Before I get into five surefire ways to motivate your child to use pornography, let me establish two important points. The first is no parent wants their child to become involved in pornography. We all can agree on this.
The problem for many of us is we do not understand the insidious allurement of pornography and how our behavior, though unintentional, can help shape a child to crave something which can lead him into a lifetime of slavery.
There are always unintended consequences to our actions. We can’t act one way, good or bad, and not expect our actions to have unintended consequences. Like a rock dropped into a lake, there will always be a ripple effect to our attitudes and actions.
Secondly, pornography for a man is not primarily about the physicality of a woman. A woman’s appearance is an external magnet for the eye to enjoy, but the greater problem for the man is his insatiable cravings of the mind.
Pornography is first and foremost about the theater of the mind, where the young male can enter into his virtual world and be king for a day or in this case, king for a few minutes as he satiates his mind with the risk-free intrigue of the cyber conquest. Porn is a secret world all of the time. Porn resides in the heart. It is lust, which feeds itself while in the darkness of a person’s mind.
This makes what we do as parents all the more important because the mind of the child is not altogether discernible. The seeds of lust can be planted in the mind of a child many years before he is old enough to act out on what has been growing inside his heart. This is the message of James.
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:14-15)
Though James is speaking in a continuum—lured, enticed, desire, conceived, sin, and death—he does not say these events happen in a rapid-sequence. It can take years for all these sinful events to transpire. In most cases the allurement and enticement of the porn addict began in the theater of his mind while he was a child. This has been a consistent pattern I have seen in counseling. You will see in my five sure-fire ways to motivate your child to use pornography how any child can be in porn training without the child or the parents knowing how he was wrongly shaped.
1. Non-Romantic Marriage
Porn Training: Only certain kinds of women are porn-worthy.
The Christian home should be a sexual home. God said sex was good and His first couple were not ashamed about their unique sexuality. It was only when sin entered their world that people became giggly about sex and sexuality. One of the biggest unintended consequences of the non-romantic marriage is how it communicates certain people are not porn-worthy.
Before your mouth completely hits the floor, let me explain.
A major characteristic of the porn-trained mind is how some people are worthy to be lusted after and others are not worthy. There is no question about what kind of woman is porn-worthy. There is not a woman in America who does not know this, which is why many of them obsess over how they look, how much they weigh, what they wear, and the horror of growing old.
Though they would not say it the way I have stated it—as being porn-worthy—many of them want to be worthy of their husband’s attention. They want to be desired. While this is not all bad, it can be deadly, especially in a marriage where she is not desired. A husband who will not romantically pursue his wife is sending a message to his children about how she is not worthy of being pursued. She does not fit the criteria. She is not attractive enough to be pursued.
In addition, when the children’s minds are filled with sensual TV commercials and movies, it begins to establish the kind of beauty which is worthy of their gaze. Our children need to be taught about real beauty as seen in the relationship between their dads and moms.
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. (1 Peter 3:3-4)
One of the best ways for the husband to highlight real beauty is for him to pursue his wife in the home. There needs to be a lot of hugging and kissing between the husband and wife. Release biblical sexuality and romance from its shameful prison and teach your children a biblical view of love.
Children need to see marital romantic affection. The dad can send a clear message to his children regarding what beauty is and what turns him on—though he would not say it this way to his children. Holding hands, dancing in the living room, hugging for long periods of time, and smooching in front of the kids are beautiful examples of who and what is worthy of a man’s love.
2. Instant Gratification
Porn Training: Cyber women are downloadable and extinguishable.
The spoiled child who is given everything he wants is a perfect candidate for porn training. Another main characteristic of the pornographer is the easy accessibility and extinguishability of the cyber girl.
Too many of our children have not heard the word no. They are often given the desires of their heart. It used to be children were glad to have their needs met, but that day has passed. Not only are needs an expectation and an assumption, but so are the desires. You’ll see this in the average middle school church ministry.
My daughter came home the other day telling me how most of the sixth graders in the group had iPhones. When children run the home by easily persuading their parents to give them the desires of their heart, then there is nothing to stop the child from getting into porn if the opportunity arises. And the opportunity will arise.
I heard a stat recently which said out of 813 adults from 18-26, two out of three agreed pornography viewing was acceptable. 86% of the men and 32% of the women used porn. The percentage among women is growing. I think we all agree porn is exponentially easier to access than it was just ten years ago. If the child is set up to get his selfish desires met, it won’t be hard for him to be allured by porn.
- The spoiled child gets what he wants when he wants it with no regard for right or wrong.
- The porn addict gets what he wants when he wants it with no regard for right or wrong.
Instant gratification in a child breeds instant gratification in adults. We’re hiding our heads in the sand (self-deception) to think we can meet all the desires of our child’s heart and expect him not to be this way when he becomes an adult.
