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.”