A Broken Design

Pornography. A concept so mainstreamed in our society, yet so often kept in the dark. A secret sin, though not always viewed as such. This phenomenon has exploded due to an Internet-induced ease of accessibility. The world, and especially American culture, have come to accept the viewing of pornography as a normal part of being a teenager, as a means of fulfilling curiosity and satisfying sexual drive. If, however, pornography is merely a rite of passage meant to quench hormonal yearnings then why are its effects so far reaching? Why is this fix being dragged out for years and slithering its way into marriages? Pornography is not real. It is staged. It is fantasy-feeding. It is a perversion of God’s perfect design for marriage and sexuality that needs to be stopped.

A middle school bus. “Hey man, check out this website. It’s got some pretty cool videos on it!” That was all it took. Going home that night, a cycle was unintentionally started that would take about five years to break. He had no idea what it was, but he soon became dependent on it. Addicted. Innocence lost, his mind filled with an unrealistic portrayal of sex, and caught in a sequence of lies, he found himself ashamed and disgusted, yet intrigued and not wanting to let go. The images began to overtake his mind. Seemingly trapped in this cycle, the numbness set in.

I have heard story after story like this from young men that I know, including those that I respect and that know and love Jesus Christ. This story though, is personal and painful for me because of my close-knit relationship with the one to whom it belongs. He has since broken his dependence on porn, but that is not at all to say that it has not brought its share of ugliness with it. Sin has a way of doing that. When I found out the truth about this man’s pornography dependence, I was crushed. Sexual sin brings so much baggage into relationships, and ours was no exception. I felt like I wasn’t enough. I was furious. I had sexual longings too, yet I chose not to deal with them in that destructive way; it wasn’t right. I couldn’t believe that he had felt the need to do that. I was sickened and I shut down. What bothered me even more though, was the fact that he had lied about his addiction. He was ashamed and didn’t want to hurt me, but not telling me the truth hurt me even more. I had no idea what to do, and I lived for a time in a state of hurt, anger, and confusion. This man has broken his addiction and I praise God for that. I pray constantly that he will never fall back into pornography’s trap. Though rebuilding trust is definitely not a fast or easy process, God is providing guidance and restoration. Forgiveness is a powerful thing. The grace of God covers a multitude of sins and provides peace and reconciliation beyond our belief.

Pornography had slithered and implanted itself into the heart of the one I love. Though it has been removed, heartbreak has still occurred. My heart is broken all the more though, because I know that the effects of this institution are so much larger than my personal relationship struggles. This sin has been implanted in the hearts and burned into the minds of people across the world. Innocence is lost so much more quickly and this is a two-fold process. Children are being exposed to pornography and sucked in by its lure at progressively younger ages. What starts out as mere childhood curiosity transforms into an ugly need to feed premature and premarital sexual drive. Additionally, those in the porn industry are eventually often desensitized, whether willingly or unwillingly, to the sick portrayal of sex in which they are taking part. Young women around the world are being exploited and trafficked to fulfill a perverted, self-seeking desire.

Because of the staged nature of pornography, people’s minds are filled with unrealistic expectations for sex. Buzzing with hormones and longing for sex as depicted in pornography, expectation meets reality when a porn-addicted person actually goes to have sex of their own. Porn-level performance is not possible. When this realization is reached, the pornography cycle becomes all the more destructive. The person may try to force his or her partner into porn-based, painful, selfish sex. This objectifies the other person in the relationship and he or she merely becomes a means to an end, a way of fulfilling sexual drive. On the other side of the spectrum, the person may continue to quietly turn to pornography rather than to their spouse to fulfill their sex drive. In this way, marriages suffer tremendously. Sexual intimacy is lost. The self-giving act of sex, a spiritual, emotional, mental, personal, and physical connection loses its depth and dimensionality; it regresses into merely a physical connection. This self-giving act becomes one of self-satisfaction.

This is a broken design. This is not what God created. He designed sexual intimacy in such a way that a husband and a wife would be provided with a means with which to express their love for each other in a truly selfless and deep way. Pornography shatters this perfect design. It provides a method of self-gratification and takes away from the safety and security of sexual union within marriage. Like a drug, pornography appeals directly to one of our deepest longings and pulls its victims into a cycle of chemical, mental, and sexual dependence. It isolates. Pornography has caused struggle in a close relationship of mine, and on a much larger scale, it brings a loss of innocence and a perversion of intimacy into the world. It has broken God’s beautiful design and it needs to end.