Pornography- Hardcore facts? (2 of 4)

***Original post at 7:23 PM on 10/26/05*** Scroll to next "***" for updated post.
Come on, Christianboy. Pornography is a national past time! Take your "sin" talk and go back to church...

Fair enough. I will. By Friday evening, I will post the "secular" part of our interview. I'll do my very best to present "The Problem With Porn" without mentioning the "G" word. (God, silly.) Some of you out there are asking a really great question: "Why don't you mind your own business?" We'll even discuss that topic - it's a bit of a rager, and could get heated. Are you okay with that? Well, I had a great opportunity to talk with some people who have a clear and secular position on pornography that doesn't involve the "S" word (sin...). I promise I won't even use that word!

More of our interview with Michael Leahy from Bravehearts regarding the problems he faced when pornography's grip tightened. Possible details from a former "sex industry" worker or two who will discuss the "complications" porn brought into their lives. "Compli...?" Trust me, you'll have a chance to talk back - it's a blog, remember?

Thanks for your patience while we adjust to a new schedule.

Aarron

***Update***

Pornography:

Stinkin’ Habits of Highly Defective Relationships

Michael Leahy wasn’t the most popular kid in school. But, when college came, he began to shine. A two year letterman on his football team, student body president, he was recruited by IBM to live the American Dream. Along the path to success, he married his wife, Patty, continued the corporate climb with Unysis and NEC, and started a family.

Michael’s secret affair with pornography led him to a very dark place. First of all, he had to keep the relationship secret, and second, he experienced a need for more graphic porn and eventually began seeking to act out his fantasies in real life, leading to an affair with a woman outside his marriage. The affair with both the woman and the images eventually cost him his marriage, but the trust and respect o his children, his brother (with whom he had a successful business partnership), and his business. Michael now spends his time lecturing to (this year) over 50,000 college students about how his relationship with porn led his life awry, nearly ending in suicide. Students get to hear about the dangers inherent in porn and the result of his battle with addiction over a two night lecture series.

While porn carries with it some intrinsic dangers, a prolonged relationship with it leads to a package of habits he calls “sex syndrome”. One of these dangers is “Objectification”. By definition, reducing a person, or even object, that is complex and multifaceted, to the status of a simple object, is objectifying. Please hear this, not as an indictment or condemnation: when all we see and are concerned with is the speed of the new, improved, Corvette, the sizzle of that Cajun marinated steak, or the “***”s on that girl, we are objectifying the car, the food, the human being. The consequences of doing this are what can be damaging to us as individuals and as a culture.
In Michael’s words, “I began to see everyone in my life as an object, not just women. Everyone I met, I looked at from a “what’s in it for me” point of view.” This simplification of a person down to the body part that you admire most or the sex act that you saw them perform is a natural result of porn. “I didn’t want any of those women, I just wanted the sex.” Anyone he met was now a product for his consumption. I’m not condemning consumption, but how would it make you feel to cross his path? Like an... object? Ladies, pick a sex part and raise your hand if that’s the first thing you want your Prince Charming to think of when he rides in on his white horse. (Yes, I know I’m making a big assumption about the prince, and the horse. Cut me some slack for purposes of this example, cool? Thanks.)

Unbalanced Education

Out of 14,000 hours of education from K-12 we are never required more than a superficial knowledge of, rarely ever accompanied by critiqued and strategic role playing, personal intimacy, much less the psychosocial ramifications of sexual relations that ought to go along with sex education if it is to be taught at all. Porn, even over the short term, gives us what we mistakenly believe to be a PhD in sex, but only the act itself instead of a "well rounded", Renaissance paradigm.

Are we really wiser for the wear? Do we really believe it is meant for “educating” us on how to resolve conflict in a relationship, how to manage expectations in marriage, how to experience non-physical intimacy that could carry us through difficult times, how to confront abusive behavior with our spouse, how to develop and maintain character and bolster our mate’s self esteem? And yet, the sex act is so titillating, so enticing, that watching it burns into our brains images that we can never remove on our own, building concurrently lopsided expectations and an unbalanced understanding of what sex “ought to be”.

