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Ed Neal
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Posted: Fri Dec 8th, 2006 08:36 pm |
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Some time ago, I had an interaction with my son that made a lasting impression on me... and ultimately fueled my research about issues I would have never considered questioning before.
I believe that I had already had "the talk" with him about sex and I believe he was about 11 at the time.
We were at a fine arts school waiting for a recital to begin. Meanwhile, we wandered around their grounds where they had a variety of works of art and sculptures.
One of the sculptures was a small stone statue of a reclining nude woman. We weren't there to look at the statues and I made no more than a passing notice of it.
A little while later, my son came up to me and said, "Dad, did you see that white statue? Isn't that disgusting?"
It wasn't really a question per se, but rather a statement that he was seeking my affirmation of.
Before I tell you how I responded, I'm curious to hear your comments on the scenario and what you might have said in response.
Thanks.
Pastor Ed
Last edited on Fri Dec 8th, 2006 08:38 pm by Ed Neal
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zech122
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Posted: Fri Dec 8th, 2006 09:43 pm |
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I have 4 sons ages 13, 11, 9 & 6 mos. The two oldest, especially the 11 year old, has made comments such as your son made. Only once do I know that they saw a nude poster. They wouldn't have seen it if my parents had known there was such a thing in the store they were in, they would have never taken the kids in there. We had a liquor store that had a big advertisement with a woman wearing a tight fitting, very low cut vest and my son said he was really glad when they covered it up. I have told them when they have mentioned seeing something that shows more than it should that it is not appropriate for people to be showing that much of their bodies and that I don't believe that God approves of it. I have told them that the only person they should see nude or that should see them nude is their future wife after they are married, with the exception of something needing to be done for medical reasons. I am also interested in how other would respond.
zech122
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Ed Neal
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Posted: Fri Dec 8th, 2006 11:27 pm |
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zech122 wrote: Only once do I know that they saw a nude poster. ... We had a liquor store that had a big advertisement with a woman wearing a tight fitting, very low cut vest and my son said he was really glad when they covered it up...
Thanks for your response.
I would like to draw a distinction between the statue that we saw, which was a legitimate work of art (it was not an erotic pose) and the nude poster or the sexy advertisement you saw (I'm guessing that the nude poster was probably a playboy type nude image rather than simply a nude figure study).
Unless I'm mistaken (and correct me if I'm wrong), the poster and ad were both both designed to be seductive and alluring. I personally consider that type of image as demeaning to women. The statue, however, was an artistic representation of the female nude form.
To some, that distiction might be insignificant and to others that might be a world of difference.
I bring it up as a point of discussion, though... anybody who wants to comment about that issue may certainly do so as well!
Pastor Ed
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zech122
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Posted: Fri Dec 8th, 2006 11:40 pm |
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I see your point, although I still consider it inappropriate to use a nude form in any type of art. I didn't really think about the difference of art and a seductive ad. My sons have made the same comments about an art picture with a nude in it that they had seen in a book. No matter where it is an ad or art, I have said the same thing to them. I think both are inappropriate. I don't buy that a nude statue is okay, just because it is an art form.
zech122
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Ed Neal
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Posted: Sat Dec 9th, 2006 02:27 am |
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zech122 wrote: I don't buy that a nude statue is okay, just because it is an art form.
That's honest enough.
But think about what you are suggesting about the handiwork of God!
Care to comment about that?
Pastor Ed
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TimM
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Posted: Sat Dec 9th, 2006 04:07 am |
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I'm supposed to be a sophisticated intellectual who appreciates high culture and would go for the statue, but I'm afraid that I more or less agree with zech122, though maybe not for the same reason.
For lots of people, the art would probably be fine. For me as a sex addict, the art might well be a trigger I need to avoid.
