Why are we settling for this?
When all out war is happening inside a relationship over sexual issues such as pornography use and/or addiction the first question that comes to mind is often, is this really love that keeps the spouse involved with the user or offender of their relationship. Using pornography can be debated for the next 100 years…is this right or wrong? But the facts speak louder than the debate itself. There are many who believe that pornography is simply a symptom of the ever changing society and that sex is not something to be hidden or ashamed of. That everyone does it and that part of this change we see only goes hand in hand with the open mind of evolutionary freedoms to do what ever it takes to pleasure ourselves.
What happens with this is that very suddenly what was once occasional becomes not enough. There are piles of history and testimonies that come out daily about this very problem. Not to mention the evidence of how sexual exploitation has literally decayed our society as a whole. There are more incidences of sexual crimes, more sexual transmitted diseases, even those that were once unheard of anymore are now flourishing and are as common as HPV. There are twice as many teen pregnancies than even 5 years ago. Not to mention the incredible numbers of divorce has now surpassed the 50% mark and is well on it’s way to being over 65% increase in divorces.
How has the acceptance of porn as a staple in our relationships helped our society? The fact is it hasn’t and it won’t. The only thing it’s done through migrating into our daily media and regular viewing is destroy more and more of the common decency we used to hold at a higher standard in our world. We now can view teens as young as 11 years old dressing in sexually provocative clothing…and parents gladly are supporting this because "everyone is dressing this way". We have to fit. We have to belong and we have to allow our children to belong. We have young teens now getting plastic surgery as graduation gifts from their parents. This is the thought patterns of the youth, that if they don’t fit into this mold of sexually pleasing then they don’t and never will fit into this society.
We have grown to accept these things because over time we have become immune to their impact. Nothing is surprising anymore. Nothing is shocking anymore. What used to be seen as sexual is now rated with a PG. The ratings on movies are one indication of the slow and manipulative decline in our moral values. What was once considered PG13 just 5 years ago now contains "some adult situations". This could be anything from frontal nudity to sexual intercourse with a sheet covering the major parts of the body. Over time, this has changed significantly and is now thought to be perfectly natural and normal for our children to be exposed to. The numbers speak loud, but no one is listening.
Children are reportedly exposed to 4,483 sexually explicit images through a month of television. This is not porn, but sexual in nature. Sexual innuendo is constant on most television programming today. Parents who gladly invite pornography as a normal part of their personal lives do not realize that they are literally being changed into believing that "this is not so bad", because what they see in porn is far more explicit and at least regular television is not literally showing acts of illicit sex. That’s conditioning, and that’s how this works. Pornography lessens the value of sex. It lessens the importance of monogamous sex with a marital partner. Sex altogether is devalued and made to appear as if exploitation of anyone is a normal thing. Even considered a good enhancement inside some relationships.
The fact is, our youth will grow up and someday look just like the youthful humans inside the world of porn. Porn sells the most on sites that proclaim selling tools like, "Barely Legal", "Her first time", "Girls gone Wild", "College Coeds". These are porn sites that depend on the consumer to want and desire to see very youthful underage girls. Some that resembles their own daughters, the neighbor’s and our school aged children in many ways. That switch in not easily turned off when the real thing is in the presence of people. Especially when this is considered normal in our society these days.
The acceptance of porn is sometimes easy because our own behaviors are as equally damaging to our relationships and people will accept this because they themselves have this same expectation from themselves. Some of this acceptance is because there are those who have their own devices of addiction. And the payoff is being accepted for what they are and how they behave towards the other person. People are willing to compromise as long as they are accepted for what they do inside their own private life. This could be addictions to something else. Whether it be alcohol, drugs or shopping or eating. If one behavior is accepted, then all behavior is supposed to be acceptable. It eases the need for change. The reason is that is prevents trouble temporarily.
