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"Sexual intimacy is a beautiful creation by God to bring two people close together. The sex in porn involves no intimacy or connection. It is the conjoined bodies of two fake people, performing meaningless physical intercourse absent of any emotional or spiritual essence. They do not know or mean anything to one another. The money is what brought them together." — April Garris

Why am I sharing this? | Excuses I used for viewing it | How God freed me from it
How God has kept me from it | Guarding against it | Not just a problem for men

I hesitate to share this publicly, because I know I will be a marked man; but it pales in comparison to the truth that needs to be heard. Having listened to Jessica Harris's testimony (original link), (a lady God rescued from addiction to pornography), I am convinced that this is what I need to do.

I was addicted on and off to pornography from sometime in the mid-1990s to about 2008. For the most part, it all began with an lharc-compressed image file I downloaded from a local Bulletin Board System (BBS). The image wasn't what I wanted—someone had intentionally misnamed it with an innocent title to hide its pornographic contents. I say "for the most part" because it wasn't the first time I was inadvertently exposed to pornography (among others, a movie on an international flight, a photo in a Swazi newspaper, and a magazine some high school friends stumbled onto that someone had discarded in a field near their house), but it was what I consider to have been the beginning of an ugly addiction. Because while I never asked for those initial encounters, I was guilty of asking for the ones that followed.

Obviously, I blame no-one but myself. I grew up in a Christian home, and was taught what was right and wrong. I knew better; but looking back to the early 90s, it only took one intentionally misnamed image to launch the addiction.

Why am I sharing this?

"Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself." — Lois McMaster Bujold

1. I want to be the same person on the inside that you see on the outside—no mask. This confession is part of that process: James 5:16 "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."
2. I fear for the church. As you may already be aware, this sin is rampant—especially in the church; including pastors, youth pastors, and other leadership, and it's not just a sin that men are guilty of. There are two websites ministering specifically to women of all ages addicted to pornography and lust: beggarsdaughter.com and dirtygirlsministries.com. The insidious onslaught of media, coupled with the secrecy of mobile devices is putting younger generations at greater risk; but no-one is outside of its reach. All it takes is one image, video or audio clip, book, or magazine.
3. Pretending it's not a problem in the church isn't working.

Excuses I used for viewing it

I've been curious (okay, fascinated) about anatomy and sex since I was old enough to know the differences between girls and boys. Still single into my 40s, the truth is that it is hard to be single and long deeply for intimacy, especially as you get older. Yet we have to manage our God-given desires for emotional and sexual intimacy, and one way or another that requires sacrifice. Either our own will and desires up front (staying away from porn and lust) until—or if—God chooses to bless us with a spouse, or the deadly, cascading effects of porn in our lives which also spills into the lives of people around us when we choose to disobey God and live in sin.

As my mom told me a long time ago, excuses are the "skin of a reason stuffed with a lie." For nearly eighteen years, my excuses were:

• "I'm curious about anatomy and sexuality." (true; but curiosity doesn't excuse sin)
• "God doesn't give a rip about my singleness (and neither does anyone else), so why should I? Since I can't find a wife to save my life, I'll get what I can via porn." (frustration at being single, blame and anger at God, and blatant disobedience)
• "I just want to see what God made to be so beautiful and desirable." (true; women are beautiful and desirable, but this was impatience and anger towards God, and envy of married couples)
• I was angry and jealous of women, that—or at least so I thought—weren't susceptible to porn and never had to struggle with lust. After all, who ever heard of purity conferences for women? (again, still no excuse for sin)
• "I'm not looking at the really raunchy stuff; only what's 'tasteful, artistic, and respectful' toward women." (not good enough, and the one 'tasteful' website I was frequenting soon showed its true colors by adding 'less-than-artistic' imagery through a spinoff website)

Despite knowing it was wrong, one or more of these excuses were my response everytime I came under conviction of sin.

When the majority of your peers have met their spouse and are now married—many with children—it's impossible to not see yourself as a failure. It's an ongoing struggle. I long to be loved, accepted, and desired by a woman—but the truth is that pornography can never satisfy that deep yearning. It only makes it worse.