Here's an analogy: I'm sure that what God made is good. God made grapes. Most people can use those grapes in all kinds of ways. But if I'm an alcoholic, then I have to accept that because of who I am, I can't drink those grapes. Or an example closer to home for me: God made hogs and God made cattle, and they're good; but if I as a heart patient start eating them every day, then I endanger myself because of who I am, not because of what God made.
I'm sorry to give that answer. Right now the art museum at the school where I teach has a display of student artwork, and I would like to be able to go and admire my students' work. But part of that exhibit includes nude photography of my students that I can't look at. I'm sure that for most people, there is no problem with this. (OK, I'm not sure, but that's what our society says.) I as an addict need to say no to it, though. It's not worth endangering my sobriety for. Maybe I could do it safely and maybe not. I don't know. I'm not going to find out. It's not a huge struggle; I'm not here pining for those photographs; but I need to say no to them. The point at which I start saying, "Oh, it's OK. I now have control over my addiction and I ought to be able to do anything anybody else can do," is the point at which I am ready to relapse.
To me, there is nothing wrong with a person honestly accepting what they can't do - with saying that I can't drink that, or eat that, or see that. Does the goodness of the human body in God's sight give me the right to look at it? Not any more than the goodness of cattle in God's sight gives me the right to eat them every day and have another heart attack.
At least, that's what's working for me today, on both those fronts.
Tim M.
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Ed Neal
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Posted: Sat Dec 9th, 2006 05:59 am |
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Tim,
That's a great answer to the question I posed to Zech, but what of my question about what you would tell an 11 year old boy?
How would you have responded to my son?
Pastor Ed.
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TimM
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Posted: Sat Dec 9th, 2006 03:22 pm |
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Ed,
I haven't had that experience, so I didn't answer. Probably my reply would have been embarrassed and ineffectual. Perhaps I would have said that there is a tradition of nudity in art and in other cultural settings (that the Olympic games were performed nude in classical times, for instance), but that I have some difficulty with this custom, and question its wisdom.
Possibly I might have talked about how societal standards of dress change, giving as an example the evolution of dress in the Islamic world. In pagan Arabia, it was not uncommon for women to wear very little clothing indoors; so when the Qur'an mandates modesty for women, what it probably really is saying is that women should cover their breasts when around people except "their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex." (Qur'an 24:31) It's remarkable that in the course of 14 centuries of cultural evolution, this same verse could come to be used by societies to require women to wear the burqa.
With a much older child I might have been more direct that for me as a sex addict, such art was problematic, and that it would be interesting to get the opinion of someone who had a healthier attitude toward the physical than I myself have. I think that's an answer for an 18 year old and not an 11 year old, though.
Mostly, though, I don't have an answer to your question, and I try to limit myself to answering the ones for which I do have answers.
Tim M.
Last edited on Sat Dec 9th, 2006 07:16 pm by
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Ed Neal
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Posted: Mon Dec 11th, 2006 08:36 am |
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TimM wrote: Mostly, though, I don't have an answer to your question, and I try to limit myself to answering the ones for which I do have answers.
Thanks for your honesty, Tim.
Of course, I had to answer my son's question. I'll now post for you and everyone else, "the rest of the story!"
My son was declaring the representation of the nude body of a woman to be "disgusting" and was asking me to confirm that assessment. He was probably also seeking his father's approval for his agreement with the moral standards we had taught him.
Now, it's a very good thing that he's trying to adopt my values and seek my approval in the moral arena! However, the message that he was reflecting back to me-- that I had somehow communicated to him-- was not one I liked.
I had never called the nude female form "disgusting," yet somehow that's what he had picked up as the correct response to viewing it!
It most certainly was NOT an aesthetic appraisal of the artwork, because I had seen it and it was a very well crafted piece.
It was not a moral appraisal since the woman's pose was not at all erotic or sexually alluring. Besides, at his age, he still didn't even know about sexual arousal in response to visual stimulus, so that could not have been in his mind or heart.
He saw the statue of a beautiful nude woman and asked me:
Isn't that disgusting?
My response was this:
No, Son. Actually, it's quite lovely.
