Pornography Addiction

It is one thing to show a man that he is in error,
and another to put him in possession of truth.

— John Locke —

Addiction to Pornography

Victory in a war is often dependent on accurate knowledge about the enemy. This is especially true when the battle is against addiction to pornography. The reason so many have fought and lost out in this conflict is not from a lack of holy desire or spiritual strength, but from wasting energy and ammunition on the wrong target. In fact, they have mistaken for an enemy what could become, through an intelligent truce, their best ally in defeating the power of pornography in their lives.

If you are to stop resisting that ally and start effectively fighting your true enemy, you must first reject what I call “The Pornographic View of the Body,” which is explained in the previous article. That article was written as a foundation for this one. I call that false perception of the body “the porno-prudish view,” because both pornography and prudery promote this same false, ungodly thinking about the body. So, if you have not read that first article, which was intended to precede this one, please, do so now, before going on.

An Unexpected Question

When I was working as a CNA (Certified Nursing Assitant), while attending nursing school, I was assigned to shave the perineum of a 40-year-old woman who was going to have a vaginal hysterectomy. While I very carefully shaved off her pubic hair, she asked me a question that forced me to think on my feet.

“Do you find this hard to do, being a male?”

My response was not something I had ever previously thought through, but it came out honestly and spontaneously.

“No, it doesn’t bother me at all. I guess it’s just too normal, too natural and real. Now, pornography does bother me, because there’s an evil intention behind it. But you’re just being yourself. You’re not acting in a wrong way with your body, and I’m not seeing it in a wrong way.”

MyChainsAreGone.orgMy answer must have reassured her, because shortly after this she ignored my male presence as she slipped out of her gown to shower. Even the sight of her fully nude body failed to “bother” me, for it was no more pornographic than the sight of her exposed pelvic area. However, because I was accustomed only to viewing my lovely young wife’s body, my big surprise was at how a woman of her age was still so shapely and attractive. This experience with hospital nudity, and the many years of it that have followed, taught me first-hand an important truth that nips pornography in the bud [see graphic].

Separating Porn from Nakedness

It’s hard to give up a familiar falsehood, especially when it has been rigorously drummed into our minds ever since early youth. But to fight our real enemy, we must first mentally expel the basic deception expressed in the “porno-prudish view” of the human body. Only then can we stand on the solid ground of truth in our fight against pornography.

When it can no longer hide beneath that widely-accepted lie, pornography’s true nature is actually stripped bare and its shameful ugliness is exposed. Without an “obscene” conception of the body to hide beneath, pornography becomes disgustingly unattractive. Its cosmetic glamour and drawing power are neutralized as soon as the true identity of human nakedness is recognized. When nakedness is separated from a false identification with porn and liberated from pornographic abuse, the proper appreciation of the body can become our natural ally and a means by which we can deal porn addiction a lethal blow.

The Goodness of Nakedness

There has always been a “goodness” in nakedness. It might even be called a virtue. Our “porno-prudish” indoctrination has generally blinded us from seeing that. Yet we still get glimpses of its wholesome power. Whenever new little naked humans enter the world, we quickly inspect their genitals and shout out their genders with emotional glee. We see it in such things as the fable of “Naked Truth,” who refused to wear the rags left behind when Falsehood stole her clothes while she bathed, and henceforth she went about openly with her beauty forever unveiled. While the naked truth needs neither embellishment nor defense, falsehood must hide its ugly heart in truth’s dress. This is exactly why pornography has dressed itself up in the lovely outfit given to us by God, the naked body. When pornography wears the truth of human nudity, it can attract those whose hearts would otherwise repulsively turn away from it in disgust.

We get more glimpses of the virtuous power in nakedness in the way God first made us (Genesis 2:25), in the way His Word exposes us to Himself (Hebrews 4:13), and in the intimate way Jesus exemplified His command to mutually serve each other by stripping Himself to wash the disciples’ feet (John 13:4, [lit.]). God intended the frankness and openness symbolized by nakedness to be the condition of our relationship not only with Him, but with each other. The truth is, if the first nude human couple had not listened to Satan (Genesis 3:1), their obedience to God’s command to “multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28) would have populated this planet with nude offspring. In such a naked world, pornography, as we know it, could never have developed.

