A few years ago I met with a church member who was struggling with sexual sin with his girlfriend, as well as a porn habit. We talked through a variety of means for him to prevent and resist temptation—certain habits of prayer, adding content monitors to his computer, committing to less time online, moving the computer out of his bedroom, not taking his girlfriend to his apartment when no one was home—and he sincerely, earnestly made all of these commitments.

As the conversation was ending, he said, "Are you going to see such-and-such movie this weekend?" It was a gritty new film that featured gangsters, prostitutes, and strippers, and if the advertising was to be believed, would be sexually charged. I searched for words for a moment, until, "Are you kidding me?" fell out of my mouth. My friend seemed surprised at my response, and began to replay the question in his mind, wondering why I was frustrated.
"We've just spent an hour talking about ways to reshape your life so that you aren't in a place of sexual temptation, and you're going to see that movie?"

"Oh," he said, relieved. "It's fine, man. Movies don't affect me like that."

I shook my head. I had a genuine, but limited, sympathy for the guy. … Most porn addicts take a slow path toward stuff that's hard-core, and in comparison to his drug of choice this movie seemed downright tame. What he failed to see—and what many of us fail to see—is that our consumption of media has cumulative, life-shaping effects.