Want some tips on how to equip your kids to use technology wisely and how to talk with them about things like porn and sexuality? Download the free e-book Equipped: Raising Godly Digital Natives.
3. Non-Communicative Couples
Porn Training: Married couples communicate less and less, a requirement for porn enjoyment.
One of the common complaints I hear from couples in marriage counseling is the couple’s lack of communication. They hardly talk to each other. If they do talk, it’s usually about family events, mutual transactions, and marital business.
This is a perfect setup for the porn trainee because viewing porn has nothing to do with verbal communication. Porn is about visually enjoying women in order to feed the mind. Who needs to talk? The heart of porn use is privatized self-centeredness. It’s a man isolating himself in order to watch a video.
The heart of the non-communicative couple is self-centeredness. It’s two people married to each other, but living in their private worlds. The children of non-communicative parents are trained in the de-valuing of words, but it’s more than this. It’s the devaluing of the opposite sex. A man who does not talk to his wife is sending a loud message—she is not worthy of his words.
Nothing devalues a woman more than pornography. The female is objectified only for the purpose of being used in a slavish way to satisfy the putrid mind of a man. There is no communication in this scenario.
Husbands, your children need to see the value you give your wife by giving her some of your best words throughout your day. I’m not talking about words which satisfy the family schedule or the financial budget. I’m talking about words which build up, cherish, nourish, and adore your wife. Show the value you place on the woman you married. Let her be exalted in the minds of your children.
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Ephesians 4:29)
Teach them to talk in ways which build-up the other person. You’re not only valuing the person, but you’re exalting the use of words. This is one of the most powerful ways the Lord builds us up—through His Words.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
4. No Consequences for Actions
Porn Training: Teaches a false confidence through a risk-free relationship.
Along with the spoiled child mentioned above, there is a parallel parental action to giving the kid whatever he desires. This is the parent who teaches little to no consequences for his actions. A child who does not have to pay for what he has done wrong will learn how to get away with anything.
This, too, is a major characteristic of a porn addiction. It gives the addict a false confidence in a risk-free virtual environment.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. (Hebrews 12:6)
Children must have a comprehensive view of love, which means they must be appropriately disciplined when they do wrong. The spoiled child who suffers little consequences in life will have a low regard for rules and authority.
Porn has no rules and low risk. It doesn’t take much to enter the porn world. It’s not like robbing a bank, which makes porn’s allurement all the more appealing. A child who knows he can get away with things is easy prey for the tentacles of pornography.
I’m all for grace-motivated living and doling out affection on my children, but I’m not for letting them get away with sin. We have clear sin categories in our home and my children know where the lines have been drawn. This is a matter of respect and honor for God and His Word. There is a right and a wrong. The porn addict does not have this kind of respect. The lines are blurred, a reality for him which did not begin when he first stumbled onto pornography.
Many porn addicts have a low view of the law of God. They simply do not care, because they have not been made to care. One of the ways you can discern this in your child is by how he respects his siblings or his mother. Typically a child will push his mother farther than he will push his dad. When children do this, they are stretching the boundaries of honor, respect, kindness, and biblical love.
These four things, among several other character traits, are also absent from the porn user. As a parent, you may want to examine how you honor, respect, show kindness, and biblically love those in your home and community.
5. Critical Community in the Home
Porn Training: Criticism and anger are the most common ways we devalue others.
Is your home a critical community? If you were to assess your home, would you determine there is more encouragement, praise, affirmation, and love or is there more frustration, impatience, criticalness, and self-centeredness?
The porn world is a refuge where people go to escape the realities of their lives. It’s a risk-free haven where the addict can be in control, while satisfying his weary mind. There is no place which will affect his mind more than what goes on in his home. Even the church cannot accomplish what the home can accomplish, good or bad.
If the home is not a refuge of encouragement, your child will be tempted to find refuge in other places. Porn is one of the easiest places for him to get lost in the moment. It gives him a satisfying power which he does not experience in his real world. He can go into his momentary addiction and seize the moment with no fear whatsoever of being condemned, judged, criticized, or disappointed. All he will need to do is tweak his conscience in order to feed his habit. Once his conscience is appropriately hardened, he is home-free—according to his self-deception.
The best antidote for this kind of twisted thinking is to create a culture of encouragement in his home. Isn’t this what the Gospel is all about? Each time you read God’s Word you find some kind of benefit? You are encouraged? You are helped? Compare how God’s Words affect you and how your words affect others.
The Porn Trained Kid
Porn training does not happen by volition. It happens by default if the parents are not attuned to the kind of home they have created. Kids are responders and they will respond to what the parent is providing them.
