Women now make up 30% of all pornography users. For too long, society has presumed pornography to be an exclusively “man’s issue.”[i] The continued cultural silence for female pornography use has driven many women further into the shadows. Silence intensifies shame and therefore deepens your involvement in the very behavior you may wish to stop.
This year I completed research on over 3,600 men and women struggling with unwanted sexual behavior, be that viewing pornography, an affair, or buying sex. What my data showed was that our involvement with pornography and the very specific fantasies we search after are not random at all. By far, shame was the biggest predictor of pornography use for women and men. The tragedy though is that women in my sample experienced shame at nearly double the rate of men.
It is my conviction that God is neither surprised nor ashamed of our sexual behaviors. Instead, God understands them to be the very stage through which the work of redemption will be played out in our lives. Women may think their pornography use exposes their folly, but far more, it reveals portions of their life story that await healing and empowerment.
Porn Exposure Is Not Random
One of my clients—I will call her Lisa—was in 6th grade when she “discovered” pornography in the guest bathroom at her grandparent’s home. Lisa and her siblings would spend long weekends there whenever her parents needed time away. While she was there, her grandfather would designate chores for the grandchildren. Her brothers tended to have outdoor tasks, like mowing the grass or raking leaves. Lisa however, was assigned to clean the guest bathroom and vacuum the bedrooms. Under the guest bathroom sink, next to the glass cleaner, was her grandfather’s pornography stash.
Lisa was mesmerized by the photos. She remembers her face growing red with heat and her body rushing with sensation as she saw the genitals of the women in her grandfather’s collection. She felt simultaneously aroused and dirty. This was only amplified when her grandfather would occasionally knock on the door to “check” how she was doing.
Her participation with pornography continued each weekend until her grandmother caught her and scolded her for looking at “that trash.” Lisa’s childhood experiences of arousal, “being caught,” and shame would become her sexual cocktail–one that she would remix often later in life.
Ashamed, Lisa swore she would resist the temptation to look at the pornography. At her church youth group, she remembered voicing a series of “unspoken” prayer requests to stop her behavior. A month later she was back at her grandparent’s home and again, her arousal became too much to overcome. She woke up in the middle of the night and selected a magazine from the bottom of the pile to bring back to her bedroom.
Lisa’s pornography use escalated as an adult. In a moment of crisis, Lisa pursued a women’s porn recovery group. There, one group member said something that changed her life. “You don’t send your granddaughter to clean the bathroom mirrors and not expect her to find the porn you store next to the glass cleaner.” Lisa’s introduction to pornography was not accidental; it was a set-up.
Porn Is Introduced Relationally
Most of us remember the first time we saw pornography. First exposure often occurs between ages 9-14. When my clients tell me about their first involvement with porn, they usually tell a story as if there were no other actors on the stage. They say something along the lines of, “I knew I probably shouldn’t have, but I went ahead and did it anyways.” After a few questions though, the context of their introduction to porn becomes clear: relationships.
My research found that the exposure to pornography in a child’s life is anything but random. Overwhelmingly, children did not “discover” porn, they were introduced to it.
The introduction of pornography for most adults today was relational. It could have been a neighborhood friend that showed us images they downloaded from the web or finding a family member’s stash in their bedroom. Whether we find porn with no one else around or are introduced to it in the presence of others, we associate pornography not only with erotic content, but also with the one who originally collected it. Here is what I found:
Maybe you identify with Lisa’s story. Maybe not in the specifics, but in recognizing how your exposure to pornography was not a random discovery. Many of my female clients report finding their father, brother, or extended family member’s porn stash in a “hidden,” yet completely obvious location. A closet, nightstand, or under a mattress is not going to fool too many children! One woman was at a middle school sleepover where her peers introduced her to a celebrity sex tape, another client was in a chat room with an upperclassman from high school when he sent a pornographic file over, and another was in middle school when her boyfriend showed her a video and suggested they should try something similar.
Dr. Dan Allender in his book, Healing the Wounded Heart, writes, “As difficult as it is to face, the presence of pornography binds the heart of children not only to the pictures but also to the one who is clearly aroused by those images.”[ii] Lisa’s experience with pornography, like many of us, was so convoluted precisely because it was erotically bound not only to the natural arousal of pornography, but also to an intimate relationship–her grandfather.
