You may never have thought of the harm pornography can do for women in general when you look at pictures of a woman that is nude, one who is not your spouse. What’s the harm in looking at some pictures of women? You’re just enjoying and appreciating the “beauty of what God created” —right? Wrong. Pornography communicates its own “truths” about women. Actually they are lies concealing themselves as truth.
There’s a lot about pornography and what it communicates that you may never have considered before that could affect how you treat women in your everyday life. It may be subliminal or deeper within your sub-conscience. But it’s still there. So it would be good to consider pornography, and the “truths” they communicate. Because the truth is, they’re all lies!
Lies that Pornography Communicates
Some of the lies are: “Women are less than human. … Women are a ‘sport’. … Plus, women are property … A woman’s value depends on the attractiveness of her body. … Women like rape.”
And when you entertain lies like these, you entertain the father of lies —the enemy of our faith.
As children of God, that’s the last thing we should want to do.
To learn more about these lies, to help you to see pornography in a new “light” —a very dark one that needs to be exposed and thrown away because of the “individual and cultural harms it creates,” please read:
• SEX AND LIES — 5 Lies Pornography Communicates about Women
If this article, albeit short, didn’t impact you and cause you to consider the message that pornography is throwing about for everyone to embrace, we encourage you to read it again. (And then read it again and again, if necessary.) Read it very prayerfully until you truly see the problems it causes.
Porn Hijacks
Diane Dines, author of the book “How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality,” speaks to audiences everywhere possible to educate people “about what pornography today is really like.” She says we need “to banish any notion of it as benign titillation. We are now bringing up a generation of boys on cruel, violent porn.” She says, “They are given what we know about how images affect people. This is going to have a profound influence on their sexuality, behaviour and attitudes towards women.”
Consider the impact this is having on marriages today. Consider how it will cause even more problems in the future as it becomes easier to grab onto every passing year.
We are created in God’s image, not to prostitute it. We are to draw us closer to the Creator —not further away. Taking these images into one’s hearts and souls draws us away on so many levels.
We encourage you to ask God to help you to know what He would have you do, concerning this matter.
Keep in Mind:
“He who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body. But he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:17-20)
Ask God to show you what you can do to stop perpetuating the spread of this media plague and the lies it spreads in the minds of those it victimizes. Participate with God, rather than the enemy of our faith, and spread the Truth.
Cindy Wright of Marriage Missions International wrote this article.
If you have additional information you can share to help others, please “Join the Discussion” by adding your comments below.
Filed under: Pornography and Cybersex
(USA) Is porn grounds for a scriptural divorce? My husband believes I am overreacting, but I found porn on his email account… that he had saved. I have no self esteem, and all I can think about when we are in bed, is what he is thinking about.
(USA) Laura, My husband has been battling a porn addiction all of his life. The truth is that porn is not ok. You are not over reacting if you’re upset, however asking for a divorce would be over reacting. Porn is one of the devils footholds because our culture says that "it’s no big deal", but God says it is a big deal.
When there is porn in a relationship then the woman feels insecure and the man does believe lies about women. The worst part is that with Porn addictions the porn progressively has to become more violent or more offensive to get the man excited. The man builds up a porn tolerance and will eventually get into different types of porn. That may include children, animals, violent acts, etc. This will also carry over to the bedroom at home. The man may not be thinking of the porn while your together but mark my words he will try to recreate it with you. Keep your love life sacred and don’t allow this. Tell your husband that this is God’s home to and he can’t have porn there.
I suggest you read Psalm 130 it’s very comforting.
God hates divorce Laura. I remember thinking the same thing. If porn is infidelity then doesn’t it warrant a divorce? The answer is NO! Divorce is not an option in this circumstance. You need to keep praying for him. Try referencing Stormie’s "Praying through the Deeper Issues of Marriage". That is a good one and I think you’ll find the prayers helpful.
Laura, you will be in my prayers girl, I love ya. I have been where you are. You can read some of my prior post on the power of a praying wife blog. I posted a lot on there while I was going through the same things. Love, LYNNE
(USA) Dear Laura, I can sure understand why you would be insulted and hurt by your husband’s actions in viewing pornography instead of turning to you, his marriage partner. It so very deeply hurts a woman’s heart and confuses us and makes us angry when a husband does this. Men just don’t understand how deeply this hurts us. And we as wives, don’t understand the grip this can have on them, nor do we even want to understand because it is so insulting and hurtful. I’m so sorry you’ve found yourself in this place within your marriage. My heart cries with yours.
As far as whether you have grounds for a scriptural divorce — I have to say that we really don’t know, but I believe this is a bit premature to even start to consider the thought of divorce at this point. Obviously, your husband has been lured in by the trap of viewing things he absolutely shouldn’t. It’s sickening and hurtful for a wife to imagine him doing that. But the first thing for you to do (after warning him that he must stop and must never allow something like this to invade your home or love life again) is to become better educated about this.
