Understanding and Overcoming a Porn Struggle

The following post is a reprint from The Guide section of Marry Well.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to forming good marriages today is pornography. The pervasiveness of explicit images and story lines miseducate men and women about relationships, love, sex and marriage. Additionally, pornography saps vital energy from the pursuit, cultivation and growth of healthy relationships.

If your path to marriage has been affected by pornography (and that’s now the case for most singles), then today is the day to seek redemption for your path. The purpose of the articles referenced below is to help you understand and overcome a struggle with pornography.

“Understanding the Seduction of Pornography” by Albert Mohler Jr.

The pervasive plague of pornography represents one of the greatest moral challenges faced by the Christian church in the postmodern age. With eroticism woven into the very heart of the culture, celebrated in its entertainment, and advertised as a commodity, it is virtually impossible to escape the pervasive influence of pornography in our culture and in our lives.

At the same time, the problem of human sinfulness is fundamentally unchanged from the time of the Fall until the present. There is no theological basis for assuming that human beings are more lustful, more defenseless before sexual temptation or more susceptible to the corruption of sexual desire than was the case in any previous generation. Read article

“Behind Sex Addiction is a Hunger for God” by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge

We put our hope in meeting a lover who will give us some form of immediate gratification, some taste of transcendence that will place a drop of water on our parched tongue. This taste of transcendence, coming as it does from a nontranscendent source, whether that be an affair, a drug, an obsession with sports, pornography, or living off of our giftedness, has the same effect on our souls as crack cocaine. Read article

“An Individual Approach to Recovery” by Daniel Weiss

One of the most common questions asked by a person after acknowledging his sexual brokenness is:

“Can I fix this by myself?”

The unspoken (but no less serious) part of this question is:
“Do I really have to tell anyone about this?”

It doesn’t matter who asks the question—young or old, male or female, parent or teen, married or single; most of us want to hide that broken part of us in the back closet of our lives, away from prying eyes, ridicule, and embarrassment. Read article

“Repentance for Sexual Addiction” by Dr. Harry Schaumburg

Repentance essentially means to change direction. It means to turn away from a focus on yourself and your own autonomy and toward God. Read article

“How to Develop Effective Accountability” by Rob Jackson

Our most basic need in life is relationship with God and others. Within these relationships, we can safely discover our blind spots and receive new input and teaching. Sadly, however, it’s in our human nature to hide ourselves if we sense disapproval from others. Read article

1. lydiann said the following on January 2, 2012 at 5:04 pm

   

   Wow, I read the article on “How to Develop Effective Accountability.” God has blessed me with a few friends in which this mutual sharing accountability could go on. These friends no longer live near me though. I agree with the article that it is difficult to find good accountability partners. Yet so important and helpful! May God increase our faithfulness in friendships of accountability within the body of Christ! May He give us the gift, both before and after marriage, of 1-3 sweet souls with whom we can be open, vulnerable, and growing together.
2. wordgirl said the following on January 2, 2012 at 6:11 pm

   

   Wow, this is great! Thanks for the re-post. I hadn’t seen this in The Guide, I don’t think. The Pure Intimacy site that some of these links go to have a ton of great articles on a variety of pertinent topics. I’m going to pass some of the articles under the “God’s design for sex” section to one of the Facebook groups I admin. There are so many people out there — both those who have sexual addictions and those who have been wounded sexually — who need to recover their sexuality and understand sex as God intended it.
3. wordgirl said the following on January 2, 2012 at 6:33 pm

   

   Oh, and everybody should check this out: http://www.sharedhope.org/thedefenders/WhoWeAre.aspx. While this specifically addresses the problem of child pornography, I think the principle applies to all pornography. And, I think that men who view porn have probably viewed child pornography without knowing it. Some 13-year-olds can pass off as being older, you know? At any rate, when men (and women) view porn, they’re creating a demand for the sex industry, which creates a demand for all sorts of victimization, including prostitution/sex trafficking. Many women are not in the sex industry willingly, or if they are, it’s because they feel that it is there only choice, due to trying to survive on the streets after leaving an abusive home, and things like that… These women need hope and healing, not for men to buy their pictures or their bodies.
4. Flint said the following on January 4, 2012 at 2:57 am

   

   “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God,” said G. K. Chesterton. That pithy quote (in Curtis and Eldrege’s article) makes me laugh, but are churches looking for those men at the brothel doors?

   One interesting phenomenon to me is that parachurch groups seem to be the ones talking about the porn problem, while many churches shy away.

   I heard a good sermon at church recently on James 5:14-16, which encourages the “sick” person to call for elders to pray over them and anoint them with oil (or prayers) for healing. Apparently the word “sick” is the same Greek word that is translated “weak” elsewhere. So, a weak or sick person is encouraged to call for the elders, seek their prayers and “confess your sins to one another.” (Confess sins?! What’s that got to do with being sick? A lot if its a soul sickness.)

   I’m glad Focus on the Family has developed the pureintimacy.org website. There are many other good resources available, but in James 5, God seems to invite believers to approach their local church elders directly for confession, help and prayer.

   Joining an accountability group (or developing deep, godly relationships with openness and honesty) may be very helpful, but I don’t think that’s the same thing as what James outlines, and it think it would be helpful for believers to consider James’ teaching as well — both for those who need to confess sins and those “snatching them out of the fire” or showing “mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh,” Jude 23.
5. ashmic said the following on January 10, 2012 at 10:11 pm

   

   If anyone struggles with this area check out Andy Stanley’s series entitled “The New Rules of Love, Sex & Dating”. Watch Part 2 called “Gentleman’s Club”. It is geared towards men and he talks about this very subject. Hope it’s a blessing to you all. Oh here’s the link: http://www.northpoint.org/messages/the-new-rules-for-love-sex-and-dating