in the marriage bed, the individual trained by masturbation may be driven to find stimulation in inner fantasies even while trying to make love to his or her spouse. Sometimes men and women may look beyond their own imagination to adultery, strip clubs, pornography, or a disordered lust for one another to satiate their desires. Sometimes, the habit of masturbation continues within marriage in order to take care of sexual “needs.”

Now, this does not mean that you are doomed to a dysfunctional marriage if you have ever experienced sexual pleasure with anyone other than your husband or wife. However, it does mean that you will have obstacles to overcome that those without such a history will not struggle with. The brain can be retrained, but it will take time according to how well-entrenched the habit of lust has become.

This should show us that God’s plan for our sexuality is stamped into our anatomy. When people live according to God’s truths, their bodies will associate sexual joy with their spouse. God has designed our bodies to ensure that a married couple will be physiologically drawn toward each other. Their minds have been trained that way. As the Bible says, “Let your fountain be yours alone, not one shared with strangers. And have joy of the wife of your youth, your lovely hind, your graceful doe. Her love will invigorate you always. Through her love you will flourish constantly” (Prov. 5:17–19). _________________________________ [1]. Douglas Weiss, M.D., The Final Freedom (Fort Worth, Texas: Discovery Press, 1998). [2]. Eric J. Keroack, M.D., and John R. Diggs, Jr., M.D., “Bonding Imperative,” A Special Report from the Abstinence Medical Council (Abstinence Clearinghouse, April 30, 2001).

We cannot justify a physical sin by mentally distracting ourselves from our actions. It’s like asking if it’s okay to shoplift as long as you are thinking about feeding the homeless. Your mind may be doing one thing, but your actions say another. You could even compare it to the kiss of Judas. His body showed love to Christ, but his intentions were the opposite. When you masturbate while trying not to lust, it’s like doing the reverse. You are supposedly doing something noble with your mind, and something ignoble with the gift of your sexuality.

The problem with masturbation is not simply the lust of the imagination, but the misuse of the body.

What’s happening is that you’re trying to bargain with temptations. We know from revelation that Satan is an exceptionally cunning fallen angel. The name “Lucifer” means “light-bearer,” and this means that his intellectual abilities far surpass anyone’s on the planet. When you try to cut a deal with him, you lose—every time. How many times has he duped us into thinking, “Oh, it’s not that big of a sin. God will understand. I can go to confession later. How am I supposed to be perfect? It will just be this one time. . . , etc.”? We should not reason with our lust or make excuses for it. We must reject it, so that we can be free to love.

Be assured that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more (Rom. 5:20). I recommend four steps that will help you resist the temptation in the future.

First, you must deepen your prayer life. Prayer is essential for those who want to persevere in purity. In particular, go to Mass often, receive the sacrament of reconciliation whenever you fall, and develop a strong devotion to the rosary and to Saint Joseph. This is pretty much a one-two three punch for fighting temptation.

Second, do whatever you can to rid yourself of occasions of sin. If you have pornographic magazines or videos, throw them all away immediately. Since the Internet has been a problem, at the very least you should install filtering software on your computer.

Another useful strategy is to put holy objects and pictures wherever you had the images. If it is on the Internet, put a crucifix or picture of Our Lady on top of the computer, and have a sacred image for your screen saver or computer wallpaper. You could also make the sign of the cross, or bless yourself with holy water when you feel tempted. Saint Teresa of Avila said, “I know by frequent experience that there is nothing which puts the devils to flight like holy water.”[1].

Third, find a person with whom you can be honest about your habit, and be accountable to him. A priest, family member, youth minister, or good friend should be able to help you win the battle. As the Bible says, “Two are better than one. . . . If they fall, one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. . . . And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Eccles. 4:9–12). The web site covenanteyes.com is helpful in this area.

It is also helpful to have this person in your life as an example of how to treat others. In the case of men, Pope John Paul II said, “Men must be taught to love, and to love in a noble way; they must be educated in-depth in this truth, that is, in the fact that a woman is a person and not simply an object.”[2].

Fourth, take a look at your motivation to overcome the habit. Are you simply trying to conquer the temptations because the habit is embarrassing or because you are afraid you will be caught? Elevate your motivation so that you are working to overcome the problem for the sake of love. Do it for the love of God and to make yourself worthy of your future bride or groom.