How God freed me from it

"You cannot amputate your history from your destiny, because that is redemption." — Beth Moore

God had to tear down my stubborn will, pride, and excuses to bring me to repentance, and He did this in several ways:

1. Publicly exposing my hypocrisy as a Christian in a "dollar" movie theater in Mishawaka, Indiana when I went to watch The Sweetest Thing one Saturday afternoon in 2002. Before the movie started, two teens who had apparently been expelled from a Christian school recognized me, and from across the theater, yelled out in an attempt to embarrass me: "Hey you—don't you go to such-and-such church?" Their tactic worked; perhaps even better than they thought. Not only shamed and embarrassed, I began praying that God would somehow deliver me and make me sick of what I was watching, and He began to answer my prayer, albeit slowly because of my own stubborn sinfulness. Many times even the movies themselves I watched did not portray a "happy" ending, but rather the devastating consequences of the sin engaged in (I can easily name a number of movies from memory that did this).
2. Causing me to grow weary of living a lie and trying to hide my sin. I wanted to be the same person on the inside that people may have believed I was on the outside.
3. Making me come to grips with the truth that:
• Pornography is a lie. It's not about love and intimacy—it's about lust and selfishness.
• I was contributing to the sin that is so rampantly destroying our country—and world.
• At "best" pornography damages, and at worst, destroys the intimacy, trust, blessing, beauty, and sacredness of biblical sexuality in marriage—even ahead of time!
• Sin hinders my relationship with God.
• It does not—and cannot—truly satisfy.

In a similar fashion to the believers in Acts 19:19, this meant intentionally avoiding websites I would frequent, destroying or throwing away movie and data DVDs, permanently erasing numerous image and video files on my hard drive, and drastically changing what I watched on Netflix and why.

But the temptation to lust isn't going to go away because I got rid of material things. What has to change is my heart and mind's response to it. For a long time I've wrestled with the concept or view that holiness is like being in a white straitjacket inside a padded room, while the world outside has all the fun. But one honest look at the world around us shows up that lie for what it is, especially as the ugly contrast to biblical truth grows exponentially.

Over the phone: explaining boundaries (Season 4, Episode 5: "The Man from Emporer")

In regards to what we often perceive as unfair limits, there's an excellent quote from one of the episodes of The Dick van Dyke Show that touches on this. Toward the end (23m 11s) of season 4, episode 5 "The Man from Emperor," Rob Petrie makes a great statement about marriage when his love for his wife, Laura, and their marriage is tested:

"Marriage, like a lot of other things, has boundaries. And to some guys, those boundaries represent walls, and that makes marriage a prison to them. But to other guys, those boundaries hold everything that's good and fun in life."

That's what God's commands are—boundaries designed to protect; not stifle, even though at times it will feel like it. When I see the consequences of living without boundaries, I gladly welcome each command. They are not arbitrary or draconian; they are designed to protect and safeguard from unnecessary pain, grief, heartache, and damaged, destroyed lives.

How God has kept me from it

There are several ways in which God has spared me from a relapse:

• Again, I want to be the same person on the inside that people may have believed I was on the outside. I want a clean conscience. That doesn't mean I've arrived or am "bulletproof"; there are relationships that God has been pointing out that I need to get right, but He has changed my heart in regards to porn and lust.
• God's plan for sexuality is a whole lot better—it's beneficial, and it's beautiful. You cannot say that about lust and pornography.
• I receive daily, sobering news updates from multiple family organizations that act as continual reminders of the frightening path our nation (and world) is on because of our sin in rejecting God's laws and commands.

Because lust comes from our minds and hearts, it isn't limited to things we see. It can spring from sources other than a lewd image, website or movie, and it can be just as easy to lust over someone who is fully clothed. It can hide in subtle thoughts, romance novels, or appear while walking in malls and parking lots, while driving, strolling down supermarket aisles, and in the middle of a church service. Whenever the 'trigger' for lust occurs, we are responsible for our own thoughts, and it's an issue that requires us to be completely honest with ourselves before God. We can lie to friends trying to keep us accountable, but we can't lie to God—only He knows what someone is, or is not thinking. God always looks at the heart:

1 Samuel 16:7 (NIV 1984) "...But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.""

So I don't have a pornography filter on my computer. Why? First of all, because filters are flawed, and they simply cannot fully protect against pornography. There are images on a number of sites that they can't easily guard against: Web search engines and Wikipedia are two such examples. Filters also cannot protect me from my thoughts and the images already burned into my mind. Neither can I escape living in a world that is rapidly becoming more invasive and aggressive in its opposition to God and His design for sexuality. So the best filter is a changed heart—one that recognizes the ugly lies that pornography, lust, and immorality are, while esteeming the beauty of what God intended sexuality and marriage to be. Immodest dress/fashion, magazine covers at supermarket checkouts—even TV ads—aren't going to going away; in fact, they're going to get worse. You have to first and foremost recognize and disarm the motives and intent behind whatever you may encounter, and God has to place within you a repulsion for it. The answer lies in the completely different focus and perspective than simply avoiding or not doing. It's in living out the truth of God's Word: honoring Him, respecting women, and calling on the carpet the lies and intentional twisting of sexuality for what it is. My prayer is that God will never let me go back.

