SIN, SUFFERING, AND SEXUAL ADDICTION

There was a time when porn was propagated in the form of a magazine wrapped

in brown paper.  Then came Adult bookstores, XXX videos, and now the internet.  Like a growing cancer roaring out of control, pornography is no longer creeping into the fabric of society.  It demands attention, thrusts itself upon the most innocent of minds, and sucks purveyors into addiction.  We live in a sexualized culture.  What some now call soft porn is normative on TV in advertisements, cable programs, and movies on Netflix.  It is remarkably easy for a seven year old playing games on an i-phone to land on a porn site in just one click.

Pornography readily becomes an addiction.  Dr. Patrick Carnes states that it is “a pathological relationship in which sexual obsession replaces people.”  Dr. Ted Roberts says that at its spiritual core, “it is about idolatry – about where we are going to find life and fulfillment.”  It is real, enslaves and results in bondage, shame, and powerlessness.  It promotes a false, ephemeral sense of intimacy, comfort, power, and excitement.  Sexual addiction starts out as an entertaining exercise in fantasy, becomes a ritual, is often acted out in behavioral engagements (strip clubs, soliciting prostitutes, multiple affairs, voyeurism and other “false intimacies”), and ultimately leads to despair, hopelessness and helplessness.  Professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Mary Ann Laden, writes “Pornography is contaminating all of our relationships between men and women.  The marriage relationship is traumatically damaged and decreased in terms of the emotional intimacy, which is actually the cornerstone of the marriage.”

What many do not realize is that pornography drives the mega-million dollar industry of sexual human trafficking enslaving men, women, boys and girls around the world.  The connection between the two are direct and real.  Rampant porn consumption fuels demand for the exploitation of women and children with as many as 300,000 youths trafficked into prostitution and pornography and

thereby exploited for profit in the U.S. alone every year.

Disturbingly, addiction to pornography is not just a problem in the public in general.  Of the 1,351 pastors that Pastor Rick Warren’s website, Pastors.com, surveyed on porn use, 54% said they had viewed internet pornography within the last year and 30% of those had visited within the last 30 days.  In the book Men’s Secret Wars, Patrick Means states that 63% of pastors surveyed confirm that they are struggling with sexual addiction or sexual compulsion including, but not limited to, the use of pornography, compulsive masturbation, or other secret sexual activity.  Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of pastors, seventy-five percent, do not make themselves accountable to anyone for their Internet use.

While terrorism is an external threat from without, sexual addiction to pornography is a threat from within.  Like other addictions, the sin of sexual addiction and the personal damage it does can be prevented and healed. Restoration to purity can be a reality.  But that’s a focus of another blog.

*Much of the information in this blog was found in Recovery in a Sexualized Culture, Pure Hope Coalition, 2013,  and at  http://www.expastors.com/how-many-pastors-are-addicted-to-porn-the-stats-are-surprising/