When a person looks at pornography, on some level he or she is looking for love. It is a warped attempt to give of yourself and receive another. The fantasies may seem as if they are entirely yours, although a million other people feel the same way toward them. If a person longs for love, then he or she must strive to acquire the selflessness that will enable him or her to properly love another. Getting rid of porn should not be seen as a loss but as an opportunity to grow in that selflessness.

If you’re a young man, imagine that you found the woman of your dreams and got married. As you carry her across the threshold of your honeymoon suite, she wraps her arms around your neck, looks into your eyes, and whispers how excited she is. She tells you that she has waited all her life for this day, and to make it extra special, she has been looking at thousands of pornographic images of men on the Internet. How would you feel? You see, not only should we wait for our spouses with our bodies; we must wait for them with our minds. So for the sake of love, trash the pornographic magazines, Web sites, and videos. If you are called to the sacrament of marriage, isn’t your bride worth waiting to see, instead of filling your mind with images of other women’s bodies?

If you persevere in the battle for purity, you can and will lose the desire to look at pornography. You will not lose sexual desire, but when you see others degraded, you will be filled with pity for them instead of lust. What many people do not realize is that the virtue of purity is not supposed to annihilate your attractions. It won’t kill your sexual desires or cause you to forget the attractiveness of others. It will open your eyes to the full beauty they possess, so that you won’t want to look at them as mere body parts.

In the words of C. S. Lewis, “Lust is a weak, poor, whimpering whispering thing when compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.”[3] When you trash the porn and decide to actually love, you will see that the passing satisfaction of porn was nothing but an illusion that promised you everything and gave you nothing.

Lastly, it’s helpful to identify the factors that contribute to your habit. Often, we assume it’s simply lust when there are often other causes (such as stress, loneliness, boredom, etc). Until you get to the root of these other issues and find healthy ways to handle them, then the problem of porn will be much more difficult to overcome.

_______________________ [1]. St. Teresa of Avila, The Life of St. Teresa of Avila (New York: Cosimo, Inc., 2006), 240. [2]. Karol Wojtyla, The Way to Christ (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1984), 38. [3]. C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1946).

The problem with using pornography is that it emasculates men, degrades women, destroys marriages, and offends the Lord. You may be thinking: “That’s going a little overboard, don’t you think? I mean, what’s wrong with checking out a few Internet sites?” Take a look at the effects of pornography, and you will see why real men do not use it.

What does pornography do to a man? For starters, because it cripples his ability to love, it robs him of the capacity to be a man. The essence of manhood consists in readiness to deny oneself for the good of a beloved. This is why Saint Paul reminds husbands in his Letter to the Ephesians that their love must be like that of Christ, who allowed himself to be crucified for the sake of his beloved, the Church (Eph. 5:21–33).

Pornography defeats this calling. Instead of denying himself for the good of the woman, a man, through the use of porn, denies the woman her dignity in order to satisfy his lust. In essence, pornography is a rejection of our calling to love as God loves. It is no wonder that those who use it are never satisfied. Only love satisfies. One marriage therapist noted, “People who use pornography feel dead inside, and they are trying to avoid being aware of that pain. There is a sense of liberation, which is temporary: that’s why pornography is so repetitive—you have to go back again and again.”[1]

Her insights are well understood by those who have felt entrapped by the allure of lust. One recovering porn addict admitted that viewing pornography “brings intense disappointment, precisely because it is not what I’m really searching for. It’s rather like a hungry person standing outside the window of a restaurant, thinking that they’re going to get fed.”[2]

In a way, the fact that pornography allows men to indulge their lust without having to worry about pregnancy or STDs is part of the problem. It encourages him to live in a world in which sexuality offers only pleasure without meaning or consequences, in which “no one gets pregnant, no one catches a disease, no one shows signs of guilt, fear, remorse, embarrassment, or distrust. No one suffers from the sexual activities of others and the men, at least, are always carefree, unrestrained. . . . The priority of lovingly protecting one’s partner is of little concern in pornography because no harm seems possible.”[3]

Living in a world of fantasy allows a guy to escape from reality and evade the demands of authentic love. Therefore, it does not liberate him. It enslaves him. Put simply, pornography is the renunciation of love. As the writer Christopher West said, “[Pornography] seeks to foster precisely those distortions of our sexual desires that we must struggle against in order to discover true love.”[4]

For the person who indulges in porn, the purpose of sex becomes the satisfaction of the erotic “needs,” not the communication of life and love. Pornography trains a man to value a woman only for what she gives him rather than for the person she is. Because he is so focused on what he is getting, he doesn’t learn to give.