And that was actually the truth. How could I tell him anything else?
Some look at the nude body and consider it lewd or indecent (Did God create something indecent or lewd?). Some would consider it inappropriate (because nudity, like sex, should be reserved for the marriage bed). Some would consider it dangerous (because the "only response" men can have to seeing nudity is sexual/lustful thoughts and it just might lead those men into bondage to sexual impurities).
All of those things cannot change the fact that God made the female form very lovely.
I really couldn't lie to him and tell him it was indeed disgusting, or lewd, or inappropriate or dangerous.
But...
I had to ask myself how I had inadvertantly and unintentionally communicated exactly those lies!
I had to face the fact that while my words had never told him to think that, my actions and attitudes had. He had understood it more clearly than if I had told him straight to his face.
This became one of the principle motivations in addressing my biblical understanding regarding the human body, and seeking to understand the ramifications of having a distorted (or unbiblical) view of the body.
Even as I began my research, and as my understanding began to change, I was quite surprised to notice a decline in my ever-present desire to look at and lust after the nude women found in pornography.
But back to the statue...
Would you have answered differently, or would you affirm what I told my son?
Thanks for your consideration.
Pastor Ed
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TimM
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Posted: Tue Dec 12th, 2006 08:27 pm |
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Ed,
I’m having trouble understanding your notion that nothing created by God and not explicitly forbidden in the Bible can ever be disgusting or inappropriate. May I illustrate this with a few thought experiments?
I once read an account by someone who had watched a wolf pack kill a deer. It was a cold winter morning, and the pack had chased down and caught the deer on the ice of a lake. The deer was surrounded. Two or three wolves were holding its legs in their teeth, and one was gripping some part of its face. The deer was still standing, trembling in pain and fear, looking around wildly. The alpha wolf of the pack had already ripped open the deer’s belly and thrust its head inside the deer’s body cavity to begin eating. After some ripping, the wolf pulled its head out of the deer’s body and looked over at the human observer. The wolf’s head was bright, drenched in the deer’s still steaming blood as the deer, still on its feet yet already being eaten alive, shivered beside it.
This was something created by God and called by Him good. Does that make it a beautiful scene? Does that mean that it cannot be disgusting? I would be awed to witness such a scene, but I confess I would also be disgusted, despite the divine origin of canid behavior.
Or here’s another example: yesterday I was looking at an anatomic illustration by Vesalius. It shows the head of a strong, handsome, noble looking man of about 60. He is facing us, his eyes closed, his face turned slightly downward. Above his face, the top of his cranium has been removed, the layers of tissue surrounding his brain have been carefully drawn back, and the left and right hemispheres of his brain have been gently separated to show the corpus callosum. Everything about this drawing is beautiful - the man’s face and the exquisite subtlety of his anatomy. Still, I found the image disturbing.
Part of what I think is disturbing both in Vesalius’ illustration and in the image of the deer being eaten alive is that in both images there is a tension between subject and object, between living and dead. The face of the man in Vesalius’ drawing, a face belonging to a man living among us, to a man as subject, is beautiful. So is the anatomical wonder shown within his skull, the man as object. What jars and horrifies is the combination of both points of view together in one image. Similarly, the deer alone would be beautiful, as would be the wolves alone. But it is an object of horror to see the deer still as a living creature with whom we empathize, and simultaneously to see it from the wolves’ perspective as a pure object of nutrition, which they are devouring even as it stands trembling in pain and fear.
I think the nude sculpture has the capacity to disturb us in similar ways, and for similar reasons. The woman represented there is a human being with her own life and her own feelings, deserving of our honor, worthy to cause us to avert our eyes to preserve her modesty - a human as subject. She is also a sample of the artistry of God’s design - a human as object. The woman in the sculpture is simultaneously “she” and “it.” I’m not 11 years old, so I wouldn’t use the word “disgusting” to convey this jarring feeling; but I think the uneasiness is still there, and that it is natural.
