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Culture is rewiring the female brain. And I literally mean rewiring—neurochemically, neuroanatomically, women are getting rewired to be more visual and aggressive.

How does that happen? Just from repeated exposure?

Your brain does not create new brain cells, but it does have the ability to create new connections. So neurochemically, you literally can rewire the connections in your brain. There's good news and bad news to that. The bad news is you can rewire your brain toward sin, but Romans 12:1-2 [" … be transformed by the renewing of your mind"] says you can rewire your brain for good things as well.

So, someone with a pornography habit will actually physically need it?

Your brain after a while will adjust to that, and it will want more of that to achieve the same effect. That's why we see sex addicts who deteriorate over time.

You wrote in Faithful and True that our culture abuses us sexually by bombarding us with unhealthy sexual images. As a recovering addict, how do you deal with that?

If you're aware of it and you acknowledge it as a bombardment, then you know it's something you've got to deal with. If you are not acknowledging it, just letting it in on a daily basis while being desensitized to what's happening, then all of these things are kind of getting into your mind unconsciously. We have a program that we follow in terms of calling, reaching out, talking to people about what's going on.

So a key is not isolating yourself?

One of our teaching principles is that fellowship equals freedom from lust. We feel that if you're in fellowship in your marriage, in your church, in your community of friends and if you're experiencing fellowship, love, healthy touch, and nurture in those ways, you're not nearly as vulnerable to these stimuli.

So if you're getting bombarded and you're feeling tempted, you need to back up and look at the larger picture. Where am I in my marriage? Where am I in my relationships?

The phrase I've heard is that as you feed one side you starve the other.

Sex in its many forms is a substitute for healthy love and healthy nurturing. If an addict is in the depths of temptation it's generally because he or she is starved for friendship, love, healthy touch, and so on.

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