Some guys will slough this all off, saying, “Boys will be boys,” or “I’m just appreciating the beauty of womanhood,” or, “I like the articles in the magazine.” Sometimes they will realize how unconvincing these arguments are, and they will become resentful, saying, “You want to repress sexuality and rob women of their freedom. It’s unhealthy for you to have such little appreciation for women!” This defensive attitude is apparent in the way strip clubs advertise themselves as “gentlemen’s clubs” for “adult entertainment.” Why would a man feel the need to justify his behavior as “gentlemanly” or “adult”? A man does not need to announce that he is a gentleman, nor do adults need to remind others that they are mature. Actions speak for themselves.

Yet even when a man’s lack of self-control makes him immature and his behavior cannot be reconciled with the title “gentleman,” he still feels a need to identify with authentic manhood. No matter how far we fall, Christ has still stamped into our being the call to love as he loves. If we untwist the lies and humbly come before the Lord in our woundedness, he will raise us up and make us true men. To do this, we must have the courage and humility to look at his plan for man and woman. When Jesus warned that anyone who looks lustfully at a woman commits sin with her in his heart (Matt. 5:28), he spelled it out in no uncertain terms that it is not enough to avoid pregnancy or STDs. It is not even enough to avoid impure sexual contact; we must also resist impure sexual thoughts and looks.

What does pornography do to women? Since it trains men to think of women as objects to be used instead of persons to be loved, guys speak of them as objects and treat them as objects. One longtime producer in the porn industry admitted “My whole reason for being in this industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t care much for women and want to see the men in my industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up. I strongly believe this, and the Industry hates me for saying it.”[5] He added that the porn industry is simply “a playpen for the damned.”[6]

When men learn their concept of intimacy from videos and magazines, they may accept the idea that a woman’s no is actually a yes and that she enjoys being used. This can lead to a rapist mentality. Consider, for example, a study done in the Oklahoma City area. When 150 sexually oriented businesses were closed, the rate of rape decreased 27 percent in five years, while the rate in the rest of the country increased 19 percent. In Phoenix, Arizona, neighborhoods with porn outlets had 500 percent more sex offenses than neighborhoods without them.[7]

Ted Bundy raped and killed dozens of women. Sentenced to die in the electric chair, he requested that his last interview be with Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family. In that meeting Bundy talked openly about pornography and told Dr. Dobson that his struggles all began there. He explained that all his fellow inmates had an obsession with pornography before going to prison. Porn magazines and videos lay at the root of innumerable rapes and murders. Countless victims of child molestation also report that their abusers exposed them to pornography as an attempt to desensitize and seduce them. No one can tell the husbands, siblings, children, and parents of those violated and deceased women that pornography is harmless. Besides, wouldn’t it infuriate you if a guy simply looked at a woman you loved in the same way he looked at pornography?

It should be noted that pornography addiction is not just a “guy” problem. Many women struggle with it as well, and they experience the same consequences. They often feel an additional sense of isolation and shame because they assume that women shouldn’t struggle with lust. Because of this myth, they often keep their habit secret instead of seeking help to overcome it.

While men often view pornography to see what they would like to receive, women sometimes view it wondering what they need to look like, how they need to act, and who they need to be. But such women need to realize that women were not created to be porn—they were created to be loved. If you’re a woman who struggles in this area, you’re not alone. Many women have written blogs for us on their struggle with porn addiction, and what they did to break free.

What does pornography do to marriages? To be blunt, pornography is the perfect way to shoot your future marriage in the head. Imagine that a young man has a habit of using pornography, and he does not reveal this to his fiancée. He hopes that once he is married, the desires for illicit sexual arousal will subside. But what becomes of his lust once he marries? It does not disappear; it is foisted upon his wife. The pornography has trained him to react to the sexual value of a woman and nothing else. He has trained himself to believe that women should be physically flawless and constantly sexually accessible.