Here are some reflections that might make more clear the uneasiness I feel.
What if the sculpture depicted not an unknown model, dead for centuries, but your son’s older sister, or of his mother? Would you say, “Oh, so that’s what she was doing in those art classes. How wonderful. Do you see how beautiful your sister is naked?” Would there not rather be some element of shock - a sense of violation of something that should be private and sacred? Would one not feel, “Wait, that is not an object, that is my daughter! To show her here naked is an outrage!”?
Again, what if the sculpture showed a woman with her husband making love? Or if it were a photograph or a video of this? This is an act sanctified by God, and an act of great love and great beauty. At the same time, I would find such an image or video inappropriate.
The bottom line of this discussion is that I don’t find persuasive your notion that nothing created by God can be shocking and inappropriate. Neither am I persuaded that because the Bible does not say, “Videos of husband and wife having sexual intercourse should not be displayed in museums,” it is OK to do so. And I don’t see the difference between my examples and yours. I think that natural human reactions of revulsion or of violated privacy - the reactions shared across societies by people made in the image of God - should be taken seriously as guides.
Finally, may I offer a more personal warning? You and I, as recovering sex addicts, are not necessarily good judges of what is or is not appropriate and normal sexual behavior, or of how we ought to look in healthy ways at other humans physically. In another board in which I have participated, there was a man I’ll call H. H was not yet sober, though he thought he was making significant progress in controlling his addiction. He was on fire to share his program of recovery, which involved continuing to look at porn for strictly limited periods of time which he would gradually decrease to zero. In this way, he would inoculate himself and gain control. Although H’s program had not yet gotten him sober, he was sure this was the answer we were all looking for, and that no other path to recovery could hope to succeed.
In order to help his son - who was maybe 5 - not to develop unhealthy hang-ups involving the human body, H and his son were looking together at pictures on the Internet. Some of those pictures were landscapes or animals, and some were naked humans. They talked calmly about what they were seeing, in an effort to normalize these images. In this way, H hoped to break the cycle of addiction within his family.
This whole picture just set off every red flag I could think of. H was not sexually sober. How could he safely look at these images himself? Was he not just rationalizing ways to feed his own addiction? Could he really have the wisdom and maturity - a man who was in deep denial of his own addiction and who at the same time was vigorously preaching to all of us a particular path to recovery which he had not yet been able to walk himself - to be a healthy guide for his son? H saw his teaching as a path to hope for his son, but to me it looked like a way to keep acting out delusionally. Further, it seemed to have the potential, given H’s lack of psychological stability, to be flatly abusive of his son.
There are lots of ways in which H isn’t you, Ed. I still think he is a warning that people like you and like me have to take seriously. H was a guy who really wanted to help his son overcome some of the same misconceptions you are working to help people overcome. Like you and like me, though, H had very little experience dealing either with people or with images of their bodies in mature and healthy ways. He thought he was ready to lead the world and his son to a new freedom, but in my opinion as an observer, he transparently wasn’t.
Folks like H ought to scare folks like you and me, Ed. H was full of zeal and energy, and he was even more sure than you are that he had found the answer for all of us. And yet, to me, his answer was leading him into profoundly dangerous places, and it was causing him to misdirect others and to start to build another generation of addiction in his own son. The last time I saw him on the board, he was back after a several month relapse, still selling his path to freedom.
Take care, Ed, not to become H. Everything looks clear and black-and-white to you right now. I think that more time with your fellow addicts and with yourself may make the world more multicolored and nuanced than it is to you now; and I think you will be a more effective and a safer guide than either you or I can be right now. Any addict a few months into recovery, or a few years into recovery - even you or I - still has a lot to learn.
Just my take. Sorry to go on for so long. Obviously it would be unreasonable to expect anyone either to write or to read a discussion of every part of this tome.
Tim M.
