Okay, so I revised it.  The real proverb is “May you live in interesting times.”  As soon as I read that today, I thought about pornography.

Yep, pornography.

I thought about raising two sons who will grow up to be horny teenager boys like everyone else but have the ease of pornography at their fingertips, unlike the majority of us over-30 types.

The first time I ever saw pornography I was ten.  I was spending the night over a friends house.  Her older sister asked matter of fact if we wanted to watch people have sex.  The VHS was popped in.  I soon regretted that decision because I could not stop thinking about the images for days and days.  While I was slightly intrigued by it, I was mostly disturbed.  In fact, —–eck—- there is one scene that I can still picture.

The next time, I was a bit older, maybe 7th or 8th grade.  Also, I was spending the night at a friends house.  Also, my friends older sister asked if we wanted to see any of the giant stash her Dad kept hidden in his closet.  (Great work hiding the porn, Dad)!  Again, I was disgusted but this time I wanted to watch it again.  It was like getting pleasantly tipsy for the first time.

At 13 years old, I thought regular porn viewing would be potentially fun but never in a million years imagined having my own porn, I didn’t consider buying my own stash and it never occurred to me that I could borrow from my friends Dad’s extensive collection.  As a result, I never saw it again for entire decade.

But unlike me, my sweet little boys could have their sexuality awoken by that age (or younger) and keep watching in private with the simple ease of an iphone/ipad/ipod touch app by some kid whose Mom gave him an ipod touch and failed to put parental controls on it.  Or, he could be over a friends house and pick up the friends Dad’s iphone and sift YouTube for pornographic videos.  And bam, that’s that.  My little boy could be a porn viewer at 7, 8, 9, 10 years old. (God help us all)!

Please don’t tell me I’m worrying like an over-protective, helicopter parent busying myself with creative ways to worry about my 6 and 2 yr. old (primarily because I’ll hurt you).

Unlike me, they’ll be able to go and find porn very easily if they wanted to.  Dave & I can’t rely on the “don’t do that, son” parenting method.  We have to find a way to teach them why pornography is so very destructive, addictive and so very dangerous.  They have to learn to choose for themselves because there will be no shortage of pornographic images at their fingertips at a very young age.

:::sigh:::

At 19, I remember wanting to watch porn again.  I didn’t want to have sex with anyone for a good long while, I just wanted to watch someone else have sex.  Makes sense right? Again, I wasn’t about to actually walk into a store and buy pornography —-and risk being seen!  Pretty soon, the desire went away.  In fact, the desires for it didn’t come back until it became easily accessible to me: not until we got high-speed internet in our home in 2004.  All of a sudden, I found myself struggling with porn –quite out of the blue– and feeling REALLY disgusted with myself.

{Can we just pause here for a minute so that I can tell you yes it’s difficult to admit that in this public space?  I tossed and turned about this but at the end of the day I’d rather just put it out there and reduce some of the stigma of the inner shame that accompanies things like pornography addiction or depression, especially for women.  (And I know more and more women fessin’ up these days).  I struggled on and off for about a year before it got fully under control, but I can honestly tell you it wasn’t the worse thing I’ve struggled with and I’ve nursed addictions much worse.  Much.  It never got CRAZY, thankfully.  At the end of the day along with my willingness, God delivered me from it.  I don’t walk around each day carrying a lot of shame over it because I’m a) forgiven & b) I’m carrying a lot of shame about my other problems.  Hey, I never said I was perfect.  I’ve had counselors tell me that given my highly sexualized childhood + poverty + the severity of the abuse by a parental figure I “should be” a statistic by now…a porn addict, a drug addict, a sex addict, an alcoholic, etc.  I’m not supposed to be functioning.  My “little” bout with porn is probably the most normal thing about the life I was “supposed” to have.  So, I walk in grace.  I live by grace.  God gave me this name for a reason.

Okay, end of pause.}

…As I was saying, I was a little grossed out by this new problem.  Adding insult to injury, my husband was NOT struggling with it and never has.  For crying out loud, this was supposed to be a man’s problem!  I had those sick moments where I wished it was him and not me.  (Isn’t that so psychotically twisted)?  Let’s all just take a minute and thank Jesus…that I have Jesus. =)

Nowadays, I don’t go anywhere near it.  Not in movies, not in books, not anywhere.  Not only do I have an addictive personality but adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse have a much higher propensity for unhealthy and addictive adult sexual behaviors.

But that’s in addition to pornography being evil, abusive to women, torture to children, a medium for sexual trafficking, a source of funds for human slavery, an addiction that leads to rape and sexual violence in general, a killer of healthy marital sex, an instrument which is capable of rewiring our brains and all around the worst idea ever. Not to mention, I believe pornography is a serious affront to God.

Now. How do I explain this to my 6 yr. old  other than “don’t do that son, it will deeply hurt you?”  Dave & I have to find a way.  As a kid whose sexuality was “awakened” by my own Dad for the first ten years of my life, I understand on a guttural level how profoundly destructive it is.  As a teenager who had far too many sexual experiences with far too many other (bucket-headed) teen-aged boys I understand how dastardly it will be for my two sons to juggle multiple sexual partners in their teenaged years.  (Ugh.  Just the thought of it.  I could sit in sack cloth and ashes for days.  Days)!

I have hope.  First off, my boys have a father who isn’t and who has never been addicted to porn and has intentionally stayed far away from getting himself interested in it.  They also have a father whose only sexual partner is his wife.  Yes, times are different but he still chooses everyday not to engage in the world of pornography just as he chose not to have sex until we were married.  So when Ransom is 16 and says, “Dad, you just don’t understand,” we’ll be like, “no no no no we get it, son.  Trust me, we get it!  We were once horndogs too!  Let us tell you a little story…”

When a single friend asked us the other day, “so should I just expect that any guy I date nowadays is going to be addicted to porn?” we said “NO!” That’s not good enough.  I know a lot of good men who are not addicted to porn.  And I’ve seen a lot of good men (and women too) get lost in it.

We REALLY DO live in interesting pornographic times.  The accessibility being the primary problem, second the billion dollar global industry of human sex trafficking.

I hope and pray we can figure out how to guard our own hearts, set up gridlock-strong accountability structures around us & steer far far away from it.  If we can’t do that, we are really grasping at straws if we think were going to keep our kiddo’s from an early diet of pornography or unhealthy and early sex.

In either case, Lord please help us.

Thoughts?