Even if he rejects this intellectually, the fact remains that pornography has warped the way he looks at women. You could say that he views the world through porn-goggles. He only knows how to look at women through the lens of lust. One psychologist who specializes in sexuality problems noticed, “the more time you spend in this fantasy world, the more difficult it becomes to make the transition to reality.”[8]

Provided a man’s wife is a life-size Barbie doll with a squad of makeup artists and hairdressers who follow her around the house, things might run smoothly for a time. But when reality confronts fantasy, the man will be left disillusioned, and the woman’s self image will suffer. No real-life woman can ever fulfill his disordered desires and fantasies. They focus solely upon self-centered gratification rather than mutual self-giving and joy in pleasing one’s spouse.

One woman explained that if a man’s real-life partner is not always as available sexually and willing to do whatever he wishes as the women he has fantasized about, he may accuse her of being a prude. If she looks normal, and unlike the models he has come to adore, he may accuse her of being fat. If she has needs, the passive images in the magazines, then she may seem too demanding for him.[9]

In other words, he will be quick to blame his disorder on her; his fantasies will have robbed him of the ability to be truly intimate with his wife. One reason he is unable to have healthy intimacy with his wife is because intimacy is not an escape from reality but the capacity to see the beauty of the other. The presence of lust in the heart of the man blocks his ability to view the woman as a person. He has reduced her to an object and ignored her value as a person. When this happens he forfeits love. True intimacy is impossible.

It has been said that the problem with pornography is not simply that it shows too much but that it shows too little. It reduces a woman to nothing more than her body. Thus a man will assume that the greater the body, the greater the value of the woman. With this mindset men not only expect their future wives to look no less perfect than Miss September; they also don’t appreciate a woman’s most beautiful and precious qualities, since a centerfold display can never reveal these. This drives men to look elsewhere in an impossible quest to satisfy their lust. After all, pornography fosters the false mentality that casual, uncommitted sex is the most fulfilling and enjoyable. Who does not want to be fulfilled?

One response to the marital dissatisfaction often caused by pornography habits is to bring pornography into the bedroom. This is a vain effort on the part of the man to have the illicit excitement he has formed an attachment to. The poor wife may allow this, but the joy of loving has escaped the man, who no longer sees the value of the person and the need to deny himself for her. Married couples who use pornography find that their marital problems only worsen. If a husband needs to pretend that his wife is someone else in order for him to be excited, then he will become less and less drawn to her. Instead of making love to her, he is destroying love between them. At the very moment he is supposed to be renewing his wedding vows with his body, he’s committing adultery in his mind.

Because the effects of pornography are so severe, Christian men and women have an obligation to rid their lives of it. According to Pope John Paul II, God “assigns the dignity of every woman as a task to every man.”[10] When we act in a way that is contrary to the dignity of others, we act contrary to our own dignity. For this reason, the Holy Father says, “each man must look within himself to see whether she who was entrusted to him as a sister in humanity, as a spouse, has not become in his heart an object of adultery.”[11]

Even if pornography had no adverse effects on people, we must never forget that sin is not simply a social matter. We owe it to our neighbors to love them, but we also owe it to God to honor him in all our actions and thoughts. To lust after his daughters is a grave sin, even if no one becomes pregnant as a result of another’s imagination. “So shun youthful passions and aim at righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call upon the Lord from a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22).

_______________________ [1]. Estela Welldon, as quoted in Edward Marriott, “Men and Porn,” The Guardian (November 8, 2003). [2]. John Paul Day, as quoted in Edward Marriott, “Men and Porn,” The Guardian (November 8, 2003). [3]. Richard Wetzel, M.D., Sexual Wisdom (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Proctor Publications, L.L.C., 1998), 72. [4]. Christopher West, Good News About Sex and Marriage, (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Publications, 2000), 84. [5]. Robert Stoller, Porn: Myths For The Twentieth Century (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993), 31. [6]. Stoller, 32. [7]. U.S. Department of Justice, Child Pornography, Obscenity, and Organized Crime (Washington, D.C., February 1988). [8]. Marriott, “Men and Porn,” The Guardian (November 8, 2003). [9]. Laurie Hall, “When Fantasy Meets Reality” (www.pureintimacy.org). [10]. Pope John Paul II, general audience, November 24, 1982. As quoted by Man and Woman He Created Them, 519. [11]. Pope John Paul II, apostolic letter, Mulieris Dignitatem 14 (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women) (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1988).

Here is one strategy for handling it: Every time one of those impure images pops into your mind, take that as an reminder to pray for that person’s conversion. Pray specifically for her (or him). That way, instead of contributing to their fall, you could impact their salvation. This makes up for the times you have lusted after the person but will accomplish even more. If you persevere in this practice, I would imagine that the thoughts subside considerably.

