Holger’s weblog

Christians and Internet Pornography

January 15th, 2006

At the conference I’m attending at the moment, I had the chance to teach a seminar on dealing with Internet Pornography. I thought it might be a good idea to publish my concept paper online – if you have any comments and suggestions for improvement, feel free to leave them in the comment section. This is a collection of thoughts, structured the way my talk went, but it’s not necessarily a full-blown article…

What is pornography?
There are many possible definitions, it even depends on culture what is viewed as pornographic. Take as an example the outcry that went through US media when Janet Jackson “accidentally” lost a part of her clothing and revealed a certain part of the female anatomy during the Super Bowl a while ago… in Germany, noone would have even mentioned it. Different cultures and different people have different definitions of pornography. But it doesn’t really matter because if someone is struggling because he’s looking at pictures of semi-clothed women, his struggles are not very different from those of someone looking at pictures of a men and women completely naked and more than that…
Actually, I’ve been told and I’ve read up on it a bit, that most women are not so much attracted by pictures. They are often more interested in erotic stories, chats etc… so even though some of the things I talk about don’t seem to fit, let’s include those in the definition of pornography.

Why do naked people look so good?
God made men and women in His image – and he also made them so that they complement each other. Women are attracted to men and men are attracted to women because of their physical attributes as well as their personality etc. – don’t believe those who say that looks don’t matter. They do, but people have different perceptions of beauty… so someone might think of his wife as beautiful and physically attractive, even though you think she’s actually quite ugly. It’s very natural that men find women attractive and vice versa… it’s part of being human. How we deal with this attraction is the real issue.

Why is pornography bad?
Looking at pornography means looking at pictures of things we are not meant to see. It’s sexuality taken out of the context of a committed, lifelong relationship. That’s part of the attraction, but that’s also the danger. In our minds, the pictures we look at can take on a life of their own and lead to a kind of addiction that demands more and more – and also more explicit – pictures. The fantasies that go with this are usually not very healthy. It can become very difficult for a man who has seen a lot of pornographic pictures of women to not project those images onto every woman he meets. And once that happens and she becomes part of your fantasy, it’s very difficult to have a normal relationship with that person, one where sex is neither the objective nor the first thing you think about when you meet. How can you get to know someone as a person when you already have those images in your head of something that, if at all, will come at a much later stage in the relationship?
And if you’ve seen it all, what kind of expectation does that create, once you get married and start having sex (if you can even wait that long, with all the fantasies you have)? You may have all those fantasies, but your partner does not.
I often hear that pornography is degrading to women… I think it’s equally degrading to men. It reduces sexuality to the mechanical act of “doing it”, to a world where women are always willing and men are always able to perform all kinds of sexual acts.

What does the bible say?
The bible is pretty clear on issues regarding pornography, even though it does not mention it as such. But isn’t looking at a person with lust “coveting your neighbour’s wife” in some way? At least as long as he/she’s not your wife or husband? And Jesus went even further in His teachings and said that you have already committed adultery if you only look at a woman with lust (apparently the men in Jesus’ time were all very unattractive and no woman would have ever looked at them with lust ). I know there are a couple more verses of scripture that could illustrate this point, but I think you’ve already been convinced that pornography is wrong, both from a psychological and from a biblical point of view.

So what role does the Internet play?
Ten years ago, we didn’t have a seminar on pornography. Maybe five years ago, we slowly started to see a need. Today, we see it more than ever. Why is that the case? The Internet has changed the way we have access to pornography. Ten years ago, when you wanted to look at it, you had to go to a shop and buy it. You had to go to the shopkeeper and pay for it. You had to be of a certain age to legally buy it. Someone you know might have seen you. It could have been embarrassing. Today, you can access pornography in the privacy of your home. Nobody will know who you are, nobody will see you, and nobody will know what you do behind closed doors. The step to accessing pornography that was once relatively steep has become almost no step at all. And there are lots of places where you can even have it for free and most of them don’t care if you’re old enough (well, you’re really never old enough, but I mean legally old enough). That’s why we’re seeing so many more young people who are joining OM who are struggling with this issue – but it’s not limited to young people. There have been studies done in the US that found out that about 30% of pastors in the survey had admitted to struggling with pornography – and it’s mainly the easy and anonymous availability on the internet that has been the cause of this.

So what do we do then?
As I mentioned earlier, the Internet has to a large taken away the potential for embarrassment – so one thing we need to think of is getting it back. There are several ways to do that – some examples: don’t surf the Internet when you’re alone. If you live with others, have the computer monitor facing your door, so that anyone walking by can see what’s on your screen. Limit your Internet activities to what is necessary – don’t use it to kill time when you’re bored.
Talk to someone you can trust about your problems – allow them to ask you if you’re making any progress. Accountability is the keyword here. There are even useful programs around that will sit in the background and monitor your Internet activities and they will send anything that’s suspicious to another person that you are accountable to. If you switch off the monitoring program, that will be reported as a suspicious activity as well.
Those are all rather practical tips what you could do – of course I know this is not just a practical problem, it’s a spiritual problem as well. So do seek counselling – it’s nothing to be afraid of. God is a mighty God and He can help you become free of this kind of addiction. You will have to ask Him… sometimes He will just do it; sometimes he will use the tools and tips mentioned before to make it happen. There’s nothing wrong with doing both – when someone’s ill, we pray for his healing and send him to the doctor, not because we don’t trust that God will heal but because we know that He often uses doctors to heal…

What about filters?
There are a lot of filtering programs available that are supposed to keep pornography away from your computer. I’m an IT guy and I personally don’t think much of them… at least not as a tool for someone who is already struggling with pornography. With addiction comes a certain determination and a person who is determined enough will be able to find ways around the filter. Besides, if it’s your own computer, who will keep you from switching the filter off?
Nevertheless, I think that filters have their place where we want to protect people from accidentally being confronted with pornography. When I did this seminar at Teenstreet in 2004, I asked the teens how many of them had accidentally been on pages that contained pornography, even though that was absolutely not what they were looking for – about 80% raised their hands. Most of those 80% could have been prevented if there had been a filter blocking such content. On the other hand, we need to find a balance between keeping things away from people entirely and educating them to avoid such places. Filters are always intrusive and you can be quite sure that they will also block things you may need to have access to at some point.
If any people from personnel want to know what systems we recommend in OM for the purpose of filtering, please talk to me at some point during the next week.

Resources:
http://www.covenanteyes.com/
http://www.x3church.com/x3watch/
http://www.promisekeepers.org/resc130

http://www.deeperdevotion.com/articles/1399/ also mentions a few filtering solutions for standalone computers

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Entry Filed under: Christian Living