This post is part three of a three-part series. Pornography is a snare because it is:
Available | Affordable | Anonymous
If you have been struggling with pornography for anywhere close to as long as I did as a Christian man (30 years), the primary cause of your habitual sin is readily explained—you haven’t been caught. Pornography is powerful precisely because it’s private. It’s the sin you do in secret that no one knows about. Not your spouse. Not your kids. Not your work colleagues. Not your brothers in the Lord. Not your church leaders. You are ensnared in porn because it’s anonymous.
Generally speaking, the more likely you are to get caught, the less likely you are to commit the act. The more likely you are to face public ridicule, get fired, lose your wife, get arrested and do jail time, the less likely you are to commit the sin. But the problem with the sin of watching, reading and listening to pornography is that you are never likely to get caught, are you? Unless you’re like the British member of parliament who watched porn in the House of Commons, you are unlikely to get caught. You enjoy your porn in private, and that’s one reason you find it so hard to forsake.
I want you to appreciate that this was never the case for most of human history. You are living during a time when the anonymity of porn is one of its greatest attractions. You are hooked today in a way you could never have been hooked in the past. For example, during the time when Solomon wrote the biblical Book of Proverbs, printed pornography didn’t exist. Electronic media didn’t exist. If a man wanted to engage in adultery or sexual immorality, he had to leave his house, visit a part of town known for prostitution (the real porn hub), and engage the services of a harlot. This carried great risk because it couldn’t be anonymous. He always faced the risk of being seen.
Even during my lifetime, before the internet was invented, a man couldn’t get his hands on pornography without exposing himself (excuse the metaphor). To get hold of a pornographic magazine or movie in the 1960s and 1970s, a man had to visit a store, or order something that arrived through the mail, or in other ways risk being seen or caught. There was little expectation of anonymity because it didn’t exist. And because it didn’t exist, pornography was less prevalent. Widespread porn use among Christian men wasn’t a thing when I was growing up.
Today, of course, this has changed. You can view pornography anytime you are alone. All you need is your smartphone. No one ever needs to discover what you watch in secret. You are free to view the vilest of pornography without leaving the house, without visiting any store and without transacting with anyone. Your sin is anonymous, and that’s one of the primary reasons you are ensnared.
If the only way you could watch pornography was on a computer in a public place, you wouldn’t be struggling. If your electronic devices broadcast your online activity to your spouse, kids, teacher, boss, police department and other people of influence, you wouldn’t watch porn. You couldn’t, because you’d be afraid of getting caught. The risk of detection would be your strongest deterrent, just as the anonymity of porn is one of your greatest weaknesses.
The anonymity of pornography isn’t your fault. You are not responsible for the websites, social media apps, smartphones, tablets, laptops and other devices that make porn available to you in secret. Yes, your sexual sin is your responsibility, but the ability to consume pornography in private is none of your making. Part of the reason you are drawn back to your habitual sin is not your fault. If pornography was only available in public, you would be sexually pure. If you were guaranteed to get caught every time you viewed wicked images and videos, you would attain and maintain sexual purity soon enough.
By the way, if you desire to be free of the snare of porn, you must tackle this anonymity issue. One method that works for me is electronic accountability. Install the Covenant Eyes app on all of your electronic devices (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop PC). Covenant Eyes will take screenshots of your activity and email them to your accountability partner. If you watch porn, you’ll get caught, guaranteed. You will no longer be able to enjoy porn in secret, or enjoy it at all, for that matter. When you remove the anonymity, you remove the temptation.
Need a daily kick in the pants to quit porn biblically? Buy the book, or subscribe to my daily kick.
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