Had Lisa randomly found the same porn on a solitary bike ride on a county trail, the association between pornography and shame would not be as acute. Instead, she knew her grandfather, her brothers, and her were all sharing the same pornographic material. How is an eleven-year-old, in a family committed to pornographic arousal and silence, supposed to metabolize the implications of all of this? The stunning relational bonds women build are precisely what makes them so vulnerable to being bound to erotic shame with those who introduce them to pornography.
Silence Is the Sound of Sexual Shame
Lisa’s family, like most in my research, were largely silent on the issues of sexuality. Parents of those who completed my survey tended to be silent or significantly inadequate in talking to their children about sex:
Silence is the death knell of female sexual shame. When parents abdicate their responsibility to have meaningful, educational conversations about the beauty of sex, they are setting up the likelihood of perverse sexual education from the sex industry and porn-entrenched adolescents.
Parents were silent and inadequate not only with words, but also with meaningful emotional presence. A key driver associated with the introduction of pornography was when a child wanted more emotional involvement from their parent. Consider the following:
- The risk tripled of being introduced to pornography by someone older for those who, to a very great extent, wanted more of their mother’s involvement.
- The risk quadrupled of being asked to sexually stimulate someone during or after pornography when women wanted, to a very great extent, more of their mother’s involvement in childhood.
- Women were 2x more likely to be introduced to pornography by someone older when they, to very great extent, wanted more involvement with their father.
- The risk of being introduced to pornography by someone older increased from 9% to 38% when they reported their father showed a very great deal more interest in a sibling.
The data suggests that adults and peers who introduced girls to pornography, at some level, are aware of the longing children have to be pursued and curious about one of the most beautiful dimensions of what it means to be human–their sexuality. Refraining from giving children access to informative and normative sex education is damaging. Where parents and faith communities will not educate, pornography will.
Related: 6 Ways to Raise a Sex Addict
Women who wanted more involvement from their parents were not only introduced to pornography at a greater rate, they were also more likely to be sexually abused. The quality of a woman’s childhood relationship with her father was most evident in a woman’s current use of pornography. Women were 56% less likely to struggle with significant pornography viewing as an adult when they had fathers who were emotionally and physically present (even those who bordered on emotional enmeshment).
Sexual Struggles Are Often Re-Enactments
When Lisa entered high school, a neighbor asked her to take care of a cat for a week while the family was on vacation. Inside the neighbor’s house, she felt the familiar rush of arousal and intrigue. As the cat ate, Lisa searched through the bathrooms and bedrooms to try to find porn, which she eventually found in the master bedroom closet. In college, the pattern continued. She was hired as a nanny for a family near her university. One night, Lisa got the children to sleep and began roaming through the house, trying to find pornography or sex toys. She was unable to find anything, but much to her surprise, she was fired the next day. The family had a “nanny cam” installed and thought she was trying to steal money or jewelry. She was ashamed, but relieved that her true intentions were not discovered.
It is important to underscore that when Lisa entered therapy, the connection between her pornography use and her past introduction to pornography by her grandfather was not apparent to her. What this likely means for you is that there are stories of your own subtle abuse that you have dismissed as irrelevant to your sexual struggle. I am not telling you that you must draw hard and fast conclusions among these stories. Instead, I am inviting you to be curious about any scenes that may have flashed in your mind. The unwanted sexual behavior you face may be a re-enactment of the original ways you were introduced to pornography. These scenes are instrumental in helping us understand where we come from and why we remain bound to similar dynamics in the present.
Redeeming Your Sexual Story
Lisa’s sexual story was unwanted: but she did choose it. Shame then attempted to convince her that she was unwanted too. In reality, Lisa’s porn use was set-up by a perverse grandfather and a profound silence on sex in her family.
Related: 7 Lies I Believed When I Still Watched Porn
Lisa’s path to recovery was not to condemn her arousal, but to liberate it. Her task was to discover what an honorable, beautiful sexual life might be. Notice how easy it would have been to diagnose Lisa as a sex addict or to cite a disordered relationship to lust. The much more honorable, gospel work is to invite her to the conversation of what she wanted her sexual story to become. God invites us to the renewal of our minds, not the reigning in of our desire.
Lisa got engaged during her second year of therapy and she committed to educating herself on the beauty of sex as she prepared for marriage. One particular session, she arrived in my office and elatedly said, “Did you know the clitoris is the only human organ God made that has no other purpose, except for sexual pleasure? That is amazing!” Lisa was surprised that God was not awkward or timid about sex, but wove pleasure intimately into the design of her body. The more Lisa learned, the more she found the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6 to be true: God is for her body, not for the sexual immorality she was set-up to find.
