Posted on 11/27/2012 5:09:42 AM PST by IbJensen
November 26, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - It was in the mid 90s that we began to hear a whole lot about this new thing called “the Internet,” which could answer all of mankind’s deepest questions. At around the same time I hit puberty and began to spend my time moping about pondering the age-old riddle of what, exactly, women look like underneath their clothing.
Evidently at some point I put two and two together and punched the appropriate keywords into the prehistoric version of Google, with spectacular results. So far so good, and if it had stopped there, the experiment might have been innocent enough. But there was a catch. Like most who have played the peeping Tom with porn, I found that my curiosity wasn’t satisfied. On the contrary. I had only learned what this woman looked like. But what about all the others? Obviously I needed to see a few more examples.
And thus was an addiction born.
For the next ten years or so, I would fight a sometimes-desperate fight with this devil – for devil it is – with occasional successes, and more failures than I care to remember. And but for the grace of patient and loving parents, the influence of a remarkable woman who is now my wife, and a resurgent relationship with an all-merciful God, I shudder to think down what dark paths it might have led me.
I confess that it is not easy for me to make this admission. The most enthusiastic evangelists of the sexual revolution are wont to argue that the solution to shame and guilt is to speak more openly and casually about sex, as we might about the weather, or our health. Never mind that no one is convinced, because in our heart of hearts we know that sex is not the weather, is not our health – that it is something infinitely more strange, more powerful, more beautiful, and that no amount of chattering about it will ever completely deaden that sense of shame that comes from abusing it for our own selfish ends.
However you slice it, a porn habit is a rotten thing.
But there is a kernel of truth in the lie. Shame, when buried in our psyches, can become as a worm in the core of an apple, eating away at us from the inside. For many years, I believed that I was essentially alone in this fight, that I was one of a rare breed of villainous good-for-nothings who was so enticed by this forbidden fruit. It was only much later that I learned that I was but one of millions of my generation who had unwittingly stumbled upon the magic lamp and summoned the evil genie, with the power to grant us our most private fantasies, and who demanded nothing in return but our innocence, our self-respect, our freedom, and our happiness.
We all know the figures, and so I will only mention a few of them: that the average age of exposure to hardcore pornography is now 11 years old; that around 25% of all internet searches are for pornography; that 70% of men aged 18-24 visit porn sites in a typical month; that pornography use among women is growing astronomically.
And the problem is only getting worse. With the Internet creeping even into our pockets through our smart phones, and with porn increasingly spilling over into mainstream culture, it has become more and more difficult to drown out its siren call. Truly, there is, in the whole history of the world, no precedent for what we are now witnessing – the ready availability of explicit, hardcore pornography, with all of its vicious and violent perversions, on demand, in private, even by children.
In such an atmosphere silence is fatal. My generation, and the generation just reaching adolescence, cannot afford to receive their information on sex exclusively from those who stand to profit from their addiction. And when addiction does strike, they cannot afford to feel that they are fighting the battle alone, or, even worse, fall prey to the lie that there is no battle, that porn is “normal,” even “healthy.”
And so, we who have fought and are fighting this fight must slough off the natural embarrassment that surrounds all things sexual and speak up: not, as the pornographers may hope, in order to normalize our addiction or rationalize it away, but in order to provide encouragement to one another and to affirm this truth: that pornography is a plague upon our generation, a devil in our veins, and that it must be exorcised before it reaches our heart and destroys our capacity to love once and for all.
so you actually believe that murderers et al are following Gods plan? that’s pretty bizarre.
As long as we’re playing whack-a-mole with the symptoms while ignoring the problem, let’s just criminalize endorphines. That should work just as well, and cover everything in one swell foop.
Many would agree with you, but I don’t believe anything happens without God’s tacit approval, whether we can comprehend it or not.
You don’t take the Bible as God’s word?
Not any more than any other religious tome.
I guess that makes it convenient. God can be any way you’d like Him to be then.
I’m sure that is how you view it. It doesn’t really matter how people view it, as God is as He is.
It would be kinda funny if God was a 20-something-year-old stripper who was fond of wearing the Devil's Panties.
are you a parent?
No
“You don’t think people had weird sex before porn? I thought that was one of the things that brought ancient Rome down?”
Isn’t that supporting the point being made?
I..I..have to admit. When I see a goat I have ‘lusts’. When I see a chicken I go totally berserk. My problem is...am I a muslim?
I thought this was about porn, not sex?
I know. I accidently reached such a web site the other day and I was sickened for an hour and forty-five minutes. It might have been even longer if the power hadn't failed.
LOL
What I got was not quite what I was looking for, nor was it exactly "safe for work" ...
Well said, Stuart. I agree.
Pornography, when viewed in moderate quantities, generally provides a harmless outlet for normal human sexuality. Not eneryone has a willing partner, but everyone does have sexual urges...
If one finds pornography offensive, one need not look.
Do you see a woodie when you’re around a camel?
Muhammed always did.
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