17 min read
Luke’s Journal July 2026  |  Vol.31  No.2  |  Sexuality

The ‘priestly’ role of health professionals in a secularised society

This is the first of three articles on how to navigate a hypersexualised society as a Christian medical professional. This article will address the effects of sexualised media, especially pornography, on teenagers. It will empower you to explore these issues with teenagers and their parents. The second article will discuss transgender issues, and the third, sexual orientation.

As health professionals, we have the privilege of seeing people at every age and stage of life, from the first cry of the newborn to the last breath of death. In a secularised society, ‘buffered’ from the supernatural,¹ our scientific knowledge gives us the kind of final authority which priests and other religious leaders used to possess.

As Christian medical and dental professionals, we can express our love for God in the way we care for and advise our patients in light of both our knowledge of God through His Word, the Bible, and our detailed knowledge of their body through science.

Teenagers today are troubled

Teenagers today are the most virtually connected, socially aware, advertised to and sexualised generation in human history. They are also anxious, depressed, lonely and antisocial.

The 2024 Australia’s Health report states that mental health conditions form the main cause of disease for young people. They also have the highest rates of hospitalisation for intentional self-harm.² An Australian survey reported a significant increase in psychological distress in young people, especially girls aged 16- 24 years, beginning in 2011-2012.³ This coincides with the introduction of smartphones with front-facing cameras, the escalation of social media platforms and the availability of high-speed internet.⁴

The internet and social media have undoubtedly had a positive impact on information dissemination and education. But we are increasingly aware that the developing brains of children and teenagers are not mature enough to manage the volume and variety of information available, nor discern truth from falsehood.

“The younger a person was when they got their first smartphone, the poorer their mental health was as a young adult.”

A 2023 global study on mental health found a consistent pattern: the younger a person was when they got their first smartphone, the poorer their mental health was as a young adult.⁵

A recent study on global trends in mental health examined 2.5 million people across 85 countries and discovered young adult mental health to be worse than that of older generations in all the countries they studied.⁶ They identify four factors that together predict three-quarters of this effect: diminished family bonds; diminished spirituality; smartphones at an increasingly young age; and increasing consumption of ultra-processed food.⁷ All of these are subjects the health professional could introduce when interviewing a teenager, especially as part of a HEEADSSS psychosocial interview,⁸ and are also avenues for productive discussion with parents.

Parents are perplexed

A 2025 report from Parenting Today in Victoria reporting on over 2600 primary caregivers of children under 19 years old documented top parental concerns to include child’s anxiety (40%), electronic device use (40%), sibling conflicts (38%) and attention issues (36%).⁹

In America, SafeHome.org interviewed over 2500 parents and reported that 70% of parents disclosed that social media and the internet are their foremost apprehensions, followed by worries regarding safe sex for teenagers and the concept of body autonomy.¹⁰

“Health professionals need the information and skills to introduce and discuss issues with parents proactively as well as respond when issues arise.”

Research suggests that parents would like their child’s health professional to provide them with guidance and resources on how to conduct family discussions about pornography.¹¹ Health professionals need the information and skills to introduce and discuss issues with parents proactively as well as respond when issues arise.¹²

The anti-social effects of social media

The internet, now enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI), is undoubtedly a valuable source of information. But the developing brains of children and teens have difficulty assessing the credibility of information¹³ and the authority and reliability of sources,¹⁴ making teens vulnerable to misleading or harmful information.

Sophisticated algorithms tailor content to fit the user’s interests, capturing teenagers’ attention, so they keep scrolling into more and more extreme sites, possibly ending up on sites that facilitate self-harm, eating disorders, transgenderism, and suicidal tendencies.

“Teenagers are detaching from physical reality and moving their lives online…”

Teenagers are detaching from physical reality and moving their lives online, where they live in fantasy worlds of video games, avatars, and chatbots, and are exposed to grooming, sextortion, cyberbullying and pornography.

This article will discuss the use, abuse and effects of pornography and suggest ways in which health professionals can help teenagers and parents, especially those who profess a Christian faith, deal with it. There are many good websites for those who wish to further explore other topics about the use and misuse of the cyberworld.¹⁵

The health professional’s quasi-priestly authority in contemporary secularised society means that teenagers may feel safer and more comfortable discussing distressing topics with us than with their parents or other authority figures. This may especially be the case for issues like pornography, which in Christian or other religious contexts is associated with ‘sin,’ and therefore with guilt and shame.