Related: Resources for Women Who Struggle With Porn
C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, writes, “Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled.” Pornography is so alluring and so damaging not only because it spoils the goodness of sex. That is obvious. Pornography also spoils the bonds of relationship.
The ultimate defeat of shame is this: the spoiled stories that attempted to convince us to remain silent are now the very source of our pursuit of the overwhelming goodness of sexual, relational, and spiritual joy. God exchanges our unwanted ashes for beauty. Silence for discovery. Shame for pleasure.
Start Your Journey to Freedom
To help men and women on the recovery road, Stringer, The Heart of Man movie, and Covenant Eyes are working together to provide support. Journey Into the Heart of Man with Jay Stringer provides a five-month course that includes inspiring presentations, a self- assessment for people to see how their story shapes their sexual choices, and exercises to bring change. Stringer said, “Just as our sexual brokenness is not random, our journey to freedom is not either. In the Journey Into the Heart of Man, I wanted to equip accountability partners, small groups, and faith communities in a way they have not been equipped before to find healing.”
The recovery journey takes time and focus…to grow, learn, have fun, explore, and discover. How long? Stringer said most of his clients find freedom in two to five years. That doesn’t mean they are acting out during that time, but it takes time to shake off the debris of the past and live free.
Start Your Freedom Journey TodayThis post contains affiliate links. Covenant Eyes receives a portion of the profits of purchases made as a result of the links above.
[i] Nielsen / Net Ratings 2012 and Barna’s 2016 released in: The Porn Phenomenon: The Impact of Pornography in the Digital Age, which found that 33% of females ages 13-24 and 12% ages 25+ admitted to seeking out porn daily, weekly, or monthly.
[ii] Dan Allender. Healing the Wounded Heart: The Heartache of Sexual Abuse and the Hope of Transformation. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2016).
Hello Jay
This is a very good article, I actually think it is the best article I have read on this subject. So much of what you are describing applies to me. And I agree with you that we do need to examine how the porn thing weives itself into our relationships, and visa versa. Working through this is how we heal!
At first I did blame the folk that brought this stuff my way, but it is complicated. In my case I really do not think the people that exposed me to this could have had any idea the damage to me this could do.
Even I, I would never have imagined that pornography can mess a person up to the extent that it does. Back then at the start of all this though I was the one warning them, so I new something. I was just to niave to realise what it could be that I new
I do still have days when I can become very depressed and bitter, because I am the one that is in this mess, and when that poor me thing hits it is debilitating. And although I use the term ‘poor me’, as if I am being sarcastic, I am not, the poor me hits, and it is debilitating and in many ways justifiable, but listen, it just is not the fault of the folk that gave this to me, it really is not. It is not even the fault of the folk involved in the pornography. It is the Evil One, that brought this to me, through all the means he could find, and it is my weakness, my sin, something in me where I am different to other folk that has brought me down so quickly and so deeply. But saying that, I do also expect, over time pornography could do it’s damage on this scale to anyone and everybody, it got me quickly, it will, I think, get others slowly, but get them much the same
Anyway, the good news is I am on the right side of recovery and I am doing well. I do examine my motives, my memories, the cercumstances in which this came about and I do change them both mentally and emotionally. Love, and it is a whole lot of empathic love, that is the answer with all of this. Frankly, the whole of the Western World and beyond is drowning in this awful mess, awful awful mess.
The blessed are the folk that know! Sad but true, it is the people that have already really suffered with this that are in the better position. Out there in our communities, there are thousands upon thousands of young vulnerable folk, that can have no idea of what is coming. And it is heartbreaking just to even think of it! Yes, really it is only the folk that have been through this either themselves or as a family member or a friend that loves the addict, it is pretty much only these folk, once in recovery I mean, that can honestly say, I am going to be OK now. All thanks be to Jesus Christ
PS I do not have a computer or TV system now. I do my best to stay away from all such media devices, except for clean DVDs, I watch a few of them. I was with CE and still promote it for friends and so on. But me, sadly, this problem is so entrenched in me, I just find it a whole lot easier not to bother with the internet, wifi, satalitte systems and so on. I am only here right now because I have a close friend sat by my side watching every single thing that I am doing. And because for me that seems the only way to stop me coming across pornographic stuff. I just cannot be bothered doing any more than I am doing right now, checking articles on CE and checking my bank account and then switching off. As you have said Jay, it is the emotional stuff that needs healing first, only then will this porn thing stop properly
In the future maybe things will get better for me, but right now just seeing an image that resembles an image from my past can trigger a whole host of difficulties for me. Folk tell me, that now I do not look at pornography, I will be OK if I see anything but honest truely I never am, and it is the emotional intergration, and visa versa, with the pornography that creates the visual nightmare in my head. I just don’t want to see that stuff, not in real life and not in my head either. And right now really really staying away from all avenues is the answer for me
Thanks for letting me share! Just telling you guys this today has helped
Thanks for taking me back to the start of my “education” on sex. I didn’t receive any talks on sex so consequently my views of sex were pornographic. Thanks for the 40 days.
