There are many men out there who do not want to look at pornography, do not want to lust over women they see throughout their day, and want to treasure their wives in every way they can. I am one of these men.
But the decision to do or not do these things is not like deciding which pair of underwear to put on in the morning, or what to have for breakfast. The reality is, we have been conditioned to lust. Our wiring has been messed with and reconstructed so that we view women in a very different way than God intended us to.
We can “bounce our eyes” all day long, but they continue to come back to the objects of their fancy.
We are not innocent bystanders to this. It’s something we allowed ourselves to get entangled into one way or another. But entangled we remain, well past when we wanted to be. Some of us have gotten out of the thick of the battle. The actual consumption of pornography itself. But like a bad tattoo, the marks of lust remain, long after we made the decision to part ways.
The problem with strategies like training yourself to “bounce your eyes” and having accountability partners ask you about your behavior is that they are focused on just that: behavior. Behavior management has never led anyone to true freedom. What good is it if I’ve whipped myself into not looking at pornography anymore, but my heart still longs desperately for it? What good is it if I can look at the clouds when a pretty girl in a tight dress walks by me on the street, but everything in me longs to gaze? Has anything actually changed about what I think and believe about women? If I bounce my eyes and push that sexual energy toward my wife instead, is she not simply becoming my living pornography? A simple means to an end of selfishly satisfying my sex drive?
What I am saying is that the solution to lust lies much deeper than what lies on the surface. If we only deal with the surface symptoms, we’ll never truly root out the disease. I know because I’ve tried and I’ve seen the long term results. And they aren’t pretty.
The key to lasting sexual purity is to understand that lustful thoughts about women turn them into something that isn’t human. A question that’s been very helpful to me in my walk with Christ on many levels is to ask, “Why did God create this person?” When it comes to the women I would be lusting over, the answer is obviously not so I can consume them and turn them into objects.
A lustful mindset about women trains us to be attracted to someone based on their exterior skin, rather than their interior humanity.
The solution to this is to see the full humanity in every woman you see.
Not so you can become attracted to them, but so that you can break down the many illusions and deceptions of lust and extramarital attraction.
Just like I talked about in yesterday’s post about Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition cover model Kate Upton feeling terrible about herself that men turned her into a toy, the solution to breaking down the illusions of lust is to see that women are not “sex beings”, they are human beings! Seems so simple and obvious, yet it is the exact opposite of what our hyper-sexualized culture communicates to men (and is also a trap that many women fall into: thinking that sexuality is their only ticket to acceptance, attention, and love).
The reason men become discontent in their marriages is because their wives become too human. The quirks, weaknesses, personality flaws, limitations, insecurities, fears, and struggles that we all have come out and suddenly we feel like we got a lot more than we bargained for. Meanwhile, there is an all-you-can-eat buffet of women out there who seem to have never-ending sex drives, none of these flaws, and are presenting themselves to you as if their only reason for existence was to make you happy.
But we can learn to see past these things and see who these women really are. (Their motivation for presenting themselves this way? Money, attention, insecurity, coercion, force, to name a few.) They really are humans. Just like your wife. Just like your mom. Just like your daughter. And just like you. They have all of the complicated pieces of being human, you just don’t get to see it.
This is where the true liberation comes from. When I stop identifying women as sex-beings and see them as human beings, I also get to see my wife in a whole new way. Rather than seeing her as the sex object God gave me to fulfill my sex drive (honestly what some sexual purity strategies teach, not so directly of course!), I see her as a beautiful person. A person whose attractiveness comes from all the ways God has fearfully and wonderfully made her, not just from her skin. It redefines what attractiveness is. I redeems what humanity is. A human is not skin. A human is a person.
Women are human beings, not sex beings.
See past the makeup, the lighting, the airbrushing, the PhotoShopping, the posing, the seductive face, and the shrunken wardrobe. See past it to see what God sees: a daughter. Someone who needs love. The true love of God to fill up their insecurities and give them the approval they are so desperately seeking.
Love God by loving others.
No matter how “pretty” my daughter ever gets, I never have to worry about lusting over her. Why? Because I love her too much as a person. Her skin is not who she is. She is who she is. And this has been conditioned and engrained in me since I have the privilege of raising her from infancy. She is a precious human being and will always be a precious human being to me.
And the same is true of the woman who walks by me on the street, or the woman who poses on the cover of a swimsuit magazine. They aren’t my daughters, but they are someone’s daughter. And most importantly, they are my Heavenly Father’s daughters, whether they’ve accepted and experienced this truth or not. I know this truth, and I am called as a Christ-follower to live this truth.
Seeing people the way God intended, not the way they present themselves.
Related posts:
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Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
Host of the The Flip Side Podcast
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Very helpful, Noah. Thanks
I really like what you said here. However, in a previous post you talk about using a screen capture program on your computer as a deterrent for using pornography, but in this post you seem to be saying that such approaches are repression and are not beneficial. I know for me personally that any kind of program installed on a computer is never enough because I can always just install a new operating system in a matter of an hour or so and have no accountability whatsoever. I agree with you that the only long term lasting solution to stopping pornography use is altering the way we look at women. Thank you!
