Desensitization And Erotic Media

I have never heard someone say that it is wrong to consume food because someone might develop a broader taste for various meals.  I have also never heard someone argue against watching movies by pointing out that someone could hypothetically become bored if they continue to watch the same handful of films repeatedly.  When it comes to erotic media, however, conservatives might act like a man or woman (unsurprisingly, men who use erotic media are routinely demonized more than women who use it) who uses erotic media has put themselves in a position of moral weakness because they might develop an interest in a wider spectrum of sexual imagery.

Suppose a woman regularly views sexual images and videos of men (or she at least views sensual images and videos with sexual intentions).  After a year of regular use, she prefers to look at a more diverse range of images of the male body and is not automatically as excited by the same images and videos she first viewed.  She now prefers to watch more elaborate videos of men vigorously masturbating or performing sexual activities with committed female partners, whereas she once felt greater immediate excitement at simply seeing a man strip himself in a sexual context.  Of course, this would be a subjective phenomenon that other people might find themselves unable to relate to, but it is possible for someone to have a similar experience.

Some Christians would say that this type of progression is a hallmark of sinful desensitization.  However, it parallels many other types of "desensitization" that they would not condemn, such as a husband and wife experimenting with different types of foreplay because they are not as eager to leap straight into sex as they once were.  It even parallels how someone might find deep satisfaction in a particular type of meal and then eventually grow relatively tired of it, at least for a time.  Desensitization is not an inherently vile thing, and it is in fact a potential catalyst for growth in some cases.

Either using and enjoying erotic media is sinful or it is not, but it has nothing to do with slippery slope fallacies based around a change in someone's feelings towards sexual material.  It is Biblically innocent to simply undergo a change in attitude towards a particular kind of sexual video for the same reason it is innocent to undergo a change in one's preference towards a certain kind of food, hobby, film, or musical style.  A change in preference, after all, is nothing more than a subjective matter that has nothing to do with one's worldview or moral behaviors!

A person's adherence to Biblical morality is not defined by the emotions they feel towards anything in particular or by the preferences they happen to have.  Desensitization is not only never guaranteed to happen to anyone in a particular case, but it is by nature irrelevant to whether the thing itself is immoral.  A person can be desensitized to something morally good, something amoral, or something wicked.  The strength or shifting nature of a thing's subjective appeal is of no consequence.  Regardless, to be consistent, the evangelical who assumes that potential desensitization to less explicit sexual imagery is morally negative by default must regard boredom with exclusively eating the same food or exclusively reading the same book without variation.