Thanks Jay for your responses…. One of the Scriptures I thought about with the children how it is better for a millstone to be wrapped around the neck and be thrown into the deepest trenches of the sea for those who lead little ones astray and into sin….
Also I’m curious if there was a significant difference between men and women and what the percentage is for women that were exposed to porn by someone compared to men? And wondering what percentage of the time was porn introduced to People by a male and what percentage by female… Tx
We must all resist the idea that we are victims all or most of the time. I was initially introduced to porn in my uncles garage where he had a stack of magazines. They were in boxes and not out for display. I was curious and made the decision to browse that and the connection began. I was ashamed as inherently I knew it was wrong but I didn’t tell anyone and our home was not a place for that discussion in the early 70’s. Was I a victim? Only of a fallen world and it’s circumstances. My uncle would not have deliberately caused me to have a problem. He had no children and he and his wife were happily married. This was ok with her. My brother and I just asked if we could play in there garage?
As time went on I made deliberate sinful choices to move forward into being “a looker” Those are choices that I must own and repent from . Repentance is still a good word in recovery! We acknowledge that we have messed it all up and turn to Christ and his life for us. We stay open accountable because we have turned away from this sexual behavior and have committed to following Christ. His work and grace keep us there. Are there issues in the past that caused that attraction and curiosity? Yes, absolutely; but that does not make all my mistakes their fault. Not in my opinion. My parents did the best they knew how and were broken just like me. My brothers and I had a great relationship with that uncle and he cleaned the garage out when we came there next but the attraction and hyper curiosity had been born. The fertilizing and attention to those desires, my selfishness and sinful nature took care of the rest.
Women or men that have found themselves being abnormally aroused and curious about these things definitely have reasons why this happened and some predatory behavior occurs but we can’t blame what we can’t control in the past. We understand how we got here, but we own our sinful part and choices and then repent and appropriate the awesome, free grace of God through Jesus that says, I am crucified with Christ, never the less it is not I who lives but Christ lives in me. and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
Thank you for the article. While highlighting the female, the role of shame in a cycle of sin, for say, applies to men as well, of course. Freedom from sin and shame is a matter of the heart and requires the work and life of Christ. A narrative from our current culture is that there is a battle between the sexes. That is a sideshow distraction. And yes, there are elements of truth in that narrative. However, the real enemy here is the father of lies himself, the devil. His goal is to sow discord and accuse God to humankind, humankind to God, and humankind to humankind. The enemy twists truth and distorts our thinking. Yet we have hope! Love heals what hurt divides. I love what Jay writes here:
“…path to recovery was not to condemn…arousal, but to liberate it. God invites us to the renewal of our minds, not the reigning in of our desire.”
What a Savior we have in Jesus!! He wants us to think correctly about who we belong to. We are His!!! We were created for His pleasure, not the man’s or woman’s whose motive is only to use us for their own selfish gain.
hi
i have a 17 year old son who has his own laptop , at first i had the CE filter on , but he got smart and was able to get around it , i confronted him and he admits to resetting his computer just to watch porn ,
when i bring it up to him how bad it is , he says na , its ok to watch it , i can’t seem to get to him ,
he is falling by the day any advice?
I think Bev and Kay’s comments are valuable for preventing future victimization, but I understood the article to focus on helping female addicts to recover. The hope that exists for women like Lisa, and all the male sex addicts, is great! Christ can redeem anyone, and there is hope!
Kay…you hit the nail on the head. I have never heard my church bring up
Issues concerning porn. In fact, the typical Christian church still believes that we were simply made for a man and his pleasure. Bottom line….the church needs to give women equal rights. We are only going to be continually seen as an owned object by men if the church keeps us “submissive.” Porn will never be discussed. It will always be in the shadows. The church is just as guilty of perverting sex as the world is because women are not seen as equal to men period.
