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Hope in a Pornified World
- 11/08/10
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Most men who are my age or older remember a day when pornography was rare and taboo. Pornography has existed as long as the camera has existed (and before that in more rudimentary forms, I’m sure) but has always been difficult to find and has always carried some kind of stigma. Today the tables have turned and porn has gone mainstream. Instead of being a shameful addiction it is now the punch line in jokes, the subject of sitcom episodes. Porn stars are admired. It’s probably significant that we don’t speak of “porn actors” but “porn stars” as if there is something inherently glamorous in their line of work. Books and magazines encourage us all to enjoy porn, to allow it to add a little spice to our relationships. It’s a lot harder to avoid porn than it is to find it.
And then there are the scary statistics, the scary reality, that men and boys are consuming porn like never before. Women and girls are now being introduced to it and even being encouraged to regard it as normal. An email that haunts me is one I received a short time ago from a girl of 14 who found herself battling addiction to pornography. It’s becoming a part of our culture, a part of our lives.
Amidst all of this, it can be difficult to avoid despair, to truly believe that anyone or anything can curtail the problem. We can look to the future and see a time marked by people who are utterly broken, whose sexuality has been undermined and destroyed by their consumption of never-ending amounts of pornography. We can see our sons and our sons’ sons growing up surrounded by it, giving themselves to it.
And, of course, we can see Christians increasingly viewed as being anti-sex for being anti-porn; in suggesting that the mainstreaming of pornography is harming individuals, families, and all of society, we are already regarded as repressed and repressors. This will only continue and grow.
Yet amidst this kind of despair, I’ve found great reasons for hope and I want to share two of those with you.
Common Grace
In the first place, there is the simple fact that pornography is morally reprehensible, that it is utterly opposed to God’s plan for sexuality. It is so opposed to God’s plan for sexuality that it will inevitably bring about harm. Eventually that harm will become too obvious to ignore and there will be societal backlash. I see pornography as akin to smoking in this way (which is not to say that smoking is as evil as pornography): At one time it was regarded as glamorous; everyone was doing it, very few people were concerned about what it was doing to them. But then we began to see that it was harmful, that it led to sickness and disease, that it could harm children, and society reacted by placing restrictions on it and by increasingly attaching some level of taboo to it (at least that’s more and more the case here in Canada).
I believe porn will eventually go the same direction. Time will show the harm it has brought about and society will react. God’s common grace will cause men to turn against something so very harmful. It will not disappear altogether, but it will fall out of the mainstream so that making a pornography joke will be as ugly then as making a slavery joke would seem today. I’d like to think that Christians may be at the forefront of this battle as they led the charge against slavery.
A New Generation of Parents
There is another thing that gives me hope. My generation and the generation that follows were raised by parents who had no real sense of the world their children would grow up in. We cannot blame them for this because no one saw the porn culture coming. Our parents did not see the seismic shift until it was too late. What it means, though, is that few Christian parents (and dads especially) raised their children to deal with porn saturation. We were taught the birds and the bees, but we were not taught about how to deal with bombardment by pornographic pictures and pornographic messages.
But these generations of men are now raising children of their own, and I know that they are raising them in an entirely different way. I know because I am among them. We are not raising sons wondering if they will someday encounter pornography; instead, we are raising sons and equipping them to deal with the when rather than the if. Already I am preparing my son for the inevitable reality that at some point he will be invited to look at pornography, at some point he will encounter it, and he needs to be prepared. He needs to know what pornography is, he needs to know how it will harm him, and he needs to be equipped to run the other way. As my daughters grow up I will seek to instill similar messages in them, telling them of the expectations that they may be burdened with in such a world as this.
This generation of dads will not assume that their boys or girls are getting through life unscathed. Instead, we will be asking our boys what they are seeing and what messages they are receiving. We will not let our kids have computers in their bedrooms, assuming that they know how to handle them responsibly. We will remember the way we struggled, we will remember what pornography did to us, and we will move heaven and earth to help our sons and daughters avoid it. We will pray unceasingly that God will protect them from seeing what they should not see.
Those of us with daughters will challenge our future sons-in-laws, asking what they have been exposed to and demanding that they detox, that they reshape the false messages pornography has taught them, lest they extend harm to our girls, lest their history become our girls’ history. We will not take for granted what our fathers took for granted. We cannot and we must not.
We will fail at times, and our children will still see things, do things, experience things that will grieve us. But we will help them detox from the smut, we will give them gospel hope, we will help them seek and find forgiveness and freedom.
