Porn: Something Christians Don’t Do

This post is something a bit different than what you would normally see on my site. It is a guest post on a vital topic, but this guest post is by an anonymous Christian. They have chosen to share a bit of their story in a very transparent way, with the hope of encouraging or challenging each of you. Please don’t skip reading this because it makes you uncomfortable. It is a real problem, one that many who claim Christ struggle to overcome. 

Porn is my mother. And my father. When neither was there, whether by choice or happenstance, porn was. From the age of nine at the barber shop, with its magazines, to age ten when I had my own (parent approved) subscription to Playboy. To the next year, when my cousin moved in, and I inherited his magazines.

To what did I turn, during my parents’ divorce, with puberty coming into full swing? Porn. There were the late night cable movies, more magazines (even more when mom’s boyfriend moved in). Everything I learned about sex I learned from porn. My dad was gone, having pursued his last paramour. So I couldn’t talk to him. And mom was too busy trying to make ends meet. The funny thing is, although she was a counselor, it was all written off as healthy curiosity. Moreover, no one bothered to dialog with me about my burgeoning sexuality.

There was just porn.

So the band posters on my bedroom wall were replaced with centerfolds. And there they stayed for years. I could fantasize as much as I wanted, masturbating every day. But strangely enough, whether through sheer shyness, or something else, I was never with a real girl.

I was a teenaged virgin sex addict.

And truthfully, in the intervening years, I’ve only been with one woman: my wife. This does not mean, however, (how I wish it did) that I haven’t looked. When life has gotten hard, when it’s felt like I’ve had no friends, and no one to talk to, because she was my first real teacher, porn has been there. Like an alcoholic, or drug addict, there’s a siren song:

I’m your mother, your father. When they weren’t there, I was. Your wife, she doesn’t understand–take your pain to me. I’ll make it go away…

And it does. For awhile.

But it’s a facade, a mirage, a shadow. Because it, unlike a real relationship, requires nothing of me. I’m a spectator, having met my own (perceived, or actual) needs.

Porn is a thing without real substance.

Most of it is merely performance (gymnastic feats of contortion, anyone?) to highlight the, ahem, the plowing of the furrow. And it’s reductive in that sense: it reduces a very complex, and God-given, human sexuality to its component parts. Yet we all know we are so much more than our just our bodies. There’s emotion, and passion, and intimacy, which stem from relationship.

Porn knows nothing of relationship, and the brain because of the way it’s wired, only knows it should be turned on.

But then comes the guilt, and the shame. Because I know better. We know better. Because good Christians know better. Good Christians don’t look at such things. They don’t masturbate. They don’t stay up late looking at things they shouldn’t.

Christians often do all kinds of things they shouldn’t. Then they cry out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Because who else is there, really, to turn to? The fact is some sins are much more socially acceptable. Eat too much? Well, so does the pastor (did you see him go to town at the potluck? Dang. The man can eat). But porn has more of a stigma than gluttony, or alcoholism. They’ve got twelve step programs for that. They’ve got it for sexual addiction, too. But who wants to be that guy?

And how does a guy broach the subject with his wife?

When it’s not about her? More than other sins, porn is likely to hit a woman where she lives: Why is he doing this? Am I not enough? Is he not attracted to me?

When it’s not that at all. It’s more akin to a well worn path, a rut in the brain, that like a stuck rudder steers a guy there when life is too much, and he can’t deal. Because she was always there.

Even though, like a shadow, she never really was at all. The long and short of it is that we all (if we’re honest) mask our pain in different ways. Some in this way, some in that. Instead of confronting life, we binge watch T.V., we over eat, we have sex, we drink, we take drugs, we watch porn.

And all to dull the pain of life. Because somewhere deep down we don’t believe, or life has taught us to distrust the words of Jesus:

Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

And lest we forget: there is an enemy. No, he doesn’t make us do any of these things, but knowing our stories, he knows how to tempt… Which buttons to push. And push he will, until we’ve gone right over the edge. Then he’ll be the first one there to condemn, and accuse. “What kind of a Christian are you? Look at what you did! God can’t use you. He doesn’t want anything to do with you.”

And so it goes.

But, my friends, it’s a lie. One straight from the pit. You, and I, we’re not disqualified. No, God’s not through with us. Not by a long shot.

But what we do need to get to that place where we are sober, and free, is accountability. We need family and friends to come along side of us, and instead of shaming us, make themselves available, ask the hard questions, put in the time.

Because we are worth it, you and I.

Porn may have been my mother, but she doesn’t have to be. Not anymore.