All of this is presuming of course that one is a Biblical literalist, a fundamentalist Christian. Personally, I hold fast to no made-made religion, but rather the innate nature of the created soul. Sexuality between humans should ideally be a very natural pleasurable act, married or not married, makes no difference as long as love is involved. Lust is also a natural part of the human lexicon, it just is, period. How it’s controlled and handled of course is the major factor as to whether it is unforced and mutually enjoyable or forced and distasteful and even destructive. The human body was created for several reasons, one of them being sexual enjoyment and not constant repression, which is what so many of mankind’s doctrinal religions attempt to enforce. Mature consensual sex between two individuals who care for each other can be a beautiful, expressive, and bonding act that needs no religious dogma to regulate it.~
Kay,
Yes, yes, yes. Thanks for posting that.
whenever I bring up men’s stats re porn, a very common, almost universal male response is well “it’s a growing problem for many women too”… implying that it’s the women’s fault and don’t just point fingers at the men, deal with your own gender first… so… your article helps support a theory I’ve had that it is mainly men grooming women to be sexual perverts for the men and (some) men want women hooked on porn for the guy’s selfish pleasure… so sick and disturbing! (some) men want women to be a sexual object and “introducing” girls/women to porn normalizes that behavior that they want… I’ve had this theory, but there is no data to support it (just anecdotal evidence). so appreciate your study to expose how porn is intentionally introduced… and I would add to “normalize” sexual promiscuity and perversions… so per your stats 82% of people had porn intentionally introduced to them… WOW! how has this been “missed” in the past? well actually I’m not surprised as porn is such a taboo subject and that’s why we are dealing with it in the epidemic proportions going on…
but Jay, I find the use of “curiousity” disturbing… (both in this article and the other one posted on CE a month or so ago)… i get analyzing/processing sexual fantasies to understand what are triggers in one’s sexual journey, but being “curious” about them I think gives permission to continue with inappropriate sexual fantasies (not sure there are appropriate ones, haven’t thought about that a whole lot, but I’m aware that porn will stir up many inappropriate fantasies as porn is known to fuel increased violence against women and fuel sexual trafficking which actions start with a sick fantasy)… from a woman’s perspective being “curious” about sexual fantasies is disturbing to me and creepy and I think harmful in general, that when the stats tell us almost 70% of men in Church look @ porn on a regular basis, and knowing that breeds sexual fantasies for them… ugh… it almost makes me want to avoid church sometimes…
also, I wasn’t impressed with your title and opening sentence- as again, that is the almost always part of the response from male leaders in the Church when I bring up stats re porn in the Church – that’s it’s problem for women too… but the article ended up being a confirmation that it is men that are generally grooming the vulnerable children and women to get hooked on porn… again, so disturbing… but, that gives me valid support of my theory and can use that to expose and respond to the deception going on with porn, when men are quick to point the finger back at women… so on the one hand, it’s disturbing – but I already was pretty sure that might be the case, and on the other it’s a confirmation of what we are dealing with in this battle re porn… and it goes back to the men being the main problem, and the men have to deal with it first… because there failure to deal with it is spawning porn use by the women and children… so sick! because the men (particularly in the church) have failed to address porn effectively*** in the last 20+ years… *** this is an entire disucssion on it’s own… if we want to analyze the huge failure of Church leaders to deal with this with any effective signficance… and why!
I recently heard this question asked by a man I greatly respect: “If all the men in the world died tonight, how many brothels would exist tomorrow?” There was dead silence in the room, and then a lot of nervous chuckles. Because we all know the answer to that question.
ZERO.
Our culture, including our Christian culture, accepts that men will objectify and use women sexually.
There’s not even a question about whether this will happen; everyone just assumes that because a man has a brain, he must use it to objectify women.
Until the church faces this lie, there will be no forward progress, only a lot of excuses that eventually lead back to the same old lie that’s been there from the beginning: “the woman that thou gavest me…”
Hi Bev,
Thanks for your thoughts. I will try to respond to each of your three paragraphs.
Paragraph 1) Yes, there is a lot of grooming when it comes to introducing pornography to children. It’ so tragic. I want to scream and weep.
Paragraph 2) I would say “curiosity” is synonymous with analyzing/processing arousal. Most of us have never thought about the symbolism within our lusts. As a clinician, I’ve seen so much growth in people’s lives when they begin processing their brokenness instead of just hating themselves for it. I find God to be refreshingly curious about who we are and I think we would be well served by this too. And yes, I fully agree that pornography contains so much male violence against women. I have at least a chapter /1.5 chapters addressing that in my upcoming book.
