Colossians 3: 2 Let heaven fill your thoughts; don’t spend your time worrying about things down here. 3 You should have as little desire for this world as a dead person does. Your real life is in heaven with Christ and God. 4 And when Christ who is our real life comes back again, you will shine with him and share in all his glories.5 Away then with sinful, earthly things; deaden the evil desires lurking within you; have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires; don’t worship the good things of life, for that is idolatry. 6 God’s terrible anger is upon those who do such things. 7 You used to do them when your life was still part of this world; 8 but now is the time to cast off and throw away all these rotten garments of anger, hatred, cursing, and dirty language.
Colossians 11 When you came to Christ, he set you free from your evil desires, not by a bodily operation of circumcision but by a spiritual operation, the baptism of your souls. 12 For in baptism you see how your old, evil nature died with him and was buried with him; and then you came up out of death with him into a new life because you trusted the Word of the mighty God who raised Christ from the dead. 13 You were dead in sins, and your sinful desires were not yet cut away. Then he gave you a share in the very life of Christ, for he forgave all your sins,14 and blotted out the charges proved against you, the list of his commandments which you had not obeyed. He took this list of sins and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ’s cross. 15 In this way God took away Satan’s power to accuse you of sin, and God openly displayed to the whole world Christ’s triumph at the cross where your sins were all taken away.
I was introduced to porn when I was seven. I was at a friend's house playing dressup games when an ad for "Russian dolls" came up. The Internet was relatively new then, and we didn't know about viruses or popups, so my reaction was just "I don't think my mom wants me to see this." To which my friend replied "Close your eyes then." From then we roleplayed with our barbies what i know recognise as oral sex. How does an eight year old see this stuff? It became a premature and unhealthy sexualization of my childhood, which is what i think my parents were trying to protect me from. It didn't work. I knew it was wrong, but I didn't know what to do about it. Fast forward a few years, skipping forced kisses, bad jokes, stories from friends about rape and pregnancy and fear.
I was 16 and my "boyfriend" introduced me to sexting, and I later found out he was constantly cheating on me, and because we were long distance, I couldn't know what was happening, and I wasn't going to compromise what i believed. But I retaliated with the virtual version, porn.
Through much of these years from seven to 17 I struggled with guilt and depression, not necessarily linked, but possibly influenced by porn. I thought I was ugly and undesirable, that my worth is what I can do not who I am. people asked if I was Lesbian simply because I abstained. Some of my fears about porn are these. It's unrealistic, and acts like a drug. Once you have it you want more. Its unglorifying to those around you, and those on screen. What if my theoretical future husband wants to look at those girls more than he wants to look at me? What if we want more than the other can give? How long will it take for you to cheat in real life if you live these fantasies in your head? What if i believe the empty sex is all love is? Does it fuel rape, prostitution, violence? Does it make us feel unworthy? What if your children see it? We as humans are conditioned to want sex, but I want it to be beautiful when it happens, not full of fear or frustration.
I am now 20, and I want to live for God. How do I do that when these images are branded in my head? How do I respect my future husband? Is it possible for him to respect me if he has a similar struggle or if he doesn't understand my story? Nearly everyone in our generation has this problem. We are naive, introduced to a good feeling, and then trapped. Pornography is our drug. We don't need to be shamed, pitied, or called names. I want our peers and our leaders to stand for purity, grace and respect. I believe in marriage, one man and one woman. Not rape or porn or lust, or the sex trade. Not objectifying or leering. I don't want that in my world. I want true love. True respect.