If your husband won’t cooperate (at this point) in finding out more, I would encourage you to be the first to do so. I pray that eventually he will do the work even more than you so he will stop this invasion. Your husband may (right now) try to minimize the damage or harm that this stuff does, but he’s being blinded if he does. I encourage you to go through the “Pornography and Cybersex” section of our web site and read all you can. Make it your mission to learn more.
This trash has invaded your marriage and your home and is making inroads into your husband’s thought life, as well as your own (albeit, in different ways). Don’t allow it permission. Root it out. Read what you can about it so you can better yank it out at its root system.
I especially encourage you to go into the “Pornography and Cybersex Links and Resource Description” section and see what is available there. The links we recommend (and resources as well) could be quite helpful.
There is one link in particular that I believe would be quite helpful to you. It is http://www.newlifepartners.org. This is a Christian online resource and support group for women whose lives have been impacted by husbands or loved ones caught in the web of pornography and/or sexual addiction. On their web site you’ll find sharing, caring, love, hope, and prayer to help you daily walk out the Lord’s plan for your life. They’re not a counseling group. They have no paid counselors — they’re a peer support group. This means that each of the ladies within NLP is going through something similar to what you may be experiencing. The resources available to NLP members include an email discussion forum, online chats, small group forums, Bible or book study groups and an annual retreat. I encourage you to take advantage of what they offer you as the wife.
I hope you will work to save your marriage. My husband used to be into porn and it was extremely hurtful to both of us. He rationalized it for quite a period of time, like many men do, but he eventually realized the trap that it was and the evil that it brought into both of our lives. He eventually fought it tooth and nail and became victorious (but it doesn’t let its grip loose without an all-out war being waged). Even now, we have safeguards we have put up to protect him and our home and he still battles staying pure. Even watching innocent television programs has TV commercials that suddenly come on that cause problems. He uses the principles in the book “Every Man’s Battle” by Steve Arteburn and Fred Stoker. It’s been a GREAT help.
I want to trust my husband both when I am around as well as when I’m not. I can see that my husband Steve works to protect the integrity of our marriage now. But neither of us is naive to think that he won’t have to battle this for the rest of our lives. The enemy of our faith is so sinister. We live in a day and age where the temptations and effects are everywhere you look (or try not to look). As women, I believe we need to help men to win this battle. It’s horrible and yet so many women participate in making it worse for men.
When we were in the Middle East, ministering to missionaries, you should have seen the billboards everywhere and different women parading around on the streets half naked, as well as what was offered on television. You wouldn’t think it would be so blatant in a part of the world that also has women walking around in Berkas, but they do. Steve remarked to the men about this and asked them how they stayed pure. They told him it was a constant battle because this kind of thing was so easily assessable as well as “in their faces” literally, wherever they went. It’s a horrible problem and one that is raping our marriages of sacred sex. And again, there are so many women that are helping to perpetuate this.
I pray you are able to get to the place where you are able to reach out for help on this and find a way through prayer and persistence to be victorious in winning back the ground that the enemy of our faith has grabbed through your husband’s actions. You have every right to grieve over this and to be angry. But I pray that eventually you will be able to use what has so deeply hurt you to make a way for victory for you and your husband and your marriage. Take back the victory that it is trying to grab from you.
How I wish we had an army of men and women who would talk about this on this web site and help others to win the battle as well! It is SO needed.
God bless you in this battle. We are praying for you. Cindy
(UNITED STATES) I usually don’t post on Blogs but ya forced me to, great info.. excellent! … I’ll add a backlink and bookmark your site.
(USA) My guy whom I have not married yet had a Playboy magazine in his apartment when we met. I asked him to get rid of it and he did. Later down the road I came home from work and opened up the history on my computer. It dropped over 100 images of porn he checked out. I freaked. I wanted to throw my computer out the window. I nearly left him.
He promised he would never do that again and he agreed with me that porn has no place in a relationship. It has been over a year and so far no porn that I know of. We also do not have internet. I have tried to explain how it ruins little girls in ways he probably never imagined. He never had children so his single guy training make it difficult for him to see women correctly sometimes I think.
I still am having a hard time believing porn won’t rear it’s ugly head again especially when he is struggling with self esteem issues. I wanted to leave him. I felt like the bible said if you lust after another then you have sinned. My thinking is a bit black and white…I would love to truly see his innocense and see sexuality and men and women as God sees us.
(USA) DO NOT GET MARRIED TO THIS PERSON. It will be a constant battle and area of insecurity the rest of your marriage if you do. Not worth it. Even if they give it up, you will always be wondering what they are up to. Big trust issue. I say this from experience & the experience of close personal friends with the same issue. Your soul deserves better. I’d be better to be single because it corrupts your heart and mind too with things a woman should not have to think about. It is really worth it?
(USA) Thank you all for the helpfull comments…it’s been a rough year and I’m still in the proccess of healing. I will never give up on myself or my husband! Put God before your marraige, and allow Him to take care of your husband! You need to work on finding healing for yourself! The saying goes, “If God brings us to it, He will bring us through it!!!”