Thank you for attempting to plot a course out of our generational (and multi-generational) malaise. I have observed in my short life a tendency for elder males to laugh away secrets, or to share formative memories of how their grandfathers and/or great uncles shared something secret with them. Incidentally, in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, that secret is almost always a first drink between the ages of 9 and 14 that came with a wink and a "don't tell your mama and we can do this again!" While I'm certain this wasn't a universal experience (it certainly seems to have been more common in ethnically/nationally identified subcultures i.e. "my Irish grandfather in Philadelphia."), I am relatively certain that overcoming this requires becoming the kinds of men and women who naturally cultivate families of embodied honesty.
Healing our inner lives by rejecting self-comforting fantasies and accepting that we *are* wanted by a satisfying Lover is a process that un-salts the soil of our previous domicides. If we hold secrets, we disarm our own ability to confront our doubts and resentments, which will recycle our insecure fantasies. As you say, this is not optional if we want to have a generative future. This is one of your best essays, so I again thank you.
“After 2000, Internet speeds increased, and soon the fastest, freest, and most secret way to consume was obvious. Many millennial men were going through puberty at the same time that their household was just getting online. As a result, an entire generation received the lion’s share of their sexual knowledge and experience from explicit media.”
I deeply resonate with this because this was the time when my curiosity online took off. Started with YouTube and began to drift to other things. You learned the key words and phrases to get what you want. And I can also attest to the hindrance it brought to my marriage. Even knowing where my identity couldn’t stand under the avalanche of temptation. It was when my eyes began to look towards the Lord as my prize and delight that the alignment fell into place. By his grace, it’s like he allowed me to see how my pursuit of satisfaction left me wanting.
This is so important. I had my first encounter with porn maybe in 1st grade? Another kid happened upon discarded explicit material on our elementary school playground and showed it around. This was probably...1993? I remember feeling something was immensely wrong, partially because the scenery reminded me of my own house. Even though I had no comprehension of what I was seeing, it felt so...violative.
In middle school we got an internet-connected computer and from that point I was a daily user of pornography. Often multiple times a day.
It wasn't until my very early 30s that I broke this pattern. I had been married for years. Fortunately I was able to find a way out.
But now, porn is just...depressing. I can't get over how oppressive and dehumanizing it is for everyone involved. I'm grateful for that change, and hope to help others have the same transformation. Grateful for this post and praying it helps many.
I don't know what your history is with this devastating issue, but you have captured the evil spirit of the addiction well. And have charted a helpful course out. There's a technical component to staying clean related to devices, software, and digital habits that have helped me immensely, too. I'm always happy to help other men figure out that part of depornification, if needed.
I taught the Theology of the Body for over 15 years. It is robust and speaks of the same idea of holistic spirituality and the need for a new imagination for ourselves and others similar to Schaeffer. I read many articles from Protestant circles on sexuality and they often feel flaccid in comparison to the ToB, which sadly most Protestants will never read because it is Catholic. (To be fair it is also long and deep.) Thank you for writing a spiritually potent, culturally timely, and intellectually challenging article on the subject of Pornography.
In my years as a university professor at a my students affirmed that boundaries alone were not where healing began. These students grew up in the evangelical church. They had people warning them and trying to help them, albeit poorly. But many of them said the Theology of the body and interestingly enough, studying the body in art taught them how to see at the fullness of another person's humanity in relationship. It was the experience of fullness that made pornography and objectification less palatable, that was the place where healing began--new vision and new imagination. They developed a more robust understanding of what it meant to be a human living in community with human persons.
John Paul II started his teaching about sexuality by teaching us what it means to be human. It is beautiful and glorious. So many of us have a truncated view of our humanity. So few university students could give me 900 words on what a human is even though they were one. I suspect that most of us would suffer from the same lack. I taught my students how to draw and sculpt people with incredible skill; but at their senior exit interview most said the single most important thing they learned in their degree was the Theology of the Body. That is significant; it marks how poorly the church has prepared people to understand who they are as God's creation and in relationship to one another. I think for most of human history our humanity the who, why and how of being human was obvious; but in the 19th and 20th century through industrialization, mechanization, and digitization our humanity and daily purpose came into question. Most in the church didn't notice that was the fundamental question underlying the "ills" of society. Thus, few thought to answer the question for people save John Paul II and that was because he experienced the dehumanization of people first hand through the holocaust. If you don't know his work. "Love and Responsibility" is a good place to start a short read. His "Theology of the Body" is a tome, worth it, but sometimes it is good to start with something short as an entry point for a person's life work.
The work you are doing is important. It is essential. It may feel impossible at times because the task is so large. It is true, you fight a Leviathan. But you are not alone. You have the God of Angel Armies and the transforming truth of the Gospel on your side. Change will occur one line at a time, one life at a time. With faithful perseverance it will form a hill large enough to help people see over the horizon and walk in the direction of the light and the great morning star.
Hey man, no pressure or anything but where is part 2? I'm very interested in the Above Ground Living and bringing this concept to my students. This was a great article, and I think we are ready for this next level of discussion. One of the things I talk to my students about, is that pornography is sin and dehumanization, but that it's also a drug and a worldview. Once you see it, you can understand the overall pornification of society. Definitely archiving this for future use. Thanks!
🙏🏼 Thank you for shining a light on this. Two years ago I heard a still small voice tell me to make an iPhone immune to pornography. I gave the excuses: But you don't know how private Apple devices are! There is nothing out there that monitors the entire iPhone screen; it must be impossible. Last year, while listening to a sermon, I understood what I needed to do. Four months ago, we released LivingRoom for iPhone and iPad. The app protects over one hundred people every single day through sharing occasional screenshots with parents and accountability partners. If you are reading this, know there is a way out and that it's worth the fight.
