Intimacy dissolves even within shared spaces. Have you ever found yourself dating someone who always seemed to be busy?
Busy with work.
Helping their parents.
Running errands for you.
Absorbed in their hobbies.
Any moment that could be spent building intimacy somehow gets filled with another task. The breakdown of daily connection even through small acts may become a symptom of a deeper emotional or spiritual disconnection.
And it’s the perfect setup for Satan to thrive.
Avoidance behavior is a derailer of intimacy. It creates a breeding ground for the enemy to plant further attacks.
What starts as busyness can slowly trickle into disaster. The old adage men want respect and women want love continues to ring true. When intimacy comes second and productivity becomes the priority, couples begin to unravel:
Women lose respect.
Men lose love.
And that is when porn enters the chat.
What feels “harmless” becomes the spark that ignites emotional disconnection.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
According to the Journal of Sex Research, 91.5% of men and 60.2% of women reported consuming pornography in the past month. While videos were most commonly used, women showed a greater tendency to consume written content—often rich in emotional storytelling and fantasy. The most common reason? To enhance masturbation.
Solo gratification with porn rewires our neural circuits. We’ve all heard that porn increases dopamine beyond baseline, but why is this concerning?
Dopamine is the hormone of pursuit.
Oxytocin is the hormone of connection.
But when dopamine is continuously exceeded through porn usage—without human bonding—oxytocin doesn’t rise to meet the occasion, and this imbalance erodes our ability to form deep emotional bonds.
In both humans and animals, oxytocin is linked to nurturing, monogamy, and social bonding. Even in rats, higher oxytocin levels lead to stronger pair bonding and more pro-social behavior.
What we do unintentionally hooks us to isolation, distraction, and disconnection.
1 Peter 5:8–9 (NIV)
“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith…”
You don’t have to “fall” to get devoured.
You just have to stay distracted.
What We Learn
Porn reinforces solitary pleasure “Why make up after a fight? I’ll just watch porn.”
Dopamine is pursued without purpose.
Desire becomes independent, instant, and inward.
Tasks become a tool to avoid presence.
Productivity replaces partnership.
And so even under the same roof, couples begin to feel emotionally starved and live in disconnected isolation.
The enemy doesn’t need you to fall—he just needs you distracted.
Key Takeaways
Porn reinforces solitary, pleasure-over-connection behavior.
Dopamine becomes directionless.
Tasks become excuses to avoid presence.
Intimacy dissolves even within shared spaces.
References
Dulac, C., O’Connell, L. A., & Wu, Z. (2014). Neural control of maternal and paternal behaviors. Science, 345(6198), 765–770. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1253291
Insel, T. R., & Young, L. J. (2001). The neurobiology of attachment. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2(2), 129–136. https://doi.org/10.1038/35053579
Peña, C. J., Smith, M. K., Ramakrishnan, A., Byrnes, E. M., & Champagne, F. A. (2024). Gestational stress disrupts dopamine and oxytocin signaling in postpartum females and leads to depressive-like maternal behaviors. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 2340. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-84043-6
Solano, I., Eaton, N. R., & O’Leary, K. D. (2020). Pornography consumption, modality and function in a large internet sample. Journal of Sex Research, 57(1), 92–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2018.1532488