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TimM
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Posted: Tue Dec 12th, 2006 11:16 pm |
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Ed,
May I add a second quick comment? This probably really belongs on the locked thread in the Church section, but really my reply has little to do with the Church or the Bible directly.
I'm concerned with a response that you give there, saying that you have not shared your new understanding with your own senior pastor. With whom have you shared it? With your wife, you say, but she has urged you not to publish it yet. Do others know? Shouldn't they?
One of the central texts you keep coming back to says that we will know the truth and that the truth will set us free. Truths that one is afraid to articulate scare me a lot. I've lived my life as an addict hiding truths, and it led me to hell. I don't think we get free of our addictions without a practice of rigorous honesty. Doesn't that include speaking our truth and our experience?
As well, the Church has been extremely hard on Gnosticism - the notion that there are secret truths known only to the few that are central to the faith. I'm not quite sure how to argue against this doctrine from a Protestant perspective - for me it is enough that Holy Tradition has spoken with one voice against the Gnostics - but it worries me to see you sliding into a position of adhering to secret truths that cannot be uttered to the many. Teachings like that have led us into some very slippery places.
It's a commonplace that the biggest word in the AA Big Book is the first word of the 12 steps, a word we addicts have a lot of trouble with: "We". There's a slogan, too, that grows out of our experience as recovering adicts: "I can't; we can".
It's also not accidental that the people of God call themselves the Church, the Ecclesia, the assembly or the gathering together. We need one another if we are to embody the body of Christ. "Unus Christianus, nullus Christianus," (One Christian is no Christian), as the patristic saying goes.
Do make sure you are working with others, Ed. It's important for our recovery, and it's important if we are to remain part of the assembly of God, the ecclesia tou Theou, the Kahal Israel.
Just my opinion, of course, and that of the Church Fathers and of God. 
Tim M.
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Ed Neal
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Posted: Wed Dec 13th, 2006 12:11 am |
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TimM wrote: I'm concerned with a response that you give there, saying that you have not shared your new understanding with your own senior pastor. With whom have you shared it? With your wife, you say, but she has urged you not to publish it yet. Do others know? Shouldn't they?
One of the central texts you keep coming back to says that we will know the truth and that the truth will set us free. Truths that one is afraid to articulate scare me a lot.
I assure you, Tim, that I am absolutely unashamed of what I now believe! Quite frankly, I want to tell everybody!
My desire to share it is what brought me to this site. I found a link from somewhere that pointed me to the statistics page that Mike has posted. That's how I found the site.
I've had personal email contact with Mike and he has made it clear that he does not feel that what I have to say will be helpful. I intend to honor that. This is his forum.
But you may know for sure that I would welcome nothing more than the freedom to tell everyone exactly what I now believe and why I believe it has brought a freedom to my heart that every other other attempt I ever tried for 30 years failed to bring.
I have to agree with Mike, however... unfettered expression of my new beliefs would not be healthy for many here. Again, I reiterate... that's why I was asking uncomfortable questions... in order to cultivate receptivity to what I believe. I wish it had been more effective, but that's something I'll have to trust the Lord for.
I am not ashamed at all. I do not want to hide it. But sometimes, people are not prepared to hear what you have to say. If you say it anyway, that is not being helpful. It's not speaking "only what builds others up." It is not speaking the truth in love.
Pastor Ed
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TimM
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Posted: Wed Dec 13th, 2006 04:37 am |
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That's fair enough as regards sharing your truth with people here, where you are in someone else's home (so to say) and where you are concerned with the recovery and well-being of the other addicts here. Feeling some need to consider how to build others up in love here makes sense to me. Being shy here doesn't bother me.
What does worry me is the impression you have given that your ideas are more or less unknown by anyone. If I had a major shift in outlook, I think I would feel compelled to share it not only with my wife, but with my therapist, my sponsor, my priest, the members of my meetings, and perhaps a few other friends. These are the people I use to help me keep myself on track and to help make sure I'm connected to reality and am moving in proper directions in my self-understanding and in my recovery from my addiction and in my walk with God. They're where I look for wisdom and guidance and direction, and for the probing questions that make me back up and consider things anew. I hope you've got people like that in your life. I think they're important for anyone.