MyChainsAreGone.orgNo, the nude body is not what Satan originally convinced our first parents to believe about it, nor what its abuse by pornography has continued to convince our culture of. But in spite of its misuse, God has never withdrawn its powerful ability to attract human attention.

Be as philosophically abstract as you dare, but the words of Scripture clearly reveal that God calls the naked human body He formed from dust (Genesis 2:7) nothing less than made “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:26-27). How can we deny our natural attraction to this one physical reality in all creation that our Designer handcrafted in His own likeness? How can we fail to appreciate the divine beauty of the one temple structure in the entire physical universe where all Members of the Triune Godhead have chosen to make Their dwelling (John 14:23; 1 Corinthians 6:19)?

Placing the unadorned human body conceptually and practically into this God-honoring context brings its conflict with “porno-prudery” into full view. In fact, your careful meditation on this godly view of the naked body will invariably expose the subtle rift that lies between nakedness and pornography. It is so culturally well hidden that most people do not see it. But this seemingly tiny rift, my friend, is the key to porn addiction’s undoing. Find that rift and drive the wedge of truth into it! The two will divide like oil and water. You will see clearly that the unnatural marriage of nakedness with pornography was the fruit of an ancient demon’s crafty scheming. Hammer the truth deep between them, and they will forever fall apart in your thinking! Their divorce cancels pornography’s exploitative manipulation of God’s creational goodness in our bodies. With this attractive asset stripped from it, all that porn addiction has left to offer is the sordid ugliness of sinful lust, which is so unappealing that the average person, Christian or not, will quickly fling it aside as mental garbage.

Visual Prostitution

After all, what is pornography anyway? The root-word “porno-” derives from the Latin word for prostitute, a woman or man who sells their body to briefly gratify a customer’s sexual appetite. Physical sexual affection and intercourse are divine blessings that come with God-given responsibilities and boundaries that limit them to expression within the marital vow alone. Sexual union inside that wedded bond is intended to be a uniting and endearing demonstration of mutual love between a couple.

Prostitution offers to take a person through the sensual mechanics of that marital relationship, but only at the price of reducing another human to a mere object through which sexual lust is temporarily satisfied. There is no relationship, no commitment, no love—just a short series of “feel good” spasms that quickly come and go, leaving both the customer and prostitute more emotionally empty than before. This is sin, because it clearly misses the mark of God’s intention for our sexuality. No one should use another’s body or offer their body for such a distorted misuse of this awesome gift that God ordained to be preserved and protected within the commitment of marriage. But in prostitution, another real, live human being’s body is been selfishly used, and then abandoned. This is intensely ugly and humanly degrading for all involved.

Pornography, like prostitution, takes the mind down exactly the same alley to exactly the same dead-end. The porn model’s posture, facial expressions, and longing stares turns her lovely body, which might have served modestly as a sculptor’s reference, into that of a vicarious prostitute. She uses her eyes and lips and the parting of her hips to broadcast a gross lie that requires just as much imagination for the viewer to believe as it does for the prostitute’s customer. But the addicted viewer feels compelled to let her performance overstretch his imagination. And what’s the result? His underwear gets wet with semen; another fellow human, made in our Creator’s image, gets devalued and toyed with as an object of mental lust; the porn junkie’s heart comes away from the episode more emotionally empty than ever. There was no love in it, no real human relationship, no true reality at all—just a defiling tangle of filthy thinking where the mind was dragged into a totally fake world to pull away empty-handed and empty-hearted.

Porn’s Hook

Why does anyone go back again and again to this miserable cycle of despair and defeat?  What could bring someone to become addicted to something so obviously unreal, so totally imaginary, so abysmally “empty?”

It is pornography’s strategic employment of something that is real, something very real, something to which God gave all of us an inborn attraction.

Porn’s enticing photograph contains the naked image of God, the potential temple of the Holy Spirit, the “fearfully and wonderfully made” habitation of another real human soul. That, and nothing less, is what our naked body really is, and because the reality behind it is so meaningful, it is extremely attractive. But when forced into a contaminating union with pornography, that same awesome temple becomes as void of its true meaning and as empty of life as a haunted palace. The beauty is still there, but not appreciated and not satisfying. Its virtue and its sacred significance are smothered by unholy dreams and selfish desires that true beauty can never satisfy.

