OK…
I’ll say this first: This quote has *a lot* of truth to it, but I think we all know that in God’s design/formula/intent for sex, it wasn’t supposed to be that way (the short amount of time or long amount of trouble-LOL). However, for this blog, it’s relevant.
After talking to a mom over the weekend who found out that her daughter *gave* (I don’t know why we say “lost”) her virginity earlier this summer at the ripe old age of *12*, although I used to work with teen moms and so, unfortunately, it’s not new news to me that *children* are having sex, because this is a child who I have known since *birth*—one who never even seemed all that interested in boys but I knew had been exposed to porn at a pretty early age—I decided to do a bit of research on teens (she *just* turned 13), porn and sexual addiction.
There was one article in particular that grabbed my attention because the author said that there used to be a time that a child being addicted to porn was the equivalent of them being addicted to heroin. (So true) He also shared some of the consequences of sexual addiction in teens including social isolation, loneliness, depression, anxiety, relationship problems with girlfriends/boyfriends (as well as parents, teachers, and other adults), hours, sometimes days, lost to sexual fantasy, porn use, masturbation, and other sexual behaviors, physical harm to genitalia (caused by excessive masturbation), drug and/or alcohol use/abuse/addiction in conjunction with sexual acting out and sexually transmitted diseases (something that you might want to look into as it relates to your children or the youth who you work with). I also appreciated a section that he had for how porn and sex addiction affections teen girls *specifically*:
“Interestingly, pornographers are becoming more aware of what turns females on, and they are creating content with that in mind. The romantic/erotic novel Fifty Shades of Gray—geared primarily toward women—recently surpassed the 10 million mark in sales, and with a large percentage of those sales occurring online it’s hardly a leap to suggest that at least a few of those readers are teenaged girls.
The simple fact is adolescent girls are much more likely to become compulsive with erotic/romantic fiction or to get into trouble in chat rooms and on social media sites by engaging in romantic fantasy with someone they’ve never met than they are to develop a problem with more traditional forms of pornography and overt sexual acting out. As such, dating, social media, chat, and other friendship/relationship websites and smartphone apps can be troublesome venues for adolescent females.”
I can tell that I’m getting older because I’m still trying to figure out why a preteen needs a loaded cell phone to begin with (shout out to apps). But yes, I really get the point that young women get caught up romantic fantasy and it’s *no more real than porn is*. Matter of fact, some people might call “chick flicks” a young girl’s porn because if they are looking for some teenage boy to be their Ryan Gosling (Crazy, Stupid, Love) or Channing Tatum (The Vow), a *fantasy world* is exactly what they are in.
However, it’s this part right here that I stayed at for awhile:
“Common reactions [to porn] include excitement, embarrassment, shock, disgust, and even guilt or shame. Not surprisingly, boys tend to be more accepting of pornography, and they are more likely to return to it and use it for sexual inspiration and excitement.”
Here’s why: As a survivor of abuse, including sexual abuse, one of the things that I learned and worked through in therapy is the fact that how a person is introduced to sex is oftentimes how they prefer to having it and/or process it for years to come. So, if it is with their covenant partner, they are less likely to cheat or wonder about what it would be like to be with other people. If it was due to a violent rape, they often think that it is a turn on to be hurt and called degrading names during the act. If it was molestation via an older person, they tend to think that they prefer older partners. The thing is that in the unsafe scenarios, it’s not that they *want* it that way so much as they don’t know any different. And so, when you think about young people (and shoot, older people for that matter as well) having feelings like embarrassment, disgust and shame associated with their introduction to sex (oftentimes via porn), can you see how that too could be carried on for years to come?
So often, in the Church, people want to talk about *hell* as being a consequence for porn choices when the truth of the matter is that since Christ came to give us *abundant life* (John 10:10), then as people who are claiming to follow his example, I really wish we would be *life support* when it comes to teaching people about God’s Word, including what he says about sex. Porn is degrading and lust filled and destructive and a whole lot of other things, but the next time that you find out someone who you love has engaged in it, I encourage you to go deeper. Ask them how porn makes them *feel* and *as you are listening* to them, think about how God wants sex to make us feel (loved, safe, secure, satisfying, committed to) and build a conversation of healing from there.
That “steal, kill and destroy” heads up ain’t no joke, is it?
Porn doesn’t just harm our minds.
It can (potentially) destroy (or at least severely handicap) our *feelings* about sex as well.
Sound off…