Many Christians struggle with isues of porn, masturbation and their sex drive in general, especially the unmarried amongst us. In assessing porn we need some sound biblical concepts to guide us. Here are some of my musings on this issue.
1 God made mankind in His own image. Therefore we must never assign low, or inferior, or negative attitudes towards what God Himself made. This includes our bodies. Our bodies are to be for our enjoyment, our satisfaction, our appreciation, our sense of gratitude towards God. He made us and gave us bodies that can enjoy so many good things, good things that God made for our benefit. The Greeks saw human body as something expressive of divine beauty, which is often reflected in their sculptures. That was so right.
2 Associated with our bodies being good, sex is to be welcomed and enjoyed. God made us sexual beings who can give and receive great pleasure from our sexual nature. When we enjoy sex we are experiencing what God wanted for us. This implies that our sexual organs are also good, to be enjoyed, appreciated, an essential and creative part of our lives. We would not be upset in any way at normal sexuality.
3 When first created, mankind was naked and not ashamed. I see this as meaning there was complete openness between the couple, and by implication everyone else. There was no privacy as we understand it today. People would be naked physically, emotionally, and spiritually before each other and as with God. No secrets, no hidden agendas, just unconditional love and acceptance in a common life of total happiness. Today, in a fallen world porn is the substitute and corruption of that original purpose
4 Man and woman were to be one flesh. This means that their sexual union symbolized and made real a wonderful union between two people that resulted on their living as one person in a sense of a common love, commitment, intentions towards each other, and total commitment to each others happiness and well being. Casual sex is the complete opposite of all this. It is just two people sharing sexual organs to get sexual pleasure and release. Porn is focusing on sexual stimulation without a concommitant loving relationship.
Where we do run into problems is that there is a widespread interest in sexual issues (see the numbers on the forum for sexual threads) that Christians don't always accommodate that easily. There is a difference between prudery and modesty, genuine healthy interest and addictive desire, enjoyment of being a sexual being but also much guilt about this too. We can be Christian and sexually selfish, self absorbed, sexually unsatisfied in marriage yet very pious about the sexual morality of others. Its a strange mix.
John
NZ
