But let’s face it: without conscious discipline, our visual foreplay is rarely confined to the marriage bed, and that’s when it becomes detestable.
Jesus clearly equated a man’s lustful thoughts over a woman with actually making love to her. And when you think about how our eyes work, looking at women and thinking about sex really is the same as doing it. The strong wash of chemical pleasure men get when they lust with their eyes is similar to the wash of pleasure they receive when they do the real thing with a woman.
When the apostle Paul said that those who sexually sin are actually sinning against their own bodies, he many have been referring to how the male body craves this chemical high more and more once we start down this path of sin. The eyes have it – they keep searching and hunting and lurking for more nudity and more highs.
That’s why it’s so hard to say no to porn. It’s addictive. It’s like athlete’s foot of the mind, as one person described it. It’s always asking to be scratched, but when guys scratch, they cause more pain and intensify the itch.