When the repeating cycle of attraction, stimulation, and fantasizing runs its course, the most dazzling porn model’s allure is gone. Her beauty has been used up and abandoned for the next pornographic fantasy.

This is why the porn-maker must be careful with nudity. Often the porn model is shown partially clothed, but only in order to tease the imagination with a promise that there is something hidden underneath, something that somehow will provide more than the bare human anatomy actually has to offer.

Unpretentious Nakedness

MyChainsAreGone.orgNo gimmicks are needed in true art and good marriages. You can go back again and again to view and appreciate the same nude figure in a lovely sculpture or painting, always learning more from it, and never tiring of its attractive beauty. In a happy marriage, couples can rejoice in the naked bodies of their spouses and stay comfortably enthralled with the ongoing beauty that always remains there, despite the changes aging brings. In a similar way, if the fully naked body is posed too simply or naturally, without the cosmetic gimmicks or half-removed lingerie or the lurid facial and postural ploys, it can actually defeat pornography.

This is what I learned in the hospital. This is what art students learn in figure drawing classes. This is what missionaries learn who go to “naked people groups.”  Yes, an unpretentious, nonsexual display of God’s naked handiwork offers only the frank beauty of truth. It can even lead us into holy praise, as most of God’s other works in nature can do.

If it does, pornography is sabotaged. It’s on death row. It completely loses its foothold. The chains of addiction loosen and fall off. When that happens, the human body is restored to its rightful place and can be fully appreciated in the way God meant it to be, as a reflection of His image.

Years ago, I wrote a poem called Pornography. I will close with this, hoping that it will seal in your mind a new, wholesome view of the human body and a renewed hatred for the way pornography degrades and misuses it. If you are addicted to porn, and still trying to fight it using the “porno-prudish” lie so commonly preached about the body, I don’t believe you will ever meet with full victory. Jesus alone must set you free, and He already told us that He uses the truth to do it (John 8:32)

For a lasting break with porn addiction, embrace the naked truth.

— Pastor David

PORNOGRAPHY

by David L. Hatton

A poet and pornographer were arguing out loud
Upon a city street where their debate had drawn a crowd.
But fed on mocking satire from the smut-shop marketeer,
The gathering was led to chide the poet’s “prudish” fear.

A screaming female cry rang out to cheer the rights of porn:
“My naked beauty’s mine to sell! Free speech!” she yelled with scorn.
But then an aging prostitute brought silence with her shout:
“My beauty’s gone! Let’s have free speech, and hear the poet out!”

Conviction filled the poet’s voice: “I stand for womanhood!
Who markets nudity for lust, no beauty understood!
Who sold her flesh as slop to fill the feeding troughs of swine,
Was swindled of her value, doesn’t know her worth, or mine!

“Our dignity as humans teach the secrecy of love.
The privacy of mating is a treasure from above.
But make the sacred common, and you lace the truth with lies:
Love’s intimacy wasn’t meant for wanton public eyes!

“I welcome mothers’ lovely breasts exposed to nurse their young!
Bring on bare photographs of birth! Its beauties I have sung!
Display a sculpted portrait of your wife, a gorgeous nude,
But strip her for a show of sex, and you’re a fool, and lewd!

“No healthy woman really wants the hurt that lust inspires,
Nor can a spouse compete against a fantasy’s desires.
Just analyze the rapist’s diet: what’s his daily fare?
Enticing looks that porno-pimps pay unclad girls to wear!

“The question’s not of freedom, nor is it of rights denied.
We’ve sold our children’s safety, while our family honor died.
An endless carnal thirst is gushing from pornography
To drown the due respect that each man owes womanity.

“Unclothe the youthful nude they pay to twist the gawker’s mind:
Below the skin of powdered breasts and spreading legs you’ll find
A misled sister, daughter, cousin, mother, niece or wife
Who’s auctioned by a trade that drains her image of its life.

