I do not know what the official figures are on men who use Porn, but I know that the figures are high... Knowing a thing or two about computers I am often asked to help people fix up their computers, in doing this it is not uncommon to come across computers that are full of those tell tale signs of frequent Porn usage. This is the sort of stuff that does not turn up on your computer through the inevitable porn spam that we all suffer from, or accidentally clicking onto a porn site, this is the sort of stuff that comes from a habitual user. Let me tell you without naming names, that the vast majority of computers that I have worked on have this stuff, and many of them cannot blame it on their teenage sons (because they don't have any!). There are those that I have worked on (too few unfortunately) that have no sign of Porn on them, and they belong to people that I really do hold in high regard, these people have real integrity throughout their lives.
There has even been a time or 2 when I have had to help out a minister too, and the tell tale signs are there as well - even those we see as holy or ordained suffer from this hidden & dangerously addictive problem.
And Yes, I struggle with porn too, I have the good fortune of having a wife (a forgiving wife) who caught me out. This brought the subject to a head for me & we were able to begin to deal with the situation... Too often this problem is hidden and not talked about - I'm not suggesting you need to go to your wives and fess up guys, trust me it will hurt them real bad, real, real bad. But maybe there is another guy who you can ask to hold you accountable, maybe if we stop hiding this stuff, we can start to deal with it, and become real men of integrity.
It is an addiction, a harmful, dreadful addiction, it may not see you dead in a gutter like drugs will, or kill your liver like alcohol, but it will destroy your life, destroy your family & destroy your sex life too (not to mention the harm it does to those caught in the industry - don't believe the lies that these women create to protect themselves, or the BS spun by groups like the Eros foundation). Although I had to deal with the up front consequences of porn through being sprung, it still had a hold on me, my head would still turn when I walked past THAT section of a newsagency. Though I would pull my gaze away from it straight away, I knew that the demon of lust still had a hold on me. But God has challenged me about it quite recently and I think that finally the demon's talons are released from me (I use the term 'demon' figuratively, though the Pentecostal in me still thinks there may be some deeper truth to this!). I came face to face with the destructive power of porn the other day when I visited a lonely old guy from the neighborhood - I will not go into any more details than that, but It shocked me into reality, then I came across this video clip (please guys share it around I think its message is very important...)
I came across it at a great site called www.xxxchurch.com* that deals with this whole issue of Christian guys and the problem of porn - it even has some great resources on it like an accountability program that allows you to select a friend to keep you accountable - every time you visit a bad site, this software sends an e-mail to your friend to let him know, talk about vulnerability, but to have the guts to use something like that...
Anyway guys, we need to face up to this problem, stop being ashamed and do something about it - it is harming us, our wives, our families, the poor girls stuck in the industry, and society as a whole - lets be men of integrity, lets be men who stand out from the lusts of our culture, lets stop harming the innocent and putting money into the hands of men who stand in direct opposition to the Kingdom of God!
*There was a guy who was wearing a t-shirt at the Surrender conference that said "Jesus loves porn stars" with the web address under it - this piqued my interest so I had to check it out... Here I was thinking it was about Jesus loving even sinners like Porn Stars. I thought maybe it would be a site dedicated to sticking it to the conservative self-righteous Christians out there , but it ended up pointing the finger back at me!!!
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