Christian Crush: Could a religious dating site be the answer to porn addiction?

Imagine two words on polar sides of one another but which equally shape human existence for most people. Sex and religion have rarely gone hand in hand throughout history but that might be about to change thanks to a Christian man in Colorado who is trying to change that by talking about porn.

Christian Crush is a religious dating site that puts Christian singles in touch with each other, but this isn't its only function. Their mission is "reducing the divorce rate one marriage at a time" and as part of this, they offer therapy for porn addiction.

While porn addiction is not an official disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-V (DSM-5) - the manual used to diagnose mental disorders in the US - it is clear that there is an increasing awareness of its potential impacts on public sexual health.

With 10% of adults saying they suffered with porn addiction and 47% of Christians saying it was a problem in their home, according to 2015 results by Thought Hub, society is becoming increasingly aware of the impacts of freely accessible pornography and excessive watching.

The popular podcast by award-winning writer Jon Ronson (The Butterfly Effect) did just that. Through tracking the effects of Pornhub's creation, a number of unexpected consequences had developed for people within the porn industry and those outside of it.

One of the episodes explicitly examined the steep rise in erectile dysfunction among young males in the last decade (Research from 2013 highlighted that one in four men under 40 are seeking treatment for it) and the emergence of pornography addiction.

Wyatt Fisher has a doctorate in clinical psychology and founded Christian Crush. He talked to IBTimes UK about why their dating service offers the unusual service and why.

It all stemmed the previously mentioned desire to lower divorce rates. As well as putting Christians in touch with each other and offering relationship and marriage counselling, Fisher wanted to address the impact pornography had on couples in what is known as 'Porn Battle' on his website.

He told IBTimes UK: "People can be pulled to porn for a variety of factors, including maternal wounds from their upbringing, never feeling like they "got the pretty girl" growing up, used to getting the "pretty girl" growing up, and learning to turn to it as their drug of choice in response to current feelings of stress, depression, and powerlessness.

"I recently worked with a couple in my practice where the husband was struggling with porn addiction and it was tearing their marriage apart. Over 6 months to a year we worked on understanding what drives him to porn and how to slowly eradicate it from his life while simultaneously helping his wife understand why it's so addictive, her role in increasing the temptation, and healing from the betrayal from it."

Fisher offers two-part seminars in which he and his wife, Alia Fisher, speak about the addictive nature of pornography, the representation of women as sex objects and then how to move on from it. Since the videos are pre-recorded, couples can watch them whenever they want privately at the cost of $39.

They are split into two segments in order to firstly tackle why porn "can be so highly addictive" - exploring how their wives can help them - and secondly how to eliminate it from their lives.

Aside from the ease of access now, he told us that porn plays on our brain's reward centre just as heroin would do, hence why it impacts people so strongly.

"It's the most addictive learning pattern just like gambling. In gambling, you try and try then randomly win. Likewise with porn you search and search for the ideal image or video and then you hit it."

Whilst pornography addiction is a relatively new condition in mainstream consciousness - one that medicine is yet to acknowledge - it is clear that Fisher is trying to bring his approach to religion and relationships up to date. The only issue is, it is an extremely gendered perception of the issue.

In reality, free pornography and its impact on sexual health has been felt by women too. With one in five women using the internet for sexual purposes every week according to a 2013 survey, it isn't unique to men.