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From the Counselor
Posted by Bowden McElroy in News & Culture
Porn is a multi-billion dollar business: 10 to 14 billion (USD) in annual sales. It’s on the internet, cable TV, and video stores – and that’s just the digital versions. Porn is a huge business because – let’s face it - men are hard wired to be visually aroused. Men are designed to gain pleasure from looking at naked women. In healthy marriages (and among Christian men seeking to live a sanctified life) we males are supposed to get that visual stimulation from our spouses. I’m not trying to excuse husbands, just aiming for some understanding of the problem.
Women, however, are not to blame; sex (or the lack of it) is not the problem. Porn is always about fantasy. Fantasies are always better than reality: there are no kids to raise, bills to pay, bosses to appease, or lawns to be maintained in one’s fantasy world. Life is always perfect, women are always attractive, and men are always suave, debonair, and desirable. Men who find themselves unable to stop looking at porn really need to stop thinking they simply need more sex in their marriage and start thinking about how they manage the day-to-day stressors in their life.
If I asked 100 men why they first looked at porn I would probably get 100 different answers; maybe variations on a handful of themes, but different answers. But ask 100 men who find themselves returning to porn after promising themselves they wouldn’t and I get essentially the same answer: mismanagement of thoughts and emotions.
It’s not just men, young women are looking at porn, too. It used to be one’s chosen means of using sexually explicit material was divided along gender lines: men looked at images and women read erotic stories. Women almost never went surfing for images. That is changing.
In a study from BYU published last year researchers found “…that 86 percent of college men and 31 percent of college women viewed pornographic material in the previous year. Men said they used it far more frequently — 48 percent used it at least weekly while 3 percent of women did.”
Researcher and BYU family life professor Jason Carroll went on to say, “(0ne) argument is that because of the proliferation of pornography, this generation has a unique acceptance of pornography different from their parents, and that it will last. I think there is a compelling argument that is the case.”
What to do? I don’t want to rehash the usual tips, tricks, and ideas found on most web sites: have an accountability partner, keep the computer in the family room, commit to staying off the computer when no one else is at home, etc. Instead, I leave you with two principles and a free service:
1. Learn to take every thought captive. We either manage our self-talk or our thoughts will manage us. We can’t manage our stress or curb our fantasies until we first manage our thought life.
2. Constantly work at having the best marriage possible. Not just the sexual aspect of married life, but the best marriage possible. Most of the men I talk with who complain of a boring sex life have stopped dating and romancing their wives.
3. Invest in a good router. Putting filter or tracking software on each computer is a pain and may cost you a monthly fee. A good router will allow you to protect every computer in the house. It will let you know each and every web page visited by all the computers that use your internet connection.
Then use OpenDNS on your new router. OpenDNS will give you more parental control options than you could possibly use. You can filter out porn, lingerie sites, gambling, social networking sites, whatever you believe your household needs to avoid. And… it’s free.
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Brother Bowden,
Great counsel,…. the remedy you have chosen as number 1 is absolutely essential. I must do this on a daily basis, or I end of doing the things I don’t want to do.
We need to teach these principles of right living to our sons and daughters, even as we fight these temptations every day.
Blessings,
Chris
Bowden,
Thanks for your balanced, practical counsel about this crucial issue. I was not aware of OpenDNS. Thanks for the heads up. That looks like a great resource.
Just to be clear – OpenDNS isn’t a “router”. It’s a domain name service. You can actually set up ANY computer to use OpenDNS even without a good router. Doing it at the router level is sometimes frustrating, depending on the equipment, because a computer may ignore the router settings and use a different DNS server. A “router” is a piece of hardware. OpenDNS is a different beast. (All computers have to use some type of domain name server to find out how to contact the websitew we request. All ISPs provide one, but OpenDNS is one that is free and is pre-filtered).
Bernard,
Sorry, I thought I was clear: buy a good router, then use OpenDNS with the new router. A good router will allow parents (or church administrators) to obtain reports of websites that are visited.
I like the fact that it’s a little complicated (time-consuming might be a more accurate term) to use OpenDNS with a router. One of the problems I have with filtering and/or tracking software is that it is often easy to stop the program temporarily so one can surf for porn. Having to change the DNS settings on the router is just enough of a problem that it serves as enough of a hurdle to curb the impulsive temptation to surf for porn (it won’t help with the more determined, but can give a man/teen the opportunity to slow down and really think about what they’re about to do).
Bowden – You were perfectly clear; I realized after I posted my comment that I had misread one of your statements. Sorry to toss my perfectionism at you, bro.
One way to help with the problem is to let somebody else set the password and not tell you what it is. If you have to know for some reason, have them change it again after the fact. Leads to password nightmares, I know. But porn is deadly, vicious, and persistent. It will bite us after years of dormancy. We can never think that we have it conquered. If we’ve been exposed to the chemical high that it causes, it will return.
Never drop your guard.
Bowden, I have dealt with a situation recently that kind of shocked me, but evidently is a growing trend – women addicted to pornograpy. Have you seen something like this in your counseling?
This is a great article, by the way.
Bernard,
A great idea for a Men’s Ministry: help set up church members internet with the only rule being you can’t set up your own.
Dave,
Yes; I’ve seen it in my practice. As the above article indicates, college women are utilizing images of porn at increasing rates.
BTW, porn addiction is a controversial subject in the mental health world. There are some who believe it is not an addiction or mental health issue but a relic of puritanical morality that does not need to be treated. The next revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (the DSM V) is due out in 2011; the ideas of cyber-addiction and sex-addiction are being debated now. Rumor has it that some groups want to do away with most of the paraphelias (sexual disorders); that almost happened when the 4th edition came out.
Good post! Another piece of the puzzle is probably “normal” television. For many people, “normal” is defined by what they see on TV. Thus, the constant sex on “Two and a Half Men,” for example, makes them think that constantly thinking about and participating in casual sex with multiple partners is normal. It’s a short distance from “normal” TV in the den to the computer in the bedroom or office to get the hard-core porn. I’m afraid that Southern Baptists missed a great opportunity when the Radio and Television Commission didn’t succeed. Apparently, the plan was for local affiliate churches with satellite dishes to work through local cable TV and low power stations to broadcast ACTS programs that had a family-friendly intent. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if we could have gotten on national cable like TBN is now? We could have provided Christian values without the syncretistic health and wealth gospel. Think of all the talent available in Nashville that we could use on a cable channel. Such a channel would provide a sort of pre-evangelism so that we hopefully wouldn’t be knocking on prospects’ doors after they all just watched an enticing episode of “Two and a Half Men.” Maybe it’s not too late. If we reorganize our convention structure through the GCR, I would like to see us back in the TV arena. If we cannot afford to do it with CP funds, maybe LifeWay could do a for-profit channel and advertise its products during the commercials.
I re-read the first link in the post about the business of porn. Deeper in the article the author disputes the $10b-$14b figures. The real number may be ONLY $3 billion per year spent on porn.
Wow! ONly three billion, that’s a relief, right? Is there a standard definition of porn? Does this only include the obvious pay-for-porn sites?
I remember a stat I heard at a Pastors’ Promise Keepers gathering that said that 40% (my failing memory) of Christian men admit some kind of pornography problem. I sometimes wonder if that is too low.