Paragraph 3) From what I can gather from your critique, it seems that if I say 30% of pornography users are women, it overlooks how women are victims in their use of pornography? If so, that is why I tried to take the angle of the his is ” introduction” not the discovery of porn. Re: critique of the church/male leadership. I agree. There was a recently study done in HBR about how the abdication of power does more damage in organizations than the coercive use of it. I see church leaders guilty of both coercion and abdication. Over 50% of our pastors are using porn, which also inhibits them from truly bringing the voice of integrity they need to address the issue of porn/male violence against women. The first book I am writing is certainly about those who “use” porn, but I am certainly hoping to engage this issue far more as it relates to pastors/churches as time goes on.
Bev,
Just had one more thought from a man named Jackson Katz who has a great TED Talk titled, “Violence against women – it’s a men’s issue”. He speaks to some of the issues you were raising in your comment. He also had a remarkable post go viral a couple weeks ago in reference to the #MeToo that women were sharing across various platforms. Katz says: “We talk about how many women were raped last year, not about how many men raped women. We talk about how many girls in a school district were harassed last year, not how many boys harassed girls. We talk about how many teenage girls in the state of Vermont got pregnant last year, rather than how many men and boys impregnated teenage girls….Even the term ‘violence against women’ is problematic. It’s a passive construction; there’s no active agent in the sentence.”
I honestly think the “finger pointing” needs to stop. Period. Men AND women are both equally responsible for the sexual brokenness in this world. I think you are conveniently forgetting that women and men are both born with brains and wills of their own. Just because there are men out there who want to attempt to “brainwash” women into becoming sexual objects does not mean that women have to make that choice. You are blaming men for women’s bad behavior and that is NOT Biblically sound. Everyone is responsible for their own choices and sins. And you are honestly making women out to be pretty brainless which is very insulting.
Children of BOTH sexes on the other hand are incredibly vulnerable to the disturbing and disgusting influence that both men and women are responsible for in these very evil times. Women in the media play a particularly big role in sending sexual messages to young children of both genders by CHOOSING to pose seductively for magazines, participate in nude scenes, dance around half naked in music videos, etc. Men may be involved in these projects but the women are EQUALLY involved by CHOOSING to participate. The encouragement and attention they get from men is not an excuse for their choices.
I wholeheartedly agree that God intends men to be leaders and therefore be the ones to address issues such as porn in the church, but that does not make men solely responsible for the damage that porn and other sexually explicit material is causing. And we won’t get anywhere unless we address what men and women are doing wrong to perpetuate these issues.
Women are NOT poor little brainless creatures who can’t help but be influenced by men who want to turn them into perverts. I assure you, there are women out there with plans of their own to ensnare men for their own selfish purposes.
Bev…I strongly agree with you as well. ….men need to change first
I have had men try to convince me that lesbians are more acceptable than gays because women’s bodies are more attractive than a mans? Really? So….I was told it should be more natural for me to fantasize about women than a man about a man? Really? …..I can’t believe the average person cannot see it!!!! What’s on the billboards/commercials/Ads/movie/sitcoms/magazine…..what is SHOVED down our throats every DAY! Images of women….not men…..with sexy looks, open mouths biting into a Taco Bell burrito, biting my into a burger, etc….we have been programmed by society to think the way men want us to think…..yes I will sound like a feminist right now..but only to someone who fails to see the truth….perversion of sex and distorting it will never change ….unless men ….especially men in leadership change it first by recognizing women not only as a being MADE FOR ADAM
Bev,
It may be helpful if you didn’t use the language in your response towards people who struggle with pornography. Calling these people, “sick, perverted, etc.” doesn’t help. One of the problems that men and women who struggle with this have is that they feel dirty, sick, not valued or respected, etc.” When those words are used against them, it only makes them more discouraged and even more likely to fall into sexual sin. In a word, they feel shame- just what this article is about. If we can celebrate their sexuality and not make them feel like they are just “perverts” we can help them look at this problem in a new light.
Besides, it sounds like Lisa probably would have at some point had this problem with pornography if a man introduced it to her or not. Nearly everyone will eventually come across, just like her grandfather came across it at some point in his life. So we can hope that Lisa’s grandfather will eventually find freedom also, and not perpetuate this sin to others.