Amidst all of the pornography, amidst all of the despair, there is hope. God gives hope through the gospel, and God gives our children hope through us, through this generation of fathers who cannot afford to be naive, who simply cannot take porn for granted.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (24)
Tim
It is a cancer on our society and I want to share in your hope that dad’s will be on the offensive now, educating their sons and doing some fire prevention.
David, www.RedLetterBelievers.com, “Salt and Light”
I think I can agree with you on your second reason for hope, but not so much on the first. Consider another example of a cultural tyrant: Communism. Then consider post-Communist countries like Russia. In the wake of a failed Communism (ala Stalin) is a waste-land of thuggery, poverty and alcoholism masked with a veneer of “western” culture. My fear is that as pornography hits the stage where people begin to question its value, it could recede and leave behind another wasteland.I’m not a very pessimistic person, nor do I say it’s necessarily going to be this way, but it’s at least a strong possibility.Another, more hopeful, possibility is that through the preaching of the gospel, the reformation of the church and revival by the Spirit of God the tide of pornography would be seriously stayed and even rescinded. That’s where I place my greatest hope.
Re: porn and taboo: There’s still some stigma. Try firing up some porn on your laptop while on an airplane sitting next to a woman. I guarantee she’ll be horrified. More people may be okay with porn viewing in private, but they don’t want to see you doing it.
As for men, I feel like the men of 40 years ago -despite a wider prevalence of those who would call porn “wrong”- would probably watch it at approximately the same rate as today’s men if had been as available as it is today. It’s not that people today are inherently less virtuous; sinning in this particular fashion is just that much easier.
Though, then again, since (in the grand scheme of things) we’re talking about the wider sin of “lust”, it may not be the case that its “easier” today than in day’s past. One could lust after a woman’s exposed ankle if that’s the only thing one ever got to see. In some ways there is always the opportunity to lust, right there in front of each of us. I’m sure Amish boys lust after Amish girls despite despite zero access to porn and likely never having seen a woman in revealing clothing.
It would help too if your pdf ‘Sexual Detox’ is free, like what you intended. I was trying to download it but I realised it was no longer free like it was.
In the US, with humility and repentance we must acknowledge that we face a national crisis related to sexuality. The statistics are alarming. We produce more pornography than any other nation and it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. At current rates, we will soon have a million registered sex offenders in our nation (how many unregistered ones are there?). In pastoral counseling, I’ve encountered an alarming and growing number of cases of incest and sexual abuse. Forty-percent of children are born out of wedlock in the US.We have a prison crisis in this nation that I attribute primarily to absentee fathers. There a far too many men who don’t mind getting woman pregnant but want nothing to do with raising sons and daughters.
But the sobering question has to do with how far a society can go before God “hands them over” and they implode?
Concerning the mainstreaming of porn before cameras, there is evidence in both Corinth and Ephesus that porn had gone “mainstream” in those cultures around the time of Paul’s writings. Wall drawings/carvings depicting pornographic acts (that would cause most people even in our day to blush) have been found in the ancient ruins of these cities. Such walls weren’t only in private dwellings, but were also along streets for all to see. The prevalence/persistence of this problem in that day is evident as Paul tells the Ephesians that the society around them was “given over to sensuality.”
Our day is no different that Paul’s day. It may look different and be accessible in different ways, but the truth of the matter is that our culture, as the Ephesian, Corinthian, and most other Roman cultures, is given over to sensuality. The answer according to Paul? You have not learned Christ this way! Sit at the feet of Christ and hear his gospel and be renewed in the spirit of your minds and imitate God as those who have been forgiven.
Beyond praying that God will protect our families from pornographic images, we need to ensure that they are saturated with the gospel of Christ, in preaching, in teaching, in family worship, at church and at home. As our society devolves (just as the Roman Empire did), our children WILL see porn somewhere. The question is, have they learned Christ?
Porn is becoming more mainstream just as other sexual deviate behaviors are. Commercials, television shows, etc. seem to be okay with the idea of using porn as a punchline or more flagrantly promoting the sex sales mentality. I’m of the penchant that the promotion and display of sex and sexually material will continue. Because of my travels to Europe I know America is still tame in regards to sex by other Western nation standards and feel we will continue down that path.
I wrote on this recently at http://www.studyyourbibleonline.com/random/is-porn-ok/
All good points. It is something that needs to be addressed from the pulpit. We attend one of the largest churches in the country (you would all recognize the name) and never, not one time in my many years of attending, has porn been mentioned as a problem that Christians deal with. Rather, the brief times it has even been mentioned it’s in the context of needing to get saved. Sad, very sad.