Tim M.
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Ed Neal
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Posted: Wed Dec 13th, 2006 04:54 am |
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TimM wrote: That's fair enough as regards sharing your truth with people here, where you are in someone else's home (so to say) and where you are concerned with the recovery and well-being of the other addicts here. Feeling some need to consider how to build others up in love here makes sense to me. Being shy here doesn't bother me.
Thank you, Tim.
What does worry me is the impression you have given that your ideas are more or less unknown by anyone.
So pervasive is the deception that I now believe exists in our culture that, indeed, it does sometimes feel that way. But it was also in reading the works of others, and online fellowship the people with the same perspective that I learned what they had already learned.
I am not the first to come to my way of thinking. I spent time speaking directly with another pastor in CA, as well. At first, I thought they might be crazy (not unlike what some of you may think about me!! ) but eventually saw the truth that they espoused was more faithful to God's Word than I would have ever suspected.
If I had a major shift in outlook, I think I would feel compelled to share it not only with my wife, but with my therapist, my sponsor, my priest, the members of my meetings, and perhaps a few other friends
Trust me, I do feel that way, Tim. I want to tell everyone.
I hope you've got people like that in your life. I think they're important for anyone.
I do. I'm still trying to figure out which of them are ready for what I would say... I'm testing the waters with one of them right now.
Pastor Ed
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captivated
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Posted: Wed Dec 13th, 2006 05:19 am |
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Hey all!
I'm not going to comment, but just wanted you to know, I am praying for godly wisdom and revelation for all with each of these sensitive topics!...... ESPECIALLY since we have such a diverse crowd of people here. 
With care and compassion for where each of you may be, I pray blessings over each one of you in the Mighty Name of Jesus!
Captivated
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Ed Neal
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Posted: Wed Dec 13th, 2006 05:40 am |
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captivated wrote: I am praying for godly wisdom and revelation for all with each of these sensitive topics!...... ESPECIALLY since we have such a diverse crowd of people here.
Not to mention a bunch of people who just read the site without bothering to log in! (I'm amazed at the number of times various posts get viewed... when there aren't that many active members online!)
I join you in that prayer, too!
Thanks, Cap.
Pastor Ed
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Praise6
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Posted: Wed Dec 13th, 2006 01:51 pm |
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I guess what I keep reading it that porn addiction is based on sex and thus if we realize that sex and the human body are God given then the porn addiction will either go away or not start.
Porn addiction is NOT about sex just like alcoholism isn't about being thirsty. It is an unhealthy coping mechanism.
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TimM
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Posted: Wed Dec 13th, 2006 02:56 pm |
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I certainly agree with Praise6 that any addiction is at its heart an unhealthy coping mechanism. What is central in my recovery has to do with trusting others, with trusting God, with accepting myself, with learning to feel my emotions and learning that it is OK to have feelings, with becoming able to have friends and to be emotionally intimate, and with accepting that I am a physical as well as an intellectual being. None of this has anything to do with sex directly, or with how I think of anyone's body except my own. Recovery is a major and throrough psychological restructuring.
I further don't think that this insight is controversial - I think it is a well-known truism to anyone who has done even minimal reading about addictions.
That said, I also think it's not accidental that the addiction I chose involves solitary sex. For various and deep reasons, I'm not comfortable with myself as a physical and sexual being. If my recovery is to move forward, I need to come to new understandings of myself and of what it means to be a human being, particularly a physical and sexual being. For myself, I think I need to do that by looking inside myself, by uncovering my feelings and by understanding their origins. An external textual exegesis isn't what I personally need.
