30th January, 2010

NILS VON KALM

In December 2009, writer and Bible teacher Tim Chester highlighted a study done by the Family Research Council on the effects of pornography. Now I have to say at the outset that the FRC is not an organisation I would normally recommend. I believe many of the stances they take are far from Biblical and reflect more of a right-wing political agenda than the way of Jesus. However I could not ignore this one. While I generally lean to the left on most issues, I do not place myself in any particular place on the spectrum of political views. I am first and foremost a follower of Jesus, and that may take me anywhere to the left or the right, depending on where I believe Jesus would stand.

Opening page of the Family Research Council report referred to by Tim Chester. "Porn addiction is real. I have seen marriages devastated by it, and I have seen otherwise intelligent people laid waste by an obsession with it that they are absolutely powerless to stop. Just like the alcoholic who cannot give up the booze is the porn addict who cannot stay away from one more image."

The fact is that there is nothing good about pornography. It objectifies women, destroys relationships and does not have anything constructive to say about the benefits of morality. And to those who would say that porn has a positive social impact in curbing the desires of men who can’t get it elsewhere and therefore limits the amount of sexual attacks that occur in society, the statistics clearly say otherwise.

The following points can also be made about the pornography and its effects:

• Pornography can both encourage and enhance sexual addiction, mainly in men. It burns images in an addict’s mind that can be replayed anytime and which are fueled, not quenched, the more porn the addict watches.

• Porn addiction is real. I have seen marriages devastated by it, and I have seen otherwise intelligent people laid waste by an obsession with it that they are absolutely powerless to stop. Just like the alcoholic who cannot give up the booze is the porn addict who cannot stay away from one more image.

• There are too many counsellors (including Christian ones) who deny that porn addiction - and by extension, sex addiction as a whole - exists. Some say that its use reflects a natural desire that can actually help a marriage. I would say that any couple who believe they are helped by the use of pornography is a couple that does not yet know the love that real sexual intimacy produces. That’s why the sex act between a committed loving couple is called ‘making love’.

• There is an anger about pornographic sex. There is never any tenderness or love in it. It is about aggression and power. It is also often about a hatred of women.

ª Pornographic sex - indeed any sex based purely on a lust that wants only for itself - is desperate sex. It cannot get enough and is purely about the feeling.

• Further to the previous point, the porn addict will gradually push more and more boundaries in the desperate attempt to get their next score. For example, R-rated movies will progress to X-rated, X-rated will progress to internet porn, internet porn will progress to brothels and so on, ultimately to the horrendous possibility of child sexual abuse.

• The porn addict is often under the delusion that they will never be caught.

• In the addict, pornography use fuels the fantasy that any woman is ‘easy’, to the point that if you are an addict and a woman smiles at you, you will believe she wants to have sex with you.

• Pornography is only about taking whereas love is about mutual giving. The porn addict is concerned only about the next hit and, just like the gambling addict, is convinced that the next one will be the one they are really looking for.

Perhaps the ultimate issue of an addiction to pornography is that the porn is not the real problem at all. It is merely a symptom of a larger lostness that the addict is trying to deal with. Pornography use is ultimately a search for connection, a search for life. U2 said it brilliantly in their song Babyface, which talks about the futility of trying to reach out for connection through a seductive woman supposedly coming onto you through a television screen. Consider the following lyrics:

"Watching your bright blue eyes

In the freeze frame

I've seen them so many times

I feel like I must be your best friend."

The fantasy of aliveness and connection fueled by watching pornography leads only to increased self-delusion and isolation - the very opposite of what the addict is searching for. The use of pornography, whether it be in the privacy of a computer in the backroom of your home or in the video booth in a sex shop, or in any other format, is destructive in the extreme and leads to a loneliness and numbness that is only exacerbated the more it is used. Pornography is a drug like narcotics and gambling and is in fact perhaps the most widely used and widely accepted drug in the world today.

Much has been written about the effects of pornography, and there is much I have not covered in this article. However there are some excellent publications available for the person or couple that has been affected by porn’s often subtle tentacles. One of the most popular is Patrick Carnes’ Out of the Shadows (Carnes has also written a similar book on online porn addiction called In the shadows of the Net. If you are looking for something from a specifically Christian perspective, then Ted Roberts’ Pure Desire is a book that would be a worthy starting point. Both of these books discuss the cycle of porn (and sex) addiction and the strategies that the addict will use to continue in their destructive lifestyle.

Other options to pursue for the addict and their family are of course counseling (but only with a counselor who takes porn and sex addiction seriously), and recovery groups. Both of these avenues can create a sense of accountability and non-judgmental support. There is nothing the addict wants more than to know they are listened to, know that they are loved unconditionally, and to feel that they belong with others who have struggled with the same issue and have come out the other side with freedom and hope.

For the follower of Jesus, there is no question about the fact that the use of pornography can never be justified. For the addict and the addict’s spouse and family however, there is hope. There is the hope of Jesus who treated women with the respect and dignity that they deserve as people made in the image of God. And there is the magnificent hope that it is in Jesus Himself that we can find the life that we so desperately long for. Jesus’ first words to the addict are the same as those he gave to the woman caught in adultery - ‘I do not condemn you’. Jesus is the addict’s only hope, but what a hope that is. The life of an addiction to pornography - which leads to lies, shame and loneliness - simply cannot hold a candle to the life, love, joy and healthy relationships that a life surrendered to Jesus brings.

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