This seems like another good reason to cut the cable.
Indeed, lust is the root problem, but there are degrees of sin and certainly degrees of lust. And it is easier today to give oneself over to a “lifestyle of lust” (which is our Enemy’s goal for us) than it was for my father’s generation. And we know that the degree of harm done is much greater than looking too long at a pretty ankle.
Being raised in a non-Christian home . I encountered porn very early in my teens . It wasn’t from my parents but through friends . Until God awakened my dead and sinful heart , I was like whatever. But awakening to the goodness of God’s law and seeing porn for what it was , a vile , godless form of twisted sexuality ,I turned from it. But I cannot say it has been easy . Nor can I say I have not fallen but God has put a solid foundation in my life that is taking root through solid , open ,honest men who really pray and care for each other in all struggles with sin . We try to spur each other on in love to grow in grace. Its awesome.Once I had children , 2 sons , I have made every effort to talk with them about the snare of porn . As they grew older , my talks became more open and frank . Sharing with them why its vial and evil . I agree with what you said Tim , it has been more preparing them to encounter it , than thinking they will not. As they get ready to head off to university , I know what goes on and its scary.I can’t say I share your hope that society will turn from it and even if they do , sinful man even though restrained by God’s common grace , will find some other form of sin to fulfill their lust. But we should not feel hopeless because we serve a great Savior and have good news . That is were the push back has to come in sharing Jesus Christ and the liberating power of having your sins washed away. We need to sanctify sex , the good gift it is form God to be enjoyed in the bonds of marriage.Porn can chain you but has not Christ come to set you free . You will hear the whispers of the old man , the world and the devil , come and see , but what I done is preach the cross to myself when I’m weak and stand in my freedom from the bondage I was once in. Its not easy , but when has any type of battle been .Just so you know , I have been making a list to submit to my Church for additions to our Library and have your Sexual Detox highly recommended. Thanks for the time and thought you put into that book . It truly helped me. God bless.
I have to agree with Ian, though for a bit different reason. Smoking is no longer politically in style, but it really hasn’t lost much of its appeal or its social status. Recent statistics have even indicated that the number of first-time teen smokers is back on the upswing.
Porn most likely won’t lose its political acceptance, but may lose some of its appeal to non-users as it becomes more-and-more degrading in its nature. But because of the total depravity of mankind, I don’t believe it is going to become the minor annoyance that it once was in our culture. I hope Tim’s right, but I fear otherwise.
Do you have any concrete suggestions as to how to prepare our boys for the time when they will come across pornogrpahy? Or our girls, for that matter?
@Steve: “We produce more pornography than any other nation and it’s a multi-billion dollar industry.”
What stats I could find online suggest that the U.S. is actually #4 in porn revenue behind China, South Korea and Japan. On a revenue-per-capita basis the U.S. is behind Australia, Finland and Brazil. This is not to say that porn isn’t a problem, but we ought to keep it in perspective.
@Steve: “At current rates, we will soon have a million registered sex offenders in our nation…”
I wonder how many are labeled with the scarlet letter “O” for offenses that wouldn’t have been illegal 50 years ago (like consensual sex with a 16-year-old) or other relatively minor offenses like streaking or public urination.
@Steve: “growing number of cases of incest and sexual abuse.”
Again, the stats I was able to find don’t bear this out. Here are some links to HHS stats on child abuse in the U.S. In 2000 there were 72,293,812 children and 87,480 cases of child sexual abuse, meaning 1.21 per 1000 children were sexually abused in 2000. In 2007 there were 71,099,024 children and 56,460 cases of child sexual abuse, meaning 0.79 per 1000 children were sexually abused in 2007. Again: still a significant problem, and its entirely possible the rate seemed to decrease only due to changes in prevalence of the abuse being reported.
@Steve: “Forty-percent of children are born out of wedlock in the US.”
True. And its a problem. Though, it should be noted that most of the increase in out-of-wedlock births has been among couples cohabiting but not married. So its not that single, non-attached women are having more babies, its that couples are opting not to get married before living together and being sexually active. It might be notable to consider the countries with out-of-wedlock birth rates higher than the U.S.: Belgium, Netherlands, Finland, United Kingdom, Denmark, New Zealand, France, Norway, Sweden, Iceland.
@Steve: “We have a prison crisis in this nation that I attribute primarily to absentee fathers.”