Thank you for attempting to plot a course out of our generational (and multi-generational) malaise. I have observed in my short life a tendency for elder males to laugh away secrets, or to share formative memories of how their grandfathers and/or great uncles shared something secret with them. Incidentally, in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, that secret is almost always a first drink between the ages of 9 and 14 that came with a wink and a "don't tell your mama and we can do this again!" While I'm certain this wasn't a universal experience (it certainly seems to have been more common in ethnically/nationally identified subcultures i.e. "my Irish grandfather in Philadelphia."), I am relatively certain that overcoming this requires becoming the kinds of men and women who naturally cultivate families of embodied honesty.
Healing our inner lives by rejecting self-comforting fantasies and accepting that we *are* wanted by a satisfying Lover is a process that un-salts the soil of our previous domicides. If we hold secrets, we disarm our own ability to confront our doubts and resentments, which will recycle our insecure fantasies. As you say, this is not optional if we want to have a generative future. This is one of your best essays, so I again thank you.
“After 2000, Internet speeds increased, and soon the fastest, freest, and most secret way to consume was obvious. Many millennial men were going through puberty at the same time that their household was just getting online. As a result, an entire generation received the lion’s share of their sexual knowledge and experience from explicit media.”
I deeply resonate with this because this was the time when my curiosity online took off. Started with YouTube and began to drift to other things. You learned the key words and phrases to get what you want. And I can also attest to the hindrance it brought to my marriage. Even knowing where my identity couldn’t stand under the avalanche of temptation. It was when my eyes began to look towards the Lord as my prize and delight that the alignment fell into place. By his grace, it’s like he allowed me to see how my pursuit of satisfaction left me wanting.
This is so important. I had my first encounter with porn maybe in 1st grade? Another kid happened upon discarded explicit material on our elementary school playground and showed it around. This was probably...1993? I remember feeling something was immensely wrong, partially because the scenery reminded me of my own house. Even though I had no comprehension of what I was seeing, it felt so...violative.
In middle school we got an internet-connected computer and from that point I was a daily user of pornography. Often multiple times a day.
It wasn't until my very early 30s that I broke this pattern. I had been married for years. Fortunately I was able to find a way out.
But now, porn is just...depressing. I can't get over how oppressive and dehumanizing it is for everyone involved. I'm grateful for that change, and hope to help others have the same transformation. Grateful for this post and praying it helps many.
I don't know what your history is with this devastating issue, but you have captured the evil spirit of the addiction well. And have charted a helpful course out. There's a technical component to staying clean related to devices, software, and digital habits that have helped me immensely, too. I'm always happy to help other men figure out that part of depornification, if needed.
I taught the Theology of the Body for over 15 years. It is robust and speaks of the same idea of holistic spirituality and the need for a new imagination for ourselves and others similar to Schaeffer. I read many articles from Protestant circles on sexuality and they often feel flaccid in comparison to the ToB, which sadly most Protestants will never read because it is Catholic. (To be fair it is also long and deep.) Thank you for writing a spiritually potent, culturally timely, and intellectually challenging article on the subject of Pornography.
In my years as a university professor at a my students affirmed that boundaries alone were not where healing began. These students grew up in the evangelical church. They had people warning them and trying to help them, albeit poorly. But many of them said the Theology of the body and interestingly enough, studying the body in art taught them how to see at the fullness of another person's humanity in relationship. It was the experience of fullness that made pornography and objectification less palatable, that was the place where healing began--new vision and new imagination. They developed a more robust understanding of what it meant to be a human living in community with human persons.
John Paul II started his teaching about sexuality by teaching us what it means to be human. It is beautiful and glorious. So many of us have a truncated view of our humanity. So few university students could give me 900 words on what a human is even though they were one. I suspect that most of us would suffer from the same lack. I taught my students how to draw and sculpt people with incredible skill; but at their senior exit interview most said the single most important thing they learned in their degree was the Theology of the Body. That is significant; it marks how poorly the church has prepared people to understand who they are as God's creation and in relationship to one another. I think for most of human history our humanity the who, why and how of being human was obvious; but in the 19th and 20th century through industrialization, mechanization, and digitization our humanity and daily purpose came into question. Most in the church didn't notice that was the fundamental question underlying the "ills" of society. Thus, few thought to answer the question for people save John Paul II and that was because he experienced the dehumanization of people first hand through the holocaust. If you don't know his work. "Love and Responsibility" is a good place to start a short read. His "Theology of the Body" is a tome, worth it, but sometimes it is good to start with something short as an entry point for a person's life work.
The work you are doing is important. It is essential. It may feel impossible at times because the task is so large. It is true, you fight a Leviathan. But you are not alone. You have the God of Angel Armies and the transforming truth of the Gospel on your side. Change will occur one line at a time, one life at a time. With faithful perseverance it will form a hill large enough to help people see over the horizon and walk in the direction of the light and the great morning star.
Hey man, no pressure or anything but where is part 2? I'm very interested in the Above Ground Living and bringing this concept to my students. This was a great article, and I think we are ready for this next level of discussion. One of the things I talk to my students about, is that pornography is sin and dehumanization, but that it's also a drug and a worldview. Once you see it, you can understand the overall pornification of society. Definitely archiving this for future use. Thanks!
🙏🏼 Thank you for shining a light on this. Two years ago I heard a still small voice tell me to make an iPhone immune to pornography. I gave the excuses: But you don't know how private Apple devices are! There is nothing out there that monitors the entire iPhone screen; it must be impossible. Last year, while listening to a sermon, I understood what I needed to do. Four months ago, we released LivingRoom for iPhone and iPad. The app protects over one hundred people every single day through sharing occasional screenshots with parents and accountability partners. If you are reading this, know there is a way out and that it's worth the fight.
Wise and insightful. Thank you.
This is really well done