The question now becomes, what are we exporting to our children? We’re all exporting something. The good news for the humble person is he can examine his mind and behavior through the lens of this article and be changed. All a parent needs to do is to implement the needed changes listed under each of the five points mentioned. If you do this, then plan on being surprised by God. His Word is true—He gives favor to the humble (James 4:6).
This article also appears on RickThomas.net: “Five sure-fire ways to motivate your child to use porn“
I know from personal experience that porn “kills.” Fully aware that the voyeuristic traits that are associated with it had its own realizations. I am a former addict, yet I am also aware that “former” means still battling. I live for and love the Lord. It is His conscious presence in my life that keeps me aware that I can overcome. I have made my stand publically about the threat, and consequences of pornography, especially where it plays out in a marriage. Even in a childless one.
These five points clearly defines the process and helps to be able to fit many situations that include porn in them. Not just how it affects children but anyone. Our society is over run with it. But the healing for all must first come from the healing of yourself first. Thank you for this and I will share it as often as I am led.
Thank you so much for the great article. As a young mom of 2, you bring up some great tips and share some insight that I think will help my husband and I guard our home from porn. Just a side not, I actually “pinned” this article to my pinterest board and it was removed because of the title. Multiple people reported it as being in violation of their policy because of inappropriate content just based upon the title.
This is a hard thing, it is a strong hold. God says our weapons are mighty for pulling down strongholds. Jesus is the only Way, Truth and Life. Lord Jesus show us, teach us how ny your Holy Spirit. Lord, You will have to do it for us, we cannot do it.
I agree with everything mentioned. I’ve been fighting pornography for many years and I used to blame others for my sin. I blamed my Dad for saying if you’re going to look, don’t bring it home. Plain and simple, this struggle is attributed to my lack of discipline of the mind. I have allowed imagery to satisfy my insecurities of self acceptance and satisfaction. Why be offended? This is real. My parents were disengaged and I’ve had to learn that God is all I need and to pour myself into my marriage and love my spouse and communicate with my spouse of my struggles. I try to make every attempt to show love and support and have my spouse watch the internet. I’ve asked my spouse to be the imagery I seek. One day, the many years of imagery will be removed from my mind by God’s grace. It is a constant reminder of my need for my Savior’s forgiveness and love. This is so real.
I really appreciate these insightful points! As a mother of a young boy and wife of a of a great husband (who also has a past of struggling with these issues), it’s great to have some specific points to think about. Your article made me feel inspired and empowered about the things I can do to help protect my little boy.
I realized, reading your article, another reason why it is so important to accept and even encourage my husband’s affection publicly. Also, the point about little boys tending to push the boundaries of honor and respect with their mother’s much farther really resonated. I realized that I am guilty of allowing my son to do this at times, even though we are a home that uses the Bible to guide our discipline. I feel more urgently that I MUST more firmly enforce the boundaries of respect and honor in our home. Thank you!
Marriage Isn’t About Me Me Me. The Reason The Male Author Has Written About Male’s Contribution To This Issue Is Because Pointing The Finger At Women Is Self-Centered, Thereby Completely Defeating The Very purpose Of The Point He Is Making! Only A Self-Centered Person Will Read This And Automatically Seek To Blame Their Counterpart And Find This Article Offensive. The Author Can’t Judge Women. God Has Clearly Instructed Him To Educate Men On THEIR part. Everyone Offended Needs To Take A Step Back, Examine The Plank In Their Own Eye, And Completely Surrender To God Whatever Is Going On Inside Their Heart That Made Them So Automatically Seek To Blame Others Instead Of accepting And Dealing With Whatever responsibility They Have.
Is There Any Reason You Had To Capitalize Everything You Said? It Really Wasn’t Interesting Enough To Try And Make It Stand Out By Capitalizing It!
Can I just say, the most alluring thing about porn for a religious child is the fact it’s “taboo” . I grew up in a very religious home and it was always portrayed as much of a sin as the act you’re watching. Being the curious teenager I was I of course had to see what it was all about. When I did end up going to a site it was…..no big deal. No lighting hit me, my bible didn’t burst into flames, didn’t spend any money, I didn’t even get a virus. I just watched then clicked it off. This may not have been the start of my doubts about Christianity, but it was certainly one of the major steps. Over time I figured out that pretty much every guy watches porn. Especially while deployed, everyone had “that” external passed around. What I’m trying to say is if you tell your kid not to watch porn, chances are pretty high they will. The biggest advice I could give is to say that it puts a certain strain on them in relationships. They will compare their partner to what they’ve seen and that’s just a pit they can’t really get out of. Stress that if anything. PS. The thing about removing computers out of rooms, while good natured, is an awful idea. The internet is the biggest source of knowledge at one’s disposal. Breaking them of this will hamper them in many aspects, especially social. You just have to trust your kid to do the right thing and in that trust that you parented them well enough to make those decisions.