I’d be more likely to attribute it to an increase in the prevalence of drug use. Check out this chart from wikipedia. Basically the per capita incarceration rate was roughly constant from 1920 to 1975, at which point it began a 30 year climb. Most reports I’ve read indicate violent crime has decreased since the mid-1990s, and apparently property crime has as well. So what are people being locked up for? Well, this table shows a marked increase in drug conviction rates from 1980-1996. So I’m going with drugs.
Of course, there’s an easy solution for that. Legalize. That still leaves us with the problem of drug use, but at least we’re not catalyzing the damage by giving offenders felony records and the scarring experience of spending time on the inside.
@Wesley: “America is still tame in regards to sex by other Western nation standards and feel we will continue down that path.”
Check out that link I posted above about unmarried birth rates in OECD nations. What’s interesting is that, while many “sexually liberal” western European countries do have higher rates than the U.S., many have lower rates. For instance, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Germany and Australia. This suggests that maybe “sexual liberalism” isn’t the main driver of out-of-wedlock births and that there are other cultural and socioeconomic forces at work.
JHP.I assume that your points were a kind of “get the facts right” offering? But even if you are correct (see points below) very little is taken to be encouraging. Very little changes the main point I am making.
On stats, reports conflict but if the US is fourth, I find nothing encouraging in it.On registered sex offenders I am really not sure of your point.On cases of incest and sexual abuse I referred to what I have had to deal with in counselingOn prison crisis, what difference do good fathers make in keeping kids off the streets and drugs. Interestingly, soaring divorce rates and abandonment of God’s plan for marriage parallel the years you point out.On births, it is not completely accurate to say the case that most of the increase in out-of-wedlock births has been among couples cohabiting. Look at the ethnic parallels to better understand this.
Consider this: One out of every 100 Americans lives behind bars. “Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34. The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that only one in 355 white women between the ages of 35 and 39 are behind bars but that one in 100 black women are” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008).
@Steve: I assume that your points were a kind of “get the facts right” offering?
Mostly, yeah. I like empiricism.
@Steve: But even if you are correct (see points below) very little is taken to be encouraging. Very little changes the main point I am making.
Maybe this is unfair, but I took your post as a sort of “the sky is falling” deal. To the extent that some of the specific claims don’t have a basis in fact, then, your overall point is a little undermined. Please note: I agree with you that certain aspects of 21st century American culture are pretty fantastically rotten. But I think it behooves us to have a realistic view of just “how bad” it really is, especially in comparison to other peer nations.
@Steve: On stats, reports conflict but if the US is fourth, I find nothing encouraging in it.
The question is really, “What’s an appropriate statistic to use when evaluating how big the ‘porn problem’ is in a given country?” You could look at total revenue, revenue per capita, revenue per GDP, etc. If we evaluated it on a revenue per GDP basis then the U.S. would look even better vs. the field. There’s also the question of how much of that porn revenue is from exports. For instance, it could be the case that some significant portion of U.S. porn revenue comes from peddling it to folks in other countries. (I don’t know either way.)
@Steve: “On registered sex offenders I am really not sure of your point.”
My main point was that these days you can be put on a sex offender registry for some offenses that I don’t consider “merit” it. So when you say, “We have almost a million registered sex offenders,” I’m like, “How many of those are real sex offenders and how many are guys who, when they were 19, made the mistake of sleeping with a 16 year-old”? To me there’s a big difference.
@Steve: “On cases of incest and sexual abuse I referred to what I have had to deal with in counseling.”
I’m certainly not trying to doubt your experience. Just suggesting that it might not be representative of a larger national trend.
@Steve: “On prison crisis, what difference do good fathers make in keeping kids off the streets and drugs.”
They make a big difference. But you seemed to be attributing the increased incarceration rate to deadbeat dads, whereas I think its due to increased drug use (and prosecution). The latter probably follows (to some extent) from the former, but I think there are more causes than just “deadbeat dads”.
“I think it behooves us to have a realistic view of just “how bad” it really is, especially in comparison to other peer nations.”
Here’s the realistic view of Jesus on just how bad it really is.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
Mt 5:27-30
Fantastic post! Indeed, preparation for ‘when’ and not ‘if’.
J.P.H.