Watching porn emphasizes and consequently overemphasizes the image and the act alone, separate from the relational acts of intimacy that we all so desperately desire and therein seek. Why watch hours or tens or hundreds of hours of bodybuilding films when you could spend that same time actually lifting weights? What if the same time spent watching porn was spent learning and improving relational and personal intimacy skills? Could one, then potentially learn to be a better husband, father, co-worker, customer service conflict guru, boss, Grand Pubah of Management and Sales?

Conversely, what long term, broad based consequences can, have, or will arise out of a society driven primarily by men who see people only as objects? What then when the women join in step? Is that the kind of society of which we'll be proud to raise the next generations? It is partly for this reason that Christians see pornography as "their business". It is also because so many Christians are victims and/or partners in pornography addiction. (Sidenote: We are not immune to these effects and must not shame, attack, or denegrate those that are struggling - it is simply anti-Christ to do so. Hello?)

Decrease in Intimacy

If feeling less like an object than a person does not cause intimacy problems enough, let’s look at another facet of the interpersonal effects of porn. Ladies, how many of you really equate intimacy with sharing your boyfriend or husband with another woman? Michael’s ex-wife, Patty is like hundreds of thousands of women who share the sentiment of a 34-year-old woman married 14 years to a minister who she discovered was compulsively seeking sexual satisfaction by visiting pornographic sites on the Internet.

“How can I compete with hundreds of anonymous others who are now in our bed, in his head?” the woman wrote. “Our bed is crowded with countless faceless strangers, where once we were intimate.” (HT: New York Times)

The more sexual images we load into our brains, the harder it becomes to be truly intimate with the person we’re with at the time. Here’s a little litmus test for you, ladies:

While making love to your partner, how sure are you that they are thinking only of you?

If your certainty is less than 90%, how excited are you over the level of personal sexual intimacy you are currently experiencing? How can you possibly connect deeply, or how deeply can you possibly connect with one person while he is imagining your head on her neck with her(2) arms, her(3) body, and their legs? His head and consequently, your bed is full of other women, all vying for his affection!

Getting Off

Our pastor, Andy Stanley, interviewed Michael and his ex-wife in November of 2004, for a part two of a two part series called “Exposed”. His bottom line was simple “Pornography is a path, not a past time.” Looking at porn and what our mind does with it exists on a continuum from casual viewing to acting out in real time. We don’t get on 95N in Florida and get angry that we wound up in Maine two days later. That’s just where that road leads. The consequences Michael has experienced are the eventual destination of the Porn Parkway. Whether and where we get off that road before then is clearly up to us. But, isn’t it nice there are plenty of exits between Florida and Maine?

Am I crazy? Is it possible that I’m right? If so, what’s the wise choice? Michael's simple advice regarding a split with porn: “What you feed, grows and what you starve, dies.” Do all you can to distance yourself from the imagery and you can then begin to reconstruct more balanced and deeper personal intimacy skills. My walk down that path ended at 31 and didn't cost me a marriage, a business, or more than $12 in late fees. Lucky? Perhaps. But, now that I have decided that I don’t want porn in my head, I’ll be lucky if I ever get what’s already in there out. Better not to have looked in the first place, or as Linkin Park chants “and the memory now/is like the picture was then/when the paper’s crumpled up/it can’t be perfect again.”

How badly “crumpled” is your memory? How deep the creases? What are you willing to do to iron them out and make it pure again? For me, it’s been three years porn free, intentionally, deliberately, and not without the support of my community group, and certainly not alone.

Decidedly Christian resources:
Every Man's Battle This book was very practical and a purposeful aid in helping me break the habit.
Not Even a Hint Great little book for Christians struggling with lust (that would be all of us...)

Any other good links, secular or not? Comment below...