And no, I’m not sexually attracted to women, the images I been viewing had warped my thinking, been seared into my memory.
I no longer struggle with porn addiction or a desire to view it.
I no longer have pornographic images haunting my mind.
My God is the God of freedom, for those who truly desire it.
I still have to make the choice not to let my mind wander. I still have to choose not to click on Internet articles, links or videos that may contain questionable material.
I still have to make a choice to disengage from sexually explicit conversations.
I still have to make a choice to view each and every person I encounter; male or female, as God sees them. To honor and value them as fellow human beings, created in His image.
I long for the day when I can read a dessert menu, and not be aware that half the names on the list carry innuendo in porn speak.
I still have major body hang-ups and a ridiculously poor body image, something that didn’t exist to this degree before I invited pornography into my life.
There is a reason why the comparison game is a dangerous one to play.
I have freedom, but some consequences remain.
I recently had a discussion with a close friend of mine. She has teenage daughters, and we were talking around the topic of this crazy world of porn and sexting that our kids are not only exposed to, but immersed in. Yes, our kids. Our sheltered kids. The ones we watch and monitor, the ones in youth group, the ones being raised in Christian households, the ones attending Christian schools—our kids!
As we talked, my friend told me of a blog she’d come across, written by a young man who was imploring women to show some self-respect by removing any and all hair from their pubic and genital region, making sure that all women heard his message loud and clear, that they should be sporting a Brazilian. He wrote that pubic hair is ‘disgusting’ and he was physically incapable of maintaining an erection if a girl had any hair ‘down there’.
Are you freaking kidding me? Seriously?
This, this is the world our kids are living in.
This is why we need open—and I specify: age appropriate—dialogue with our kids!
Our daughters do not need to grow up believing that there is something wrong with their body because it does what it was designed to do, believing that they are worthless, unattractive and disgusting unless they remove all their body hair.
They do not need to grow up believing that they have to perform all manner of sexual acts in order to deserve and receive love.
Our girls need to know that someone who would seek to bully, pester or coerce them into doing anything they are uncomfortable with does not truly love them and does not need to be indulged.
Our sons do not need to have their thinking warped by loveless, lust-filled images of sexploits. Images that are edited and produced to create and fulfill a need that can never be satisfied by just one viewing.
They do not need to have unrealistic expectations of women, relationships, sex and all sexual acts.
