Lie #7: Women Want to Do It

The original feminist movement saw pornography for what it is: exploitive and dehumanizing of women, categorizing them as pleasure objects to satisfy the whims of insecure men.  But the new feminist movement, the deluded one, has gotten their minds so distorted by the enemy that they now see it as a source of empowerment.

After being abandoned by her father, when future porn star Jenna Jameson first danced as a 17-year-old in a strip club (as described on her E! special), she was amazed at the power it gave over the men who watched her.  She could control their hearts, their emotions, their wills, their very lives, with the power of her sexual expressions.  She saw the potential for how far she could take this.  For women, doing this kind of work is empowering.  But in a very destructive way.

It’s the power of vengeance, not liberation.  And vengeance, as anyone who has seen any decent movies knows, is just another form of enslavement.  You become enslaved to your anger against someone, and even after you kill them all, you still feel angry.  It doesn’t make the feeling go away.

The kind of power working as a prostitute (legal or not, in person or across a screen) brings a woman is the power of vengeance, because it is their chance to get back at the men who have hurt, abused, or abandoned them.  Now they are in control, and can let this man be as close as they want.  If he touches her, it is only because she let him.  If he wants more than that, she can refuse.  She shows him what she is paid to show on screen, and that’s all he gets to see.  If he wants to see more, he has to pay for it, and even then, there are limits.  In the end, she profits off his lust.  He loses money and gains nothing in the end, and she gets all his money.  All she loses is her dignity and self-respect.  But if she’s like most women in this industry, she already lost that when she got abused or neglected for real earlier in her life, and believes vengeance is the only way she can get it back.

This is not real empowerment, as anyone with an ounce of objectivity can see.  True empowerment would be to help these women confront the sins done against them, come to terms with them, restore their self-worth and (ideally) their identity in Christ, and go and achieve something great for the world.  Even if it’s simply to be a good mother.  That’s great enough, compared to the previous paragraph.  We could use a few more good mothers, don’t you think (and fathers, while we’re at it)?  Real empowerment would set them free, would provide opportunities for real choice, would be productive.

The women working in this industry, in the vast majority of cases, do not truly want to be doing it.  They have convinced themselves they do.  And they will tell you how much they love it with all their heart, because they want you to keep chasing them, and paying them.  They crave your worship.

This lie ties to the dehumanization sin, because when we start to believe the women want to do this, we then see them as less worthy.  Just like Amnon, who wanted Tamar so desperately.  Yet after he had her, he hated her even more passionately.  She was worth much less in his eyes now that he had spoiled her.  She was no longer a virgin.  She was a thing, and things can be thrown out when we tire of them.  We tire of models and performers after a while, after they get too old, or after we look at them too long.  It starts to seem repetitive.  I need something fresh.  I’m getting bored.  Get rid of her.  Eventually, a bunch of men feel the same way, and just like that, the girl they all loved so much is finished.  Her career ends, and she’s out of the loop.  No one calls her anymore, and no one wants to see how she’s doing.

Does she still want to do it?  Who cares.  We like this new 18-year-old sweet thing so much more.  She looks way better than that girl ever looked.  And she loves it.  She’s so exciting.

Defeating the Lie
What Bible verse could possibly counter this lie?  The Bible makes it clear that exploiting women is a sin, but where does it say that women don’t want it?  Wasn’t culture different back then?  Yes, but God wasn’t.  He never changes.  The value, worth, and dignity of a woman is a fundamental human trait, created by God.  And anything truly fundamental, so vital to understanding the core of human nature and the essence of God’s plan, can be found in Genesis.

Genesis 1:27, 31
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. (NAS)

Men and women were both made in the very image of God.  We are a reflection of His essence, suitable for His Holy Spirit to dwell within.  Is the female vessel, so cherished and loved by God, fashioned with care, also meant to be downtrodden to satisfy the perversions and profits of men?  To say the woman wants to be treated the way porn treats her is to say that God created her for this purpose, to desire this way of life, to prefer sexual subjugation.

Yet God created men and women as equals.  Both are reflections of His nature, and both possess equal value and standing in His sight.  A woman’s body is a temple for the Holy Spirit, according to I Corinthians 6.  Does the Holy Spirit want His home to be treated this way?

It’s interesting that Jenna Jameson got married at one point in her career, and during that time, she stopped performing in scenes with men, but primarily did scenes only with other women (let’s not get into that one).  Yet after this first divorce, she returned to performing with men.  So even porn stars, deep down, desire some form of marital fidelity.  It’s become almost a dream to them, so far off and unattainable.  Deep down, the longing to be cherished and loved by just one man persists.  If only they could suppress their reliance on sexual charm, and find a man worthy of their trust.  But they’ve lost faith that such a man exists.  They believe all men want only one thing.

Who among us is going to prove her wrong?

Now, with her career over, what will she be in twenty years?  How will she be remembered by all the men who pleasured themselves over her?  And what will she think of her life?  No one can say at this point.  But I can say one thing.  There will be regret.  Joy turns into nostalgia and pleasant memories.  Sin turns into regret over wasted years and opportunities.  What might have been.  They only want to do it because they’ve lost hope there’s anything better.

Keep this lie in mind, because we’ll refer to it again later.

The First Step
All these lies, and perhaps others, plague our souls and confuse our minds.  Can God really liberate me from this sin?  I’ve been doing it so long.  What if nothing happens when I get rid of it?  What if God abandons me, or doesn’t help me?  What about all the other guys out there? What if I seem weird?