When one partner is against pornography and the other refuses to stop it’s use the first thing that comes to mind is why would anyone give total authority over their own lives to someone else to decide what has to be a part of their own life? With women, it seems that there is a waiting period where the female will make futile attempts to change her man’s mind about porn. By telling him how she feels about porn. When for him, that’s never going to be the issue. What the issue is for him is that he is seeking sexual freedom to do what he chooses to do with his own mind and body. And men seek out sexual material simply to be sexually stimulated by other means, outside their intimate relationships.
Rarely does this have to do with feelings for him. So he doesn’t understand the logic of those feelings when he doesn’t have them. For thousands of years the sexual appetite has stepped over and controlled the behaviors of many. It’s importance far out weighs the ramifications of hurting someone’s feelings. Many people believe that feelings are "changeable" that they can be reversed and by simply convincing another person that their feelings are irrelevant is easily done. This works for a while. But the feelings never really change. They merely diminish for a time and surface in other ways. For women, those feelings that are forced into submission only revert to other devices to deal with them. These could be anything from shopping to over eating or under eating. It could be denial and ignoring or diving fully into another aspect of her life such as her children or career. But no matter what the price, she is willing to exchange her behavior for his in order to keep the peace and save the relationship.
Women have to decide when they are going to be the equal inside a marriage. Women have to realize that they are part of the partnership and have an equal saying in what happens inside her life. That should include her sex life. She does not have to wait to find out or see if a person will respect her and love her the same way that she loves them. Often times this is what the initial problem is inside many relationships. One person is doing all the giving and the other is doing all the taking. What we forget is to ask when was the last time we received the same love the same respect the same honor as we give. And when you give all of that 100% then you have the right to expect the same in return.
No one is asking anyone to sacrifice or give up anything here. What is porn that it has to be considered a sacrifice not to seek it? How important is the sexually explicit immoral degradation of sex and women compared to the loving committed relationship called marriage? When both partners marry they both are making a sacrifice. They both are choosing to be involved inside a committed monogamous relationship. They both are choosing to give up single lives to share everything sexually, materially, financially, and family oriented with that one person. No one’s sacrifice is greater than the other. There is a no greater loss to either partner. It’s a choice to be inside a marriage. It’s also a choice to love that person. And love does mean to protect, care, honor, respect, and forgive that person. It also means that intentionally setting out to harm that person’s self esteem and self worth inside the marriage should be greater than the desire to seek out sexual images of other people. People, who by the way, do not feel valued or worth anything unless they are being degraded and exploited and there are many reasons for that. Supporting porn is supporting an industry that devalues all of us. It exploits the very problems of our society and the very people it uses and then throws away when they are done with them. Its connections to crime are undeniable. Its promotion of sexual abuse and yes, even linked to child porn, extramarital affairs, elicit sex, unprotected sex and sexual abuse of women and children are profoundly impacting how we see ourselves and how we value our relationships. And that is evident in the overwhelming increases of use and promotion inside our society. There are no warnings on porn. There are no questions asked or proof needed to verify that a person is even an adult going to porn. There are no warnings about sexual addictions or the possible destruction of a person’s marriage. We as parents are protective and concerned with drugs, alcohol, and who our children hang out with….but how many of us know, really know the neighbor’s values when it comes to their own kids seeing this or even watching it in the house next door? How many of us are concerned with the pedophile living next door that is consumed with porn and then coaxes a young child into his house with this? How many of us are concerned with the numbers of families willing to risk this inside their marriages only to discover that this affected the way they see their spouses? How many of us think that someday that could be our sons or daughters having casual sex with porn as the influence behind their decisions?
All of this will eventually take its toll on our society. It will someday come into contact with at least 1 out of every 3 young girls. It will someday be the highest in numbers of addicts to pornography under drug addiction or alcohol. It will someday be on your regular affiliates of television programming. It will escalate to even more elicit forms of pornography. And it will seem unstoppable. Until one at a time, someone decides that they are not going to buy into this anymore and be brainwashed into believing this is normal everyday fun or that everyone has to have this. This is no sacrifice compared to the sacrifice of marriages and families. This is not worth the risk to anyone.
