The "Porn Talk"

     I continue to see the dangerous effects of porn in the lives of men (in particular).  A recent CNN post on a new book called "The Demise of Guys" links video games and porn to the rise of "slacker males" in our country.  You can debate the correlation.  Nonetheless, author and psychologist Nakita Duncan notes: "If you watch excessive amounts of porn, you're going to find it hard to have real life relationships, because you're developing your sexuality independently of real people."

My "porn talk" to guys goes something like this:

• Porn will mess you up.  It makes you less than a man. 
  
• You will never have a healthy relationship with a woman.  You simply cannot use porn and have a normal/healthy connection to your wife/fiance/girlfriend/any woman. 
  
• Porn depersonalizes women into objects.  You begin to choose the screen or page over a real person.  And you begin to treat the real person like a screen or a page. 
  
• Porn is addictive.  A little will lead to a lot. 
  
• Long-term pornography addiction causes more violent and more perverted sexual desires.  You begin to seek weirder things for arousal. 
  
• Repent. 
  

Help:

Confession and Forgiveness:  You must acknowledge and confess the addiction and your utter inability to control it.  Then you must hear forgiveness.  Personally.  This is the first and critical step.  No sin likes to come into the light.  But when it's pulled out of the darkness, the light works to kill it.  Jesus himself - his work on the cross -  is the remedy.  Come to a pastor (or a trusted, godly man) for private confession. 

Accountability:  Confide in a trusted male (never your girlfriend or wife).  Tell them the fulness of your problem.  Give them full permission to check in with you regularly and hold you accountable.  This is not unlike Alcoholics Anonymous, and the sponsor concept. 

Software:  I don't have knowledge of the various protection software available, but many exist.  Guardware.  Hedgebuilders.  Covenant Eyes. 

Resources for reading: A helpful short book I've read is by Pastor Mark Driscoll, called Porn Again Christian.  You can download it online here for free.  A website called XXX Church also has extensive resources, recommendations, and programs for porn addiction. 

Ongoing life in the Christian community.  The church is a "hospital for sinners."   Find refuge in the hospital.  An active worship life, and meaningful relationships in the church are natural ways in which Christians are built up to live in the midst of the world.  Our Christian community serves as a "home base" from which we go out into the many challenging corners of the world. 

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