This brings us back to the start of his chapter.  You have to know the word of God.  You have to know the truth, and it has to be inside you.  The truth will set you free.  It really will.  The world loves lines like that, but the world also denies the only source of eternal truth.  You must start reading, pondering, and declaring the word of God out of your mouth.  Without this, all the keys to victory we will explore next will just seem like good ideas.  Like suggestions.

But James says in his letter the right way to receive truth:

James 1:25
But the one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does.  (NAS)

We want to live by the law of liberty.  Don’t just hear it and form an opinion.  But listen, and do what the Bible says.  Then you will know and believe the truth, and will find freedom.

Lie #6: No One Gets Hurt

We’ve looked at this one extensively already as well.  Some of this needs to be revisited, however, because these are the tactics and weapons of the enemy.  He deceives us with lies, and then makes us believe them until they become our own.  Once we believe them, they begin to seem like the truth.  James describes this process in graphic imagery:

James 1:15
Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. (NAS)

These lies seem to true, in fact, that faithless Christians (if there is such a thing) laugh at the notion that a person can make it through this life without viewing pornography, or that even a teenager can maintain sexual purity in this present age.  These kinds of Christians have denied the power of God’s grace.  What kind of a Christian can do that, and still call themselves one?

That’s the whole point of what God did through Jesus.

But, wait a minute.  Who exactly gets hurt?  We’ve heard about the girls, and the exploited women, and the slave industry.  What about us?

The religious left denies the suffering of the women.  Or, if it accepts it, it denies the connection between their suffering and our sexual sins.  It calls sex slavery a crime, a human rights issue, an atrocity, but it feverishly denies the link between it and the 12-year-old finding his father’s porn stash in the closet.  They talk about the slippery slope that doesn’t exist with regard to censorship, but they deny the true and real slippery slope between innocence tarnished by porn and adult men victimizing women.  Not every boy who gets exposed at an early age slips down the same slope, and not every sex criminal necessarily started that early.  It doesn’t mean there’s no link.  Again, people love to use contradictory exceptions to refute and deny blatantly obvious generalizations.

God uses generalizations all the time.  Proverbs is an entire book full of them.  Almost every proverb can be contradicted by exceptions of people who haven’t experienced either the positive or negative outcomes promised there based upon moral or immoral conduct.  I just looked up a random one that says to not associate with a hot-tempered man, or you will become ensnared.  So this means that every single person who associates with angry people gets ensnared as a result?

No. It’s a generalization that is undeniably true, but there are exceptions.  What does it mean to “associate?”  How “angry” does the person have to be?  What constitutes “ensnared?”  See, Proverbs is not written by lawyers, and it cannot be read as such.  In general though, you will be better off if you don’t make your closest friendships with people who become angry and bitter all the time.  That’s what it means.  Prudence.  In general, this is a better way to live, so I’m going to live that way.  That’s prudence.

So who gets hurt by porn?  You do.  The viewer.  It suffocates your self-worth.  It coddles your flesh, and exsanguinates your spirit.  Sucks you dry of any spiritual vitality.  As we’ve already seen in the last chapter, it also ties you down with five debilitating sins of the mind and heart that spread though your soul and infect your whole life, rendering you an impotent Christian, useless to the spread of the Kingdom, and disconnected from God.

That sounds pretty painful to me.  Not the kind of pain the religious left might acknowledge, but only because they’ve re-labeled it as “depression,” and think they can treat it with drugs and counseling.  Yes, some depression may fall into that category, but the enemy is after your heart, and this is one of his most effective ways of squashing its massively untapped potential for greatness.  For non-Christians, all those things happen to them too; they just don’t perceive it.  And, in addition, their spiritual deadness makes it that much harder for them to hear God calling out, offering life and forgiveness.  Porn is just another layer of blindness.

The ‘not as bad’ morality, also known as relativism, says that even if there are some negative social effects from too much porn consumption, it’s still a free country, and there are a lot worse things in the world.  Like war and stuff.

Defeating the Lie
The Bible verse that counters this lie is found in the promises of God.  Many similar verses can be found elsewhere, but this one works well.

Deut 5:33
You shall walk in all the way which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess. (NAS)

God makes a promise here that if we live by the Law, it will be well with us.  In the new covenant available through Jesus, we must live by the Spirit, and the same promise still applies.  Don’t make the mistake of many Christians who have been deceived into believing the Old Testament doesn’t apply to us anymore.  Jesus said He came to “fulfill the Law,” not abolish it.  We just have to learn to translate our position before God in the Spirit to the one under the Law that the Old Testament was written for.

We are not under law, Romans says, but under grace.  Under grace, therefore, we are able to keep the Law, even the one revealed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.  And when we live by the power of His grace, it will be well with us.  This means internally, in our spirits, where wellness matters most.  And externally too, to a degree.

God makes us new when we come to Him, and He keeps us that way when we stay.  All this is to say that, when we walk away, when we set aside the grace of God, when we live for ourselves, then the opposite of this promise becomes our reality–it will not be well with us.  We will not possess the land, and will not be able to prolong our days in it.  And the Israelites, as we just saw, experienced exactly this.  They walked away from God, did not trust Him with in their hearts, words, or deeds, and it did not go well with them.  They never received God’s blessings, and did not possess their destiny.

Read Deuteronomy 28 for an incredible set of promises–blessings and curses–that were conditional on the conduct of Israel.  When ruled by righteousness under King David, the nation saw all the blessings promised.  When ruled by evil, idolatry, greed, and selfishness, they saw all the curses, which culminated in their destruction by Assyria and Babylon.

Porn hurts you in the worst possible way: It robs you of your destiny in Christ.  With a distracted heart, stifled by the thorns, God won’t be able to use you for anything significant.  He’ll find someone else, someone like Esther, who was willing to lay it all on the line for God.