The bottom line for me, I guess, is that I think I do need a new understanding of sex. That understanding has to be about my soul, though, and not about anyone else's body. It has to come from within myself, and it has to be part of a much larger project of finding a new understanding of all aspects of myself and of my interactions with God and with others. That larger project is what I think I am doing in recovery; and it has brought me undreamed of joy and blessings over the last 20 months.
Thanks for reminding us that we often want to conceptualize our illness in far too narrow terms.
Tim M.
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zech122
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Posted: Wed Dec 13th, 2006 05:14 pm |
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I did not respond to the question Ed asked of me right away, as things make sense in my head, but don't come out the right way when I try to write it out. I really liked Tim's response posted on Dec. 12th, as that is pretty much how I see things. I can see Ed's point in saying to his son that the nude woman was "quite lovely", but I would have added that it is quite lovely when in its proper context, which I believe is between a married couple. My husband tried to use the idea that it was okay to look at a nude body, whether it be a photo or art, because it was a beautiful creation of God. He basically told me I was ashamed of the body God created for me because I didn't want anyone to see it. (Thankfully he no longer thinks that). No, I'm not ashamed of what God created, but my body is not for anyone, but my husband to see. We are not supposed to do things that would cause someone else to stumble and I believe that showing a nude body can cause someone to stumble. While discussing this with my husband he brought up the point that a lot men with a sex addiction, were exposed to nudity of some sort, whether it be through nude photos, painting, sculptures, or some other form, so if our kids do see something they shouldn't we try to help them understand that these things are inappropriate, except when in their proper context. We are also trying to teach them that if they see something inappropriate that they should look away at something else.
zech122
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Ed Neal
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| Joined: | Sat Dec 2nd, 2006 |
| Location: | Illinois USA |
| Posts: | 78 |
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Posted: Thu Dec 14th, 2006 06:07 pm |
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Praise6 wrote: I guess what I keep reading is that porn addiction is based on sex and thus if we realize that sex and the human body are God given then the porn addiction will either go away or not start.
That's not what I am saying, Praise6.
We as Bible-believing Christians all acknowledge that the body and sex is given by God... even those of us who have been ensnared by pornography. But our understanding of the inherent goodness of that body is what creates the problem. We claim to believe that the body is really good, but we live in fear of it... strangely drawn to it, and at the same time, we're sure that there is something wrong with us because that's true... as if the body is good, but not really ALL good.
For me, when I acknowledged that the body as God made it really was good... ALL good, completely good... and began to live and act as if that were true, the false and degrading representation of the body displayed by pornography began to be repulsive to me... not just in my theology, but in my heart where the lust had always been. Where lust had secretly resided before, revulsion became my new response to pornography.
I did not have a spiritual awakening. I did not simply renew my commitment to "not look at that stuff." I did not enter into a new and deeper more honest accountability relationship. I did not "finally 'fess up to my wife and turn from this stuff." I did not read a book that showed me a new way to resist the temptation. I did not join a 12-step program. I did not finally admit "I am a sex addict."
I believed something different about the body, and began to live accourding to that truth.
Porn addiction is NOT about sex just like alcoholism isn't about being thirsty. It is an unhealthy coping mechanism.
Agreed, porn addiction is not about sex.
And I agree that it is often an unhealthy coping mechanism... But I am not educated nor experienced enough to really speak to that.
For me, personally, I was always a happy and fairly well-adjusted kid. For me, it was simply curiosity and hormones run amuck. Add to that the adrenaline rush of experiencing the forbidden, and I was hooked for 30 years. Today, I've realized that my curiosity was (and is) good and normal. My hormones are more than adequately satisfied by my wife. And I've rejected the idea that even seeing naked flesh is Scripturally forbidden. All the contributing factors now rendered powerless, I no longer have any desire for the garbage that is pornography.
Perhaps my experience is different from others' here in this forum. I don't know. Perhaps what worked so remarkably for me would only have marginal impact for others, but I can't help but wonder what would happen for someone if they were to face down the other contributing factors AND reorient their minds regarding the body that God created as I did.
Pastor Ed
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