For twenty-five years, many of us have laughed through or in spite of Joey and Chandler’s regular consumption of porn on Friends. And today, former Baywatch babe and Playmate, Pamela Anderson, is a “strange” outlier because, now that she’s gotten rich and famous off of being objectified—yet, seeming to have learned the hard way, she speaks out about pornography as “corrosive” and “a public hazard.”[1] Meanwhile, America’s darling couple and famed celebrities of The Voice, Gwen Stefani and Blake Sheldon, celebrate the fact that they “watch porn, cookin’ shows, and Instagram” after they put the kids to bed.[2]
Despite this “boys will be boys,” no-shame-no stigma, it’s-perfectly-fine-in-an-exclusive-relationship sea change, pornography is still the crack-cocaine of the soul—a real drug-of-choice that has the power to kill and destroy individuals and relationships.
In living in a culture that increasingly seeks to normalize porn, it’s important to make sure we know why it’s wrong and base our biblical case against it on the right passages. That’s why using the text below as our primary apologetic is problematic:
But I say unto you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Matt. 5:28, NRSV
Despite writing before the internet and iPhones, the late John White gave some thoughtful and valuable guidance on the proper application of this passage and its relation to porn:
I would like to make a distinction here… It seems to me that it is one thing to allow my fantasies to be stirred by the cover of a pornographic magazine [or internet site] and something altogether different to allow myself to play lustfully with the idea of having a relationship with a flesh and blood man or woman that I know personally. Both activities are fantasy activities. Yet it seems to me that in Matthew 5 it is the second issue that Jesus is talking about.
I must be careful to not make too much of this distinction for in real life it is less clear-cut…. Half-way between the nude in Penthouse or Playgirl [or internet site] and the person I know in real life comes the girl in the bikini on the beach. The girl in the magazine is not (to me) a person. But then neither, for that matter is the bikinied body on the beach.
Yet the distinction remains an important one. Sexual fantasy stimulated by pornography are purely erotic fantasies. They have to do with physical, animal arousal only. The masturbating adolescent, obsessed with the breasts of a pinup and torn with an urge in his groins is thinking primarily of his own physical feelings and his desire to relieve them. But the sexually experienced man or woman (whether young or old), those who know what is involved with a sexual relationship and especially those who may be involved in an unsatisfactory marriage relationship, are in a different position. Their prime preoccupation is with the grass in another meadow which seems greener than the grass in their own. Or else it may be the man or woman who has no pasture but covets what belongs to another. John speaks of “the lust of the eyes,” the desire to possess beautiful things. Lust exists where our desires are our masters rather than our servants. So that to lust after a woman has a broader meaning that merely to experience erotic arousal or fantasies.
I am not seeking to justify playing around with sexually stimulating fantasies. To play around with sexual fantasies is a miserable, guilt-evoking, lonely travesty of sex. I do not believe, however, that sexual fantasies in general are what Jesus is talking about… He is talking rather about coveting another person’s spouse, or else someone known to me whom I may not possess.”
John White, Eros Defiled (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1977) 94-95.
White’s nuance is valuable yet given our tendency to justify ourselves and rationalize away our sin, what is a better, intellectually and emotionally more formidable case against pornography?
Here it is: In entering the virtual world of pornography, one decides to join with and give a piece of his or her heart to a gigantic industry of distorted desire, exploitation, abuse, and voyeuristic using. Pornography is a willing or forced defacing of the image of God, a disfiguring of the transcendent beauty and pleasure of the sexual experience. It dissipates and derails human potential; it distracts from and deadens holy desire.
In pursuing purity, loving God with our minds, and better using Scripture to help stand against, flee from, and eradicate porn from our lives, here are some excellent prayers from the Psalms:
- “I will walk with integrity of heart within my house; I will not set before my eyes anything that is base.” (101:2b-3a, NRSV)
- “Turn my eyes from looking at vanities; give me life in your ways.” (119:37, NRSV)
- “Let your steadfast love become my comfort…” (119:76a, NRSV))
- “Don’t let me drift toward evil or take part in acts of wickedness. Don’t let me share in the delicacies of those who do wrong… I look to you for help, O Sovereign LORD. You are my refuge; don’t let them kill me. Keep me from the traps they have set for me, from the snares of those who do wrong. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, but let me escape. (141:4, 8-10, NLT)
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/01/pamela-anderson-urges-men-to-give-up-pornography-describing-it-a/ See also https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/pamela-anderson-claims-weve-lost-many-good-men-to-porn-and-playstation-in-odd-twitter-thread
[2] https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/blake-shelton-jokes-about-watching-porn-with-gwen-stefani/[