By Grace Biskie

There's a Chinese proverb that states: “May you live in interesting times.” As I thought about those “interesting times,” I thought about pornography.

Yeah, porn.

What's more interesting than living in a time where you can download an app to your phone displaying photos of nude women? What's more interesting than living in a time where you can anonymously watch others engage in sexual activity who have proudly posted their escapades for the world to watch for their personal financial benefit?



These interesting times have come upon us quickly. The first time I ever saw pornography I was ten. The next time I was in 8th grade. A friend raided her Dad's VHS stash. I was—at first—disgusted, but this time, unlike the last, I wanted to watch again. It was like getting tipsy for the first time. At 13 years old, I thought about porn again 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 to borrow from my friend’s Dad's extensive collection. The year was 1989. There were no smartphones. As a result, I never saw porn again for an entire decade.

Porn Is Accessible. All. The. Time.

At 19, I wanted to watch porn again. But I wasn't about to walk into a store (and risk being seen?) and buy pornography. Pretty soon, the desire went away. In fact, the desires didn't come back until it became easily accessible to me: when my husband and I got high-speed internet in our home in 2003. All of a sudden, I found myself struggling with porn—quite out of the blue—and feeling profoundly disgusted with myself as a Jesus follower, as a woman, as a human being. I struggled on and off for a year before fully getting it under control. A willing heart to be healed and God's abundant willingness to deliver me won my freedom. Nowadays, I don't go anywhere near it. Not in movies, not in books, not anywhere. This is insanely difficult to do. One false move on a Google search can lead to image after animated image. But it's not just the accidental searches that are our problem, is it? It's our desire to find it, to find something other than the One who created our sexuality.



As a mama of two little ones, I feel sickeningly afraid that my sweet little boys will have their sexuality awoken in 2nd, 3rd or 4th grade by some kid with an iPod touch and parents too misguided to set up parental controls. Or maybe in the 5th grade my boys will attend a sleepover where a group of nearly pubescent kids rally around the family computer scanning YouTube for videos that get them, well, excited. Or, or, or . . .



Point is, any one of us could find porn very easily if we wanted to. Any one of us can nurse that addiction privately without anyone knowing but God. Thankfully, this is no longer—falsely—seen as a man's problem. Thanks to the ease of use, there are now more women, young boys, and young girls addicted to pornography than ever before. The stakes raise even higher as the profits of porn directly benefit the global billion dollar human sex trafficking industry.



The hyper-sexualized culture we live in means not only offering porn in more easily accessible formats but it means openly celebrating it as well, with the destruction and consequences spreading evenly throughout our families. No one is left unaffected.

Porn Isn't Our Biggest Problem.

Truth? Pornography is evil, abusive to women, torture to children, a medium for sexual trafficking, a source of funds for human slavery, an addiction that can lead to rape and sexual violence. It is a killer of healthy marital sex, an instrument which is capable of rewiring our brains, and a serious affront to God.



It's evil. It's accessible. But our biggest problem is our sinful nature, our weak faith, and our weak bodies ruling and running us around like undertrained marathoners.



Though we continue to have amnesia about why God doesn't want us to participate in porn or any other God-dishonoring behavior, the truth is that these guidelines are always for our benefit and always out of love. Our continual defiance of God is our own love problem. An obedience problem is a love problem. If we love God, we obey his directives.

This Kind Can Only Come Out Through Prayer.

We need God's help. Addressing porn in our lives means getting desperate for God's help. If we feel that we can "handle this" alone, we are dead wrong. We need to get on our knees and ask God to make us desperate. We need to ask God to show us who we can begin to talk to or who we can invite towards consistent, loving accountability.



Ours is hope, offered willingly to us through Jesus. Lord knows if he can do a miraculous work in my life, he can do all that and more in yours. Never give up your hope.



We live in very interesting times, indeed. I hope and pray we can figure out how to guard our hearts, set up gridlock-strong accountability, and steer far, far away from the sin that so easily entangles.

Grace Biskie is InterVarsity’s Regional Coordinator for the Great Lakes East area and blogs at www.gabbingwithgrace.com.