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.
Unfortunately pornography isn’t relegated to shoeboxes in mom and dad’s closet or the bottom of a stack of magazines on the back of the toilet. It’s not a matter of sneaking around anymore or a fleeting view of a woman’s panties to sate our curiosity.
It’s in our face in the media and advertising. It’s everywhere online from our junk email to pop-up ads. It’s a simple search on any engine or a mistyped URL that exposes us to perversion unlike any known in history.
It’s consuming our children. I took an abnormal sexual psychology course in college that studied the effects of the Internet and the ease-of-access to pornography of all stripes. Exhibitionism and voyeurism are so rampant and pathological today that to even suggest that they’re morally wrong or damaging to the psyche of youth is to elicit sneers and derision for being prudish or “old fashioned.” There’s no mystery in sex or sexuality anymore. With children as young as 10 or 11 being exposed to it, and not just a glimpse of flesh but actual hardcore sexual intercourse, it’s no wonder we’re devolving as a society into this nihilistic, Devil-may-care caste of people who have no value for the institutions of marriage or two-parent child rearing.
The barbarians are inside the gates folks. Ancient Rome fell due to the rot from the inside. Regardless of our want to turn back the clock, the apple has been consumed and God is pissed.
Move to the Middle East. If that won’t cure an addition it will certainly put you in a position where women and their images are forbidden from casual viewing - clothed or otherwise. The penalties visited upon those who violate the local customs are not just shame.
It’s bad, but it is also much worse.
Bad when viewing porno starts crowding your time. Worse when young girls, 17, 16, and younger are taking naked pictures of themselves in their bedrooms and bathrooms, then posting them on popular social media websites.
My mother told me that if I looked at Playboy I’d turn to stone. I didn’t believe her, so I got a copy and looked at it and immediately started getting hard. So I quit right then and there.
Porno drives internet technology.
I ran into that once.There's a fairly well known website on which you can search the political campaign contributions made by famous,as well as ordinary,people.If you drop one letter in the URL you find yourself at a nauseating porn site.I must admit,though,that the name of the political site is a strange one that lends itself to imagination of the perverted.
The real question, is why do you believe shame should be associated with this, and why do you think it is the devil’s work?
It's even WORSE when a grown man like myself dresses up as a young girl, 17, 16.
DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, *ever* Google “silicone dog toys”.
I was looking for toys for ‘Halla called “Puppy Giggles” that PetSmart used to sell and what I found was the most repulsive thing I’ve ever seen.
The filthy b@stards find a way to pervert *everything*.
[and I never found ‘Halla’s puppy toys..I was so grossed out I was offline for the rest of the day]
I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art not long ago. I now understand why there are so many stone statues there! They must have walked through the 1800s European Art section!
This is where is argument falls apart. There is NOTHING embarrassing about sex, it's the DISGUSTING habit of some people thinking anyone gives a flying flip ABOUT their sex life!
Here's a clue- if anything - sports, alcohol, drugs, sex, music scene or social media - controls your life to the exclusion of life itself, you will eventually receive the Darwin award!
The BIGGEST problem with this generation IMHO, is their TOTAL inability to GROW TFU!
[screaming rant /off]
That is worse!
I used to think I had a problem with porn, but it turned out to be just a symptom of wedding cake induced lack of emotional and physical intimacy.
Shame: a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety
Most people think sexuality is a unique aspect of our being human...the beauty of the woman's form, the special connection of a man and woman when they make love...
Porn debases all that to it's lowest form...lust...which is completely self centered...and idolization of the creature rather than the creator...
I find when my lady puts out a little more, even a little bit, my interest in porn goes away real fast.
Go figure.
Perhaps it’s not debased at all, but just another aspect of sexuality that is unique to human beings?
I find when my lady puts out a little more, even a little bit, my interest in porn goes away real fast.
Go figure.
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One of the rare times we concur.
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