“Beneath the painted hide they hire to pose for filthy fame,
A woman’s raped of self-esteem and wrapped in sinful shame.
But sons who buy their sister’s theft have been the most untrue:
They fail to guard the woman’s worth that manhood calls them to!”

The prostitute began to clap . . . a teacher joined nearby,
Some older men took off their caps . . . two girls began to cry.
One mother lifted up her blouse to sing while baby nursed.
But most were very quiet as the gathering dispersed.

(from Poems Between Death and Life ©1999 by David L. Hatton)

Next up: The Imago Dei

 

 

8 COMMENTS

comments user
Noah

Again, very well written! I guess my question is more about the definition of lust. Obviously lust isn’t only found in the sexual arena, but that’s what we’re talking about here. So lust is “desire with intent”. I can admire my neighbor’s Corvette, and even imagine driving it. But when I decide to see if I can steal it, I have already lusted and stolen it in my heart.
In the same way, one can look at a naked person without lusting after them. But if our bodies are “very good”, why aren’t our bodily functions “very good” as well? You say that sexual intercourse is intended solely for marriage, but it was allowed in the Law (which was perfect) among the betrothed. In fact, the harm that was portrayed there was that the man was making the women less valuable for the dad when he sold her to a potential husband someday! Are we still selling women? I hope not! As long as there is a committed, living relationship (as close as we come to ancient betrothal) I believe it is allowed. And before you bring up marrying so we don’t burn with passion, Paul was advising this so they wouldn’t be tempted to revisit the temple prostitutes and the pagan temple of Corinth.
I am 54 with no prospects of remarriage, so I am not trying to justify my own behavior. The only thing I burn with is curry and Mexican food.
For men, or women I suppose, who spent decades married, Masturbation is a healthy and God given outlet we can take advantage of. I have even done so while singing praises to God. The Bible never mentions it at all, and the only condemnation I’ve heard of it was based on a faulty definition of lust.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at. And it has set me free from a burning desire for porn. Porn is that which depicts what God has forbidden, such as homosexual anal penetration, bestiality, incest, etc. We can view what God has allowed without sinning since we have no desire to go find that person and take them for ourselves. I have been set free from the false shame you write about so eloquently and can view such without arousal and enjoy what God has designed and created.

    comments user
    Holymoly

    Wow. Seriously? No. No, no, no. No!

    comments user
    Rohan

    And with what do you fill your mind with when masturbating? Forgive me if I am wrong, but masturbation is not possible without the image of a man/woman. Are you engaging then in a thought about having sex with that man/woman? Are you then lusting after that man/women, yes? Then you are committing adultery.

    Jesus clearly stipulates it here:
    Matthew 5:27-28 King James Version (KJV)

    27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

    28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

    This is clearly stated that thinking of the women/man is adulterous and therefor is sin. So I you can convince me that it is possible to masturbate without the visual aid or thought of a women/man then I will believe you, but up and till then I believe you are deceiving yourself and rationalizing your sin.

      comments user
      David Martin

      Rohan,

      I apologize for not approving and replying to your note sooner. I just overlooked it for a while.

      Absolutely it IS possible to masturbate without thinking of a person. Honestly, as a boy, I figured out how to masturbate long before I knew it had anything to do with sex, or anything to do with women. I simply found that the manual stimulation was exciting and it felt good.

      Furthermore, I’m rather confident that it’s possible for a blind man to masturbate. Such a man likely has never “seen” a woman in his life, yet the “plumbing” still works just fine. The visual piece (whether actual or mental) is NOT a prerequisite for sexual arousal.

      One point we are in agreement on… that if someone is fantasizing about someone else while masturbating, then they are using that person, and we can safely categorize that act as “mental adultery.”

      You assert that it’s not possible to masturbate without such fantasizing, and I assert that it IS possible. I have given first hand evidence that it’s possible, but you would have to know every human heart to know for sure if you are correct.

      Obviously, you cannot know EVERY human heart or every circumstance, so rather than condemning the act of masturbation simply because it is masturbation, isn’t more godly to focus instead on the lust and mental adultery? After all, the Bible never forbids masturbation, only lust/adultery. We would do well to limit our condemnations to the same points that the Bible makes, wouldn’t you agree?