Guarding against it

There's simply no way to avoid being exposed to some form of lust or pornography in our society—it's all around us, and it's increasing by the day. Despite what some may believe, being raised in a godly, Christian home is no guarantee against falling into lust and pornography. The best prevention however, is two-fold: first, be open and honest about the anatomical/medical aspects of sex with your children—appropriate to their age—and secondly, share the truth often of how and why sex can be either a tremendous blessing in marriage or a serious sin problem outside of it. We all need those daily reminders.

Not just a problem for men

The misconception through silence is being broken: via numerous websites and blogs, women are sharing the truth about their struggles with lust through pornography and erotica. The Good Women Project (Archive/Pornography section), Dirty Girls Ministries, Beggars Daughter, and The Porn Effect are just a handful of examples.

The following statistics are old, but very sobering when you realize the problem has only been increasing with the saturation of mobile devices and insidious media actively and aggressively promoting pornography and immorality in our world.

• 2001: 70% of 15- to 17-year-olds indicated they accidentally viewed pornography online (Kaiser Family Foundation 2001 poll)
• 2002: The adult industry says traffic is 20-30% children (NRC Report 2002, 3.3)
• 2003: Today's Christian Woman found that of their female readers, 34% admitted to intentionally accessing Internet porn. (Today's Christian Woman poll, Fall 2003).
• 2007: A Sydney Morning Herald article stated that women compose 35% of porn site visitors and 42% of the clientele at sex shops. (Teacher, mind expander, spice of life: porn's multiple positions)
• 2008: 93% of boys and 62% of girls are exposed to Internet porn before the age of 18 (covenanteyes.com).
• 2009: In an interview with Oprah, Theresa Flynt, vice president for a pornographic video chain said that women account for over half of the business at their stores. Not surprisingly, Oprah essentially goes on to ask "What's wrong with that?" (CNN and Oprah.com, Are Women OK Watching Porn?)
• (date unknown) The average age of a child when she or he is first exposed to porn is 11 years old (internet-filter-review.com), and this age is shrinking.
• (date unknown) National Campaign Survey: More than one in five teenage girls (age 13-19) have participated in sexting (the act of sending nude or partially nude media electronically, usually via cell phone), and according to the same survey, over 35% of young adult women (ages 20-26) have sent nude or semi-nude material electronically.
• (date unknown) Family Safe Media:
  • Every day, there are 68 million pornographic search engine requests, which represent one-quarter of all requests.
  • The porn industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink.

If you want a few examples of how prevalent this is:

• Sears has openly sold pornographic media on their website until reminded that it is unacceptable: May 2011, May 2012.
• Starbucks openly states that homosexuality is "core" to their corporate values.
• Apple, Microsoft, and Google sponsor and promote homosexuality through sponsorship and financial donations to the Human Rights Campaign—notorious for their aggressive promotion of the homosexual agenda, attacks against religious freedom, and socialism.
• Home Depot actively promotes homosexuality and sponsors gay pride parades.
• Around Christmas 2011, two stores at University Park Mall in Mishawaka, Indiana (one of them Abercromie & Fitch) had half-nude models (shirtless guys and skimpily dressed women) standing in their doorways to "advertise" their products.
• In early 2012, Hardees aired an ad for one of their hamburgers—using a porn star, acting out sexual activity with the hamburger. This isn't a late-night TV ad; just a "run-of-the-mill" any-time-of-the-day ad.
• Harvard and Yale—once both "cream of the crop" Ivy League schools now host an annual "Sex Week". During this week, there are speakers, seminars, and movies that "explore topics such as love, sex, sexuality, gender, gender identity, and relationships." Moreover, a student organization hands out free "safer sex supplies" and educational materials and provides peer counseling. To top it off, they hold daily drawings for "sex toys, t-shirts, books, lotions, etc."

Lust thrives in silence. As individuals and churches, we can no longer avoid confronting it.

Related links and files: Jessica Harris's testimony (MP3 audio, 74.3 MB, original link) | beggarsdaughter.com | dirtygirlsministries.com | The Pornographic View of the Body | What I Wish I'd Known Before Watching Porn | pornharms.com | Why Shouldn't Johnny Watch Porn if He Likes?

Note: some opinions expressed in the links above may not necessarily reflect my own.

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