Health professionals are, for the same reason, also likely to be the first point of call for a parent concerned about pornography in their child’s life. We therefore need to be able to effectively screen for pornography use, create a confidential and comfortable environment to talk about pornography use and sexuality, and be informed of ways to promote open discussion between youth and parents. We can thereby make the most of these opportunities to educate and inform all family members in ways which decrease anxiety and conflict and strengthen family bonds.

Early exposure to porn

Pornography is commonly defined as professionally produced or user-generated sexually explicit pictures or videos intended to sexually arouse the viewer. In this era of AI, it could include deepfakes and interactive sexbots.

Pornography is woven into the cultural landscape of our teens, shaping conversations and actions around sex, relationships, and identity from an early age.

A survey conducted by the eSafety Commissioner’s office with over 1000 adolescents aged 16–18 years found that approximately 75% reported having encountered internet pornography, with 40% of adolescents first encountering it under the age of 13. Most (63%) indicated that they encountered internet pornography monthly or more often.¹⁶

A 2022 study by Common Sense Media with over 1300 teens between 13 and 17 reported that 15% of youth had seen online pornography by age 10, with 54% seeing it by age 13 and 73% by age 17.¹⁷ More youth reported viewing it accidentally than on purpose.

To best assist teenagers both to resist the seduction of pornography and deal with its consequences, we need to understand what makes teenagers especially vulnerable to it.

The vulnerability of the teen brain

The teen brain is wired to make rapid, risk-taking decisions based on emotion, especially in the presence of their peers. This, coupled with the natural sexual curiosity of adolescence, makes teenagers particularly vulnerable to pornography.

After early childhood, adolescence represents the second most intensive period of brain maturation. During early adolescence, the limbic system (the emotional, impulsive centre of the brain), including the amygdala (emotion, fear) and nucleus accumbens (reward, sensation-seeking), experiences accelerated growth. Meanwhile, the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for making critical judgements, planning, controlling impulses, decision-making, and regulating emotions, is much slower to develop. It only matures in the mid-twenties.¹⁸ This creates an imbalance where emotional drive outweighs inhibitory control. At a neurochemical level, adolescence is a time of peak sensitivity to dopamine, the neurotransmitter driving motivation and reward in the limbic system.

In other words: the teen brain is wired for impulsivity!

This is why teenagers need wise advice from older, more mature people. The whole book of Proverbs is full of exhortations against youthful impulses towards sexual immorality (Prov 5), and also against other youthful vices like violence (Prov 3:31); theft (Prov 10:2a); and laziness (Prov 6:6-11).

Health professionals can be wise, significant adults in young people’s lives, guiding them towards wholeness through combining Biblical wisdom with medical and scientific knowledge.

Pornification of the teen brain

The teenage brain is also at a stage of optimal neuroplasticity. The wiring in the teen brain is very sensitive to input, both healthy and unhealthy. Following a surge of neuronal growth just before puberty, the brain undergoes ‘pruning’ of unused neural connections and strengthening of those that are stimulated by experience. In simple terms: use it or lose it.

Porn’s sexual hyperstimulation habituates young people’s malleable brains into unhealthy thought patterns which are the complete antithesis of healthy sexual intimacy. When introduced during the critical developmental phase of adolescence, porn can disrupt natural patterns of intimacy, decision-making, and even brain structure.

The damage can be summarised in three steps:

The first step is sensitisation. Porn is intense, super-sexualised stimuli, a supra-normal sexual bombardment that teen brains are not designed to handle. It sets up a self-reinforcing cycle of constant craving for more volume and variety of sexual stimulation.

Porn hijacks the reward circuits of the limbic brain, causing surges of dopamine that sensitise the sexual desire circuits to constantly crave pornography. It also rewires the motivation and reward circuits in the brain so that the porn user becomes sexually hyper-reactive, seeing and feeling sexual cues everywhere, which in turn triggers even more porn use. Masturbating to orgasm further fixes this pattern, with the user forming a mental ‘bond’ to pornography and accumulating a library of sexual images in the brain.¹⁹

“But hungry for the same high, the user seeks out more novel, increasingly intense pornography to get the same high as before.”

The dopamine receptors become desensitised when continued porn use overloads the dopamine reward system in the brain.