Other than this, continue with your prayer life and remain pure in your day-to-day relationships. Also, deepen your devotion to Mary. We need to have our image of womanhood redeemed, and praying a daily rosary is an ideal way to begin this reconstruction. The remedy for pornography is to understand the dignity of womanhood (and manhood) and the truth about your call to love. Persevere in this practice, and your lust will be transformed into love.

In the meantime, stay strong. Resisting these temptations will foster in you the virtues that will help you to become most fully who God created you to be.

You’re right. Whenever the topic of porn is addressed, people often give off the impression that no woman has ever struggled with it. This makes the women who have seen pornography feel like there’s something especially wrong with them.

Decades ago, pornography was almost entirely a male issue. That’s because if a guy wanted to see it, he’d have to drive to an “adult” bookstore or overcome his embarrassment to purchase a risqué plastic-wrapped magazine from a newsstand. Women simply weren’t interested in going to so much trouble to see nudity. They were content reading steamy romance novels that involved relational plots.

With the advent of the Internet, everything changed: Instead of going out of your way to see porn, you now need to go out of your way to avoid it! With the greater accessibility of porn through websites, webcams, chat rooms, and so on, more and more women have become ensnared by the habit.

Some women stumbled upon it by accident. Others sought it out because of curiosity. Still others were drawn into it while seeking virtual companionship online. No matter what the case may be, countless women have become hooked on it, and are too ashamed to talk to anyone about it. Whereas it’s taken for granted that millions of men view porn, there’s a significant social stigma about a woman viewing it (as if a woman’s gender made her more guilty)! She thinks, “This is supposed to be a guy problem. Something must be wrong with me because I’m trapped in this habit.” Such a fear may even keep her from confessing the sin, because she’s afraid of how she might be judged by the priest.

Some feminists propose that the solution is to tear down the walls of gender stereotyping so that women can look at porn just as freely as men, without being judged. However, the solution isn’t to remove the social stigma of women viewing porn. The solution is to rehabilitate the conscience of both men and women so that they realize that the habit should be overcome for the sake of love.

This may be surprising to read, but a child’s perception of pornography is more realistic than that of a grown man. Men who are accustomed to viewing porn have developed elaborate mental rationalizations as to why their hobby is nothing more than entertainment divorced from reality. They learn to see soulless bodies, not persons. In their mind, it’s not real life. On the other hand, the shock that children experience when they are exposed to pornography is the result of their ability to see persons as persons.

Pure hearts perceive it: porn is real life, and involves real people. Unfortunately, porn addicts never consider the lives of women before or after the porn is filmed. Many of them are teens and young women who have been enslaved within the multi-billion-dollar sex-trafficking industry. According to those within the porn industry, the models are often drunk and strung out on drugs and were almost certainly abused as children or teens.

While on Larry King Live, Pam Anderson shared, “Well, you know, I grew up in a very—in an alcoholic home and there was violence in my household. And I think it’s just my model of a relationship. . . . I remember the first time I worked with Playboy, my first cover. I was in tears. I was afraid they were going to see something. That obviously changed rather quickly. I lost my modesty.” Howard Stern asked another famous porn star if it’s true that many porn stars were molested or raped. She denied it, and affirmed her willingness to pose for the pictures and videos. However, later she admitted that before entering the porn industry, she had been raped by numerous men, beaten, and left for dead.

But what happens to the model after the pornography is filmed? Many porn stars aren’t even alive, because those within the industry have an enormous mortality rate (drug overdose, suicide, murder, AIDS, etc). Furthermore, many pornographic images and videos are of women who have since quit the business, but do not have the legal rights to remove their images. I know of one who couldn’t handle the lifestyle after her fourth abortion. I met another who had been a stripper in Los Angeles. While she was stripping, she said it was the lowest point in her life. While on stage, she said the men would cheer, but she died inside. When I met her, her husband had kicked her out of the house and she was homeless and trying to win a custody battle for her child. She was scrubbing the floors of a hotel at 3:00 in the morning to make ends meet.

Meanwhile, those who view porn imagine it’s only a fantasy-world into which they escape. They wish it were pretend, so that they could wash their hands of any guilt in the crime. The brush off any responsibility for women by saying, “Well, she’s willing to do it. No one’s getting hurt.”