Fair enough. I am not really the apocalyptic type. But I am deeply concerned about the long-term affects of such the proliferation of easily accessible porn. I want to be encouraged by Challies point but fear that things will have to get really bad before humans will “will” to reverse them. And, yes, the registered sex offenders issue high lights the over-reach of law and law enforcement in a society lacking a moral foundation for its citizens (in our homes). I wrote recently about the contrast between a culture of honor and one of law. I think it especially applies here. See: http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/culture-of-honor-or-culture-o…
To JPH and Steve,
I find this article so close to the truth, and so humbling. I am part of a 12 steps recovery program, called Celebrate Recovery, and I am in it for a lifetime of anger, depression, low-self esteem, and yes, I did look at flesh on screen, just as 80% of guys have ( not a justification) During my time in CR, I have seen first hand the devastating effects that pornography addiction has on guys, family, churches and society in general. The most troubling problem is that step by step, we are accepting it, and if brought to light, it is minimized. As an IT guy, I once discovered by accident, files and files of pornographic material and browsing history on the computer of the Youth Minister in a church in a big town in Central Texas. Being part of church staff, I felt I had to do something. I spoke with the brother in question, and together, we went to the elders. 90% of the material found was “very young girls” and “D” was the youth group minister. That was in 1998. Noting changed. “D” remained in his position for years, still working with kids. One of the other elders, coming out from the meeting, put his arm around my shoulder, and with a condescending smile told me: ” I didn’t know it was possible to know what websites we go to… Well, you know how it is, we all have done it, haven’t we ? It should not be reason to raise such a problem.” The next day I resigned from my position and went into the private sector.
If the US is the 2nd, 5th , or 4th producer in the porno industry, to me amount to a hill of beans. Guys are being slaughtered by this enemy, out there, buried under guilt, shame, and destroying marriages. Thanks Tim for the article, and for the book. I also HIGHLY recommend “Wired for Intimacy.”
God bless you all, guys, and let’s be careful out there.
This is so amazing and true. I recently broke up with my boyfriend because I realized his heart was in the wrong place and he wasn’t willing to give pornography up. I started tearing up at the part that talked about “challenging your future spouse, asking what they have been exposed to and demanding that they detox, that they reshape the false messages pornography has taught them, lest they extend harm to me, lest their history become my history.” It’s just so true. And I encourage girls to NEVER EVER compromise with this issue. Don’t get used to it, rebel against it!
Tim, great post. I appreciate the hope you shared here. It helped me. Now i need some help to apply it.
you mentioned preparing your son. I need some help.my father could never talk about anything personal with me and could never bring himself to talk sex outside of a few furtive incomplete attempts. So, I learned about sex from friends and scattered porn exposure and the library. by God’s grace and mercy he has helped me to mature and to be developing an increasingly godly view of sex. I praise him for this and feel much freer to share with my son, but need some help to begin and continue a conversation and discipleship in this regard.
I have never heard godly men teach and give instruction to boys. I have heard plenty to testimonies of wreckage and warning among men. but how bout pre-emptive instruction for boys and girls? everybody knows its a problem, we want to prepare like you are saying here, but where to find teaching on this level i don’t know.
I am not looking for a script, but could you (or anyone here) recommend some resources to present this in a scaled, progressive and age appropriate ways? i have a son and three daughters. all below 9 and want to prepare them.
maybe you need to write a post … or a book? everyone is reciting the dark statistics, where is the teaching to help those who want to fortify their families to meet this reality?
any help appreciated.
Lust isn’t a sin, it’s a normal human reaction.Pornography will always exist in some form and I honestly don’t see what’s so “sinful” about it. It’s just human’s having sex.If you’re so prudish to believe that the human body is a thing to be feared and covered up then I’d say you’re a dying population. If you ask me, pornography is just a different kind of an art form. It brings pleasure to people and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying yourself once in awhile. What’s the point in life if you’re going through it miserable all the time? If you ask me, repressing human sexuality should be a “sin”, not porn. I think what people watch in their free time, in the privacy of their own home is up to them. As long as it isn’t hurting anyone, there’s nothing wrong or “sinful” about it.
(PS - I’m not a christian, I am a women, a liberal, a pro-life, anti-homophobic, pro-earth, peace and freedom loving type of lady and I think this whole article is B.S. for the reasons stated above. I don’t care if I’m going to hell, I’d much rather go there that be with a “god” that prefers prudish, close-minded, ignorant, and bigoted people.)
My wife is my sole desire and lifeline to sexual gratification. Sharing her at the tail end of dozens of pornographic images somehow didn’t seem to enhance our relationship. I caught, early on, that she meant more to me than being the 49th body part of the evening.
Of course, there would be those that disagree, and want to position themselves alongside a line-up of hundreds of other spreads. This, though, doesn’t work for me and my marriage.
PS - I’m a Christian