What was exciting now becomes boring. But hungry for the same high, the user seeks out more novel, increasingly intense pornography to get the same high as before.¹⁹ Teenagers at this stage of porn use have their brains wired to accept pornified sex as acceptable behaviour. They are therefore likely to engage in risky sexual behaviour and sexual aggression, perpetration and victimisation. It is also related to dangerous and potentially illegal online activities like sexting and online grooming,²⁰ and even the practice of paraphilia and voyeurism.

Continued use of pornography results in cortical hypo-frontality: a shrinkage of the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that makes rational decisions and dissuades you from doing things which might feel good but are actually harmful.

Research has associated heavy porn use with a decline in frontal lobe functioning and metabolism, along with reduced functional connectivity between the amygdala and ventral striatum with the prefrontal cortex.²¹ This hypo-frontality may explain the inability to control sexual behaviour, exaggerated cue-reactivity, uncontrolled impulsivity, poor decision-making, interference with working memory and preoccupation with masturbatory sex, with an impairment of the ability to shift the focus away from sexual or explicit stimuli, all of which characterise addictive behaviour.²² Impulse control becomes too weak to battle the cravings even when negative consequences seem imminent. By becoming more accustomed to the high-stimulation, synthetic environment of porn than to a real-life partner, young men can develop porn-induced erectile dysfunction (PIED).²³

All this has negative effects on Christian character and confidence. A Christian teen, knowing the sinfulness of porn, will probably feel guilty and ashamed. Instead of coming to Christ for forgiveness, they may, like Adam and Eve in the Garden, seek to hide their sin and hide from God (Gen 2:9-10).

“Asking the right questions in a routine sexual health assessment can help the teen turn away from porn use at the early stage of brain sensitisation.”

Asking the right questions in a routine sexual health assessment can help the teen turn away from porn use at the early stage of brain sensitisation. Health professionals can play an active role in screening, conducting assessments and providing guidance.

Having an unbiased understanding of the impact of and function of pornography use in adolescents is crucial to supporting them through their sexual development. Any of these issues could be exposed during a sexual history of a teenager. The teenager may confess to the parent or some other trusted friend or adult, who then comes to the health professional for advice.

Parents may come to the health professional with concerns about their child’s mental health, change in mood, poor school performance or other psychological or behavioural concerns. We need to be prepared to discuss this from a scientific and health perspective and be ready to refer to a counsellor or psychologist if specialised therapy is required. We can use these opportunities to discuss the need for parents to be proactive in discussing sex, including pornography, with their children in an age-appropriate manner.²⁴

Brain recovery

The brain doesn’t have to stay stuck on porn. It can be renewed. The same ‘use it or lose it’ neuroplasticity that porn hijacks also permits the brain to rewire its neurocircuitry.

Neurologists have shown that a person can overcome bad habits and addictions by building new, positive habits in their life that create new, positive neural pathways.

Intentionally avoiding sexual fantasies and refusing porn starves the neural pathways associated with them. Focusing on healthy relationships and wholesome activities reassociates the dopamine reward cycle with them instead. This sets up a virtuous cycle of degrading the neural pathways that crave porn and training oneself to enjoy beneficial relationships and activities instead. Over time, the cravings for porn and the constant cues for sexual thought will diminish, and willpower will return. With practice, patience, and perseverance, freedom from porn can be the person’s new reality.²⁵

“The earlier the teen turns away from porn use, the easier it will be to rewire the brain.”

The earlier the teen turns away from porn use, the easier it will be to rewire the brain. Health professionals can help teenagers and their parents understand what is happening to them and help them redirect their thought patterns in more excellent and praiseworthy ways that are true, noble, right, and pure (Phil 4:8).

Conclusion

Parents, teachers and health professionals need to recognise that just as we teach teens about safe driving, drugs, and peer pressure, we must teach them how to navigate a world where porn is not just ubiquitous but aggressively marketed to them.

Silence on the topic leaves teens vulnerable to temptation and enslavement. If we don’t prepare teens to face this, porn becomes their sex education. Talking about social media and porn helps discernment and wisdom. Realistic, respectful conversations lead to better decision-making, emotional regulation, and resilience. Growth in Christian maturity is the result, which, instead of guilt and shame, inculcates increasing confidence in Christ and the ability to stand for Him in public.