But this isn’t Hollywood. There are no stunt doubles and pretend deaths. The ex-porn star’s four aborted babies weren’t fake. One ex-Playboy bunny said, “It took me close to 20 years, to undo what was done to me in pornography.” She knew of another playboy model who had to have “her reproductive organs removed because of venereal disease.” Not long ago, police in Florida found the corpse of a playboy model, burnt in a dumpster in Miami. It wasn’t fake. In porn, it’s real people, really getting used, and really agreeing to do it in order make money off others.

These are only a few small examples of the lives of those within the porn industry. It’s impossible to fathom the depth of human suffering that it has caused. And none of this even considers the effects of porn on the viewer. C.S. Lewis perhaps summed it up best when he was addressing the problem of lust:

“For me the real evil of masturbation [and porn] would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back: send the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover: no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. … After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little, dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.”

Let’s say you meet a beautiful woman, and the two of you become best friends. Before long, you’re in love, and eventually you ask her to marry you. The two of you go off to your honeymoon, and return to discover that she’s now pregnant with your first child, a little girl.

When the baby arrives, you’re the first to see her in the delivery room. Tears fill your eyes as you look at this miniature version of your bride. You’re in love all over again, and you stand in awe of what you and your wife and your God have created. You raise her with love, teach her to ride a bike, and swoop her into your arms if she ever stubs her knee. She’s your princess, and you’re her king, and the both of you know it. Years go by, and you begin to raise a family.

Today, it’s her seventeenth birthday and so she has a pool party with her friends. She walks out of the house in her bathing suit, and your son takes the opportunity to grab his digital camera and take pictures of her. Since she’s so attractive, he publishes the pictures, and even puts them on the Internet. Before too long, there are hundreds of thousands of strange men across the world lusting after your princess. They stare at her body, and make all sorts of sick jokes about what they think of her, and what they’d like to do to her.

At this point, how do you feel? Would you be comforted if they said they were “just appreciating the beauty of womanhood?”

Now imagine the heart of God the Heavenly Father, who loves his daughters infinitely more than you or I could ever love ours. The women in swimsuit magazines are daughters of the King of Heaven, whether they realize it or not. What’s sad is that we sons have made a market selling His daughters. For this reason, Pope John Paul II challenges us: “each man must look within himself to see whether she who was entrusted to him as a sister in humanity . . . has not become in his heart an object of adultery.”(1) We’re called to treat women with the honor, purity, and reverence that we would expect all men to treat our daughters with.

I had all the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues back in high school, and I knew all the reasons why it supposedly wasn’t that bad. Granted, none of these arguments really convinced me, but why would I care? I just enjoyed seeing the women. Before I could realize or stop it, the way I saw all women became warped. My standard of physical beauty became that of impossible perfection. As the eye wanders from one page to the next in the magazine with lust, your eyes begin to gaze from one girl to the next in the mall or on campus. Before long, you assume that constant lust is pretty much natural for a teenage guy.

Then, we see girls in school or even at church, and without even realizing it, we are turning them into objects. We begin to measure the value of a woman by how much lust she generates in us. We become shallower and shallower. Meanwhile, we lull our consciences to sleep by saying that it really won’t affect us that much. The images of porn brand themselves into our minds, and I know all too well how long it takes to erase them.

But it isn’t just the images that stick with you. Your wandering eyes stay with you. They don’t turn off and stay on one girl when you enter a relationship. You trained them to look at everything that could possibly arouse them. They became gluttons for lust. Now married, I still feel the effects of the porn and swimsuit magazines I looked at over ten years ago. It trains you to have unfaithful eyes: to wander with your eyes towards every attractive woman around. I’m not talking about lusting after every woman, but having a tendency to want to look at every beautiful woman within a hundred yards of you. But my eyes, like my heart and my body, belong to (my wife) alone. If I know there is an attractive woman walking my way in the mall, I should look somewhere else, instead of needing to at least glance at her. Now, it’s no sin just to see a beautiful woman, but we must re-train ourselves for monogamy (one wife), because porn trains us to have mental polygamy (many wives).

What do you do when you see a gorgeous woman? I recommend that you say in your heart the words of Psalm 84: “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Mighty God.” Because every person is a temple of the Holy Spirit, we can rightly thank God for the beauty of where he dwells. ____________________________________________ 1. Pope John Paul II, apostolic letter, Mulieris Dignitatem 14 (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women), (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1988).