      Thanks for writing. Feel free to write again!

      Pastor David Martin

    comments user
    PastorDavidMCAG

    I believe Pastor Bill’s reply to your comment on “3 Responses to Sexual Desire and Lust – Are They the Same? (Part 3)” answers some of your similar thoughts expressed here. The 10th Commandment, not to covet your neighbor’s property or wife (Exo 20:17), is similar to Christ’s warning about already committing adultery by having looked lustfully at a woman (Mat 5:28). Both show that God is concerned not just about outward acts but about what goes on in your mind from what’s looked upon with your eyes. Also, what God allowed under the Old Testament because of the hard-heartedness of Israel establishes no precedent for Christian behavior under the New Testament. In answering the Pharisees on that point, Jesus made His appeal based upon what God had created “in the beginning” (Mat 19:8), and that beginning’s focus for human sexuality was the singularity of union in the one-flesh relationship between a married couple.

    You have carefully worded your illustrations of porn to exclude sexual acts between men and women. This may be because you enjoy viewing sexual intercourse and “can view such without arousal.” But God gave us the gift of sexuality for its loving expression in marriage. Porn’s depiction of sexual expression is anything but loving and often so “beastly” that it would destroy a marriage. While the naked bodies of the porn-role-players are not the problem, their activity is, and rather than making their lascivious performance a form of entertainment or a pastime for boredom, the Scriptural admonition is, “For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret” (Eph 5:12, ESV).

    Masturbation is as innocuous a practice as blowing your nose to relieve mucous build-up, but when it is done with the aid of viewing porn, the line is crossed into the mentally adulterous area Christ warned about in Mat 5:8. You are held accountable for coveting what you see a man doing to a woman, even if you don’t seeking her out yourself to do the same. When you mentally use the image of her naked body as a means of your sexual release, you have treated her with the same sexual objectification as that applied to a prostitute for the same purpose. In that respect, I agree with Holymoly’s reply to your comment: “Seriously? No. No, no, no. No!”

comments user
James Simmonds

I have read “my chains are gone “and subsequent comments.Thank you for trying to help those,like me, who struggle daily with porn versus their acceptance of Christ as their only hope. I can confirm that porno destroys the bond of intimacy between husband and wife,as in my situation.I will fight on , pray hard , and reflect on your views.

comments user
Dillon

I still believe masturbation is a sin. That is our seed (possible sons and daughters) we are literally wasting that was intended for procreation. We are self satisfying our flesh for a feel good feeling whether we’re thinking of anyone or not..that’s just my
Convictions on that subject now. I don’t know any of you from Adam and your relationship with God is between you and God. Much love God bless!! Also if we are following Jesus and trying to be more like him why would we even be thinking about masturbating? There is just to much good we could be doing to advance the kingdom.

    comments user
    David Martin

    Dillon, may I challenge your logic on this?

    I have 4 children. That means that only 4 of my “seed” successfully participated in procreation.

    Meanwhile, medical research will tell us that the a normal male produces 50-150 million sperm PER DAY!!

    Are you suggesting that we have some sort of moral obligation to guard the life of each “seed” to ensure that it’s never “wasted”?

    Does the Bible tell us that we have such a moral obligation?

    If not, then why would you suggest that masturbation is wrong because it’s wasting our “seed”?

    In my life, the multiple hundreds of billions of my “seed” have all (but 4) been “wasted.” Have I dishonored the Lord or sinned because of that waste?

    I believe you are adding to God’s word something He never intended to be there.

    Regarding masturbation… why would you single that one activity out as being contrary to our focus on advancing God’s kingdom?

    What about urination? Defecation? Blowing our noses? Grabbing a cup of water? Eating a meal? Brushing our teeth? Sleeping? Taking a shower?

    Addressing normal bodily functions is not contrary to the pursuit of the Kingdom of God! And if a young man takes some time to relieve certain physical pressures so that he can be MORE focused on ministry, why would that be different than taking a dump when the need arises? Provided he’s not excusing lustful imaginations, I see no basis biblically to add and enforce moral standards that God intentionally left out of the Scriptures.

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