---

1. Taylor, C., A Secular Age, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007.
2. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australia’s Health 2024: In Brief, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra, ACT, 2024, available from https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/australias-health/summaries.
3. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australia’s health 2022: Data Insights, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra, ACT, 2022, available from https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-health/australias-health-2022-data-insights/about.
4. Haidt, J., The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, New York: Penguin Press, 2024.
5. Haidt, J. and Rausch, Z., ‘Kids Who Get Smartphones Earlier Become Adults With Worse Mental Health,’ After Babel Substack, 15 May 2023, available from https://www.afterbabel.com/p/sapien-smartphone-report.
6. Sapien Labs, Global Mind Health in 2025, Global mind project 2025, pp 6-9, available from https://sapienlabs.org/global-mind-health-report/.
7. Ibid, page 14.
8. Sydney Children’s Hospital Network, ‘HEEADSSS interview for adolescents,’ NSW Government, updated 16 March 2026, available at https://www.schn.health.nsw.gov.au/transition-adult-health-care-health-professionals/heeadsss-interview-adolescents.
9. Parenting Research Centre, ‘Parenting Today in Victoria,’ available at https://www.parentingrc.org.au/tools/parenting-today-in-victoria/.
10. Gabriele, R., ‘Report on Parenting in America,’ SafeHome.org, 8 Dec 2025, available at https://www.safehome.org/family-safety/parenting-in-america-report/.
11. Jhe, G. B. et. al., ‘Pornography Use Among Adolescents and the Role of Primary Care,’ Fam Med Community Health 11(1) (Jan 2023):e001776. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36650009/.
12. For more on Christian parenting, we would recommend Connor, H. (ed.), Parenting in God’s Family Volumes 1 and 2, Youthworks Media 2024 and 2026.
13. Nygren, T., and Guath, M., ‘Swedish Teenagers’ Difficulties and Abilities to Determine Digital News Credibility,’ Nordicom review 40(1) (2019), 23-42.
14. Hirvonen, N., and Palmgren-Neuvonen, L., ‘Cognitive authorities in health education classrooms: A Nexus Analysis on Group-Based Learning Tasks,’ Library & Information Science Research, 41(3) (2019), 100964.
15. See Protect Young Eyes, https://www.protectyoungeyes.com/; Common Sense Media, https://www.commonsense.org/; Internet Safety 101, https://internetsafety101.org/; Culture Reframed, https://culturereframed.org/.
16. Minihan, S. et al., ‘Young People’s Intentional and Unintentional Encounters with Internet Pornography in Australia,’ Archives of Sexual Behavior 54, (2025), 1575–1588. Available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03109-2.
17. Common Sense Media, ‘Teens and Pornography,’ 10 Jan, 2023, available at https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/teens-and-pornography.
18. Arain, M. et. al., ‘Maturation of the Adolescent Brain,’ Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 9 (2013), 449–461. Available at https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S39776.
19. Love, T. et. al., ‘Neuroscience of Internet Pornography Addiction: A Review and Update,’ Behavioral Sciences 5(3) (2015), 388-433. Available at https://doi.org/10.3390/bs5030388.
20. Gassó, A. M., and Bruch-Granados, A., ‘Psychological and Forensic Challenges Regarding Youth Consumption of Pornography: A Narrative Review,’ Adolescents, 1(2) (2021), 108-122. Available at https://doi.org/10.3390/adolescents1020009.
21. Jha, A., and Banerjee, D., ‘Neurobiology of Sex and Pornography Addictions: A Primer,’ Journal of Psychosexual Health, 4(4) (2022), 227-236.
22. Hilton, D. L., ‘Pornography Addiction – a Supranormal Stimulus Considered in the Context of Neuroplasticity,’ Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology, 3(1) (2013). Available at https://doi.org/10.3402/snp.v3i0.20767.
23. Jacobs, T. et. al., ‘Associations between online pornography consumption and sexual dysfunction in young men: multivariate analysis based on an international web-based survey,’ JMIR Public Health And Surveillance, 7(10) (2021), e32542.
24. Patricia has a series of books, all published by Youthworks Media. For primary schoolers: Birds and Bees By The Book, 2017; for 10-14-year-olds: Growing Up By The Book, 2014; for older teenagers: Teen Sex By The Book, 3^rd ed 2019. For more information on the neuronal effects of porn, see ‘The Developing Brain,’ chapter 5 pp 92-114 of Talking Sex By The Book, Youthworks Media 2023.
25. Black, S., ‘Habits of Freedom,’ Chapter 6 pages 29-41 in The Porn Circuit, 2021. Cited in Covenant Eyes on 8th April 2026 https://support.covenanteyes.com/hc/en-us/articles/12515936659739-Ebooks.