I see it differently. Allow me to use an analogy. I grew up in a home where we were clearly told that drinking alcohol was not acceptable. It was not just that it was against our religion, we were told the negative consequences that came with it. And now that my siblings are all adults, most of us do not drink. It’s not a perfect track record, but in the middle of a culture where the vast majority of people drink, and where large numbers have a dependency on alcohol, that’s remarkable. Putting alcohol off-limits and educating on its consequences worked.
I agree that making something “taboo” can in some cases increase its appeal – but it isn’t the fact that it’s off-limits that increases its appeal, but rather the fact that it’s off-limits without there being any explanation for why. Forbidding any discussion of it can further enhance the appeal.
The solution is to make clear that the behavior in question is not acceptable, but not make it “taboo” by refusing to discuss it. Instead, be willing to discuss it and the reason for why it’s off-limits. You highlighted an excellent reason in this case: because pornography leads to a tendency to compare one’s romantic partner with an artificial ideal, which is highly toxic to relationships. When those discussions are held openly in the family, they make it clear to the children what is expected of them, without attaching any mystery to the behavior in question that may enhance its appeal.
Also, one note on computers: they certainly can be made readily available to the children without being available privately in rooms. I know of many families who keep one or more computers available in public rooms in the home for homework and recreation. It’s an excellent opportunity to learn accountability for one’s behavior on the internet, and sharing if there are multiple children.
Porn addict here. It’s been about two months since I’ve looked. I’ve been addicted for about ten years. Only in the past six months has it gotten better. Why? I decided to do what it took to deal with it. Porn addiction has physiological causes; it literally causes changes in the brain similar to drug addiction, especially when combined with masturbation. Support is important, but I believe education is as well. I found the information I needed on yourbrainonporn.com. I have no intrest or connection to this site other than to say it really helped me to deal with it. Basically, it explains what happens to men’s brains when they look at porn, and explains how to deal with it. You just have to stop looking and pleasuring yourself to it. You have to remind yourself that there is nothing that says you HAVE to look at porn; the urge to look is just your brain’s reward system lying to you that it needs another dopamine fix. By stopping looking and masturbating, you weaken that urge over time. I am still not “cured”, but by forcing my body to “reboot”, I’ve never felt more free. I agree with this article that it’s best not to even start, but for those of us who are addicted, there’s hope. Just remember, porn causes your brain to lie to you.
There is a lot of great information on that website, yes. A lot of the same research went into our book, The Porn Circuit.
Scott, thank you for sharing your Jan 6, 2014 post. It states so simply and clearly what porn does, and what an addict needs to do. Saying that your brain lies to you is also especially powerful in my opinion. My husband of 34 yrs was forced to admit that he has used porn since a young teenager, maybe 12 even. He finally hit rock bottom when I threw him out of our home this past week. We had what looked to most people as a near perfect life. I was shocked he had been hiding this from everyone for all of these years. He has been emotionally and physically distant throughout our marriage, progressively so, and has had multiple instances of infidelity. Only when it came to the last episode of lying and cheating that he was caught in, that he was forced to confess or risk losing me and the wonderful family we had build together. So it’s been a few years since your post, but I hope you are still striving to rid yourself of this addiction, and that it has become steadily easier for you. God bless you.
“Porn training does not happen by volition. It happens by default if the parents are not attuned to the kind of home they have created. Kids are responders and they will respond to what the parent is providing them.”
While I agree in many instances with your thoughts, I am troubled by the idea that we as parents can keep our kids from sinning. We can foster an environment of godliness, but ultimately our kids are responsible before God for their actions. I am troubled that the article seems to suggest that there is a “recipe” for keeping our kids from porn. Even when parents seemingly do everything right, some kids just go wrong. I do not want to teach my 4 sons that someone else is responsible for their sin. When they are adults and sin, I don’t want them to say that it was because of their home environment, because their dad didn’t show enough physical attention publicly to their mom, etc. That seemingly negates the idea that God died for our sins individually. There have been movements over the centuries that have provided “recipes” for keeping our kids in line. But scripture puts the burden back on the heart of the individual “Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.” Proverbs 20:11.
Wonderful article! To those of you who felt you needed to “correct” it or finish it. Never does it say this is the complete end all and fix for every possible happening, just some really good advice to take in. As a woman I think one reason I was drawn to porn for a while was that I knew my dad had a calendar hidden behind a picture in the livingroom and he would show it to his friend and laugh, it was even just a joke calender it had a grown woman on the front and when you lifted the see thru page it was not what you expected to see. He would made remarks about women on tv too not always nice remarks but still remarks that got our attention. He was a good father and a good man but had no idea how strongly those things affected us, his daughters.