For me personally, both things have been essential: the surveillance / filter software, as well as the deep soul work of being reprogrammed. While yes, there are always ways to remove a filter, for me it creates enough of a deterrent that it prevents most all of the “clicks of convenience” that I may otherwise cave into. And with the Spector Pro surveillance, my wife is going to know if I deleted it from my computer and then tried adding it on later, because the screenshots for that period of time would all be missing. That’s also helpful. But yes, at the end of the day, it’s got to be our heart that changes. But if there is still open access to porn only a click away, it’s going to be really hard to ever get to the heart because the addiction will stay in the way. So I think both are definitely needed, and as I said here, you can’t just deal with the behavior-management. Keep fighting for your purity Oregon Trails! The more of us fighting together, the more encouraging it is to know we are on the right path!
Easier said than done but this is a great article. I been lusting over women my whole life and have gotten plenty of sex, and that still makes me lust. Do you understand that this is uncontrollable right? Believe me i want to stop, but I will try. Ill say that little mantra. Because it’s true, women Are human beings, not sex beings, then why was my ex a little freak and always said i made her horny?? And I been having one night stands like crazy, and these women sex just like I want sex!
But I am ready to have a steady stream of about 4-5 beautiful women at once, kill 2 birds with one stone..Neediness and Satisfaction. Who doesn’t want that? Peace!
Lee, I can relate to the uncontrollable part, because sex and lust are truly a physiological addiction, just like drugs. I pointed to an interesting article about what porn does to our brains, it’s pretty crazy: http://www.cutthereligiouscheese.com/what-porn-physiologically-does-to-your-brain-other-body-parts/ and the same would be true of one-night stands, etc. It’s the same type of addiction.
As you battle the tension/decision between the instant gratification and the addiction, I would just call you back to how this warps your mind for how you see all women. Even if these women in these one night stands, or your ex wife, seem to want sex the way you did (and some have very different reasons, such as insecurity, looking for acceptance, etc.), these interactions, which are not how God designed us to have sex, are things that are warping your mind for you how see all women. These things are preventing you from experiencing healthy community. For example, your going to see my wife, the wives of many of your friends, etc. in the same lustful light, because your mind has been warped this way. And when you meet a woman, you’re going to see her as an opportunity for your pleasure (consumption), rather than a human being.
Living in sexual purity doesn’t typically bring the same “rush” as the addiction to lust, but it does bring a peace that no sexually immoral experience can give. So you have to decide, much like a drug addict, if you want that peace, or if you want to continuing living on the quick hits that always leave you empty. And once you make that decision, take the steps to break free of the addiction, which won’t happen overnight.
Hope that helps
Man that heelpd me alot.thanks . I would rather be free from sexual desire and lust.
What works for me is to keep my attention on my breathing. It is almost as if combining an awareness of my breathing with an awareness of my surroundings helps brings Life into proper perspective. There’s a spiritual reason that it is called “the breath of Life” 😉
Thank you Noah, this helped me. I have been struggling with P and M addiction since I was 12. It is really hard to see woman sometimes as more than something that will fulfill my sexual desires. I have tried literally everything I can think of, programs, prayer, singing hymns, addiction recovery classes, etc, etc. I realize there has to be something more to pornography addiction than just having greater self control. Maybe it just takes a new point of view about woman and who they are. I just had a slip tonight, a few hours later I was in the living room and I saw my roommate’s fiance and immediately had impure thoughts and feelings. I realized that I was viewing her as a sex object and not a person. The moment that I realized that those thoughts and feelings disappeared and I saw her in a new light. It is amazing the perspective that the gospel of Christ can bring to life when we view it through the lens of eternity. Hopefully this will help the next time I am tempted.
Hi Justin, thank you so much for your honesty. I am so passionate about men like yourself finding fully freedom in the mercy of Jesus. I can relate so much to your trajectory as it is very similar to mine. I encourage you to check out the other posts I’ve written about pornography and sexual purity as I believe they too will be helpful to you: http://www.atacrossroads.net/category/sex-and-pornography/ I’ve written a book that is currently being looked at by publishers which unpacks all of this in a way that I think will truly help men like yourself, and like me, who had read all their is to read about the surface level solutions out there. If you’re interested, I’d be humbled and very encouraged if you signed up for my author newsletter team which will keep people updated on when the book gets a publishing deal and when it will be released: http://www.atacrossroads.net/signed-by-a-literary-agent-how-you-can-help-my-first-book-get-published/
In the meantime, I would be more than happy to send you a free copy of the full manuscript if you’re interested, as my heart goes out to the current state you are in and your desire to find freedom. Just send me a private message on facebook or twitter if you’d rather not leave your email on this thread.