Tag: porn

PornHub Under Scrutiny

What is going on with the industry? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Of all places, even the New York Times has apparently had an article against PornHub. The charge is that the site is infested with rape videos. There looks to be no denial by PornHub that this has happened. Of course, this would be a very tough denial to pull off. Just last year, a missing teenager was found when sexually explicit videos of her showed up on the site.

What do these changes mean? Not much I suspect sadly. A number of things could happen here. Maybe they won’t be held up. Maybe instead people will find work arounds to get such material up there as you can’t go to each person in each video and just ask and even if you could, many could know they have to lie. If it leads to the site shutting down due to competition, then it could very well be because the competition is even worse and doesn’t have any censoring of any kind.

The only cause for rejoicing here is that even in the secular world now, a closer look in the proper way is being given to the porn industry. Unfortunately, even then one wonders how effective it will be. With so many men in the world participating in the industry even if only consumers, getting information against it is going to be difficult.

The danger of people going to other sites also is very real, especially since these sites could allow for rape videos. In the porn industry, what is needed from consumers often is novelty. Something new is needed that hasn’t been seen before and like any drug, when the prior dosage isn’t enough, a new high must be hit.

The real danger is to the women involved. Our culture has reached a point where women really are giving sex more and more to get love. This is one reason I don’t have an account on SnapChat. I know the stories of women sending topless pictures of themselves and I want no part of that. It’s not because of any lack of desire for female beauty on my part, but because I think such is reserved for the marriage covenant.

Also, many women do find themselves in the human trafficking industry. I recommend books like Rebecca Bender’s In Pursuit of Love or Annie Lobert’s Fallen. Their stories of how they fell in in ways that seemed innocent enough at the start and how they managed to escape are gripping.

Josh McDowell has said the porn industry is the greatest foe the church has ever faced. He could very well be right. This is because it is a great depression on our values and our view of men and women and sex and thus, the building block of society, the family. Our young people are the hardest hit with many women who might not even watch porn thinking they have to do more and more to please their men and it usually being assumed that the young man is watching pornography.

I can’t tell the future of what will happen, naturally, but I do encourage Christians to start acting now. Parents are the first stage with learning how to talk to their children about sex and that will be different for boys and girls. The next stage is going to be the churches where pastors actually need to do sermons on porn and make places accessible for men and women affected by the industry in any way to seek recovery. Beyond that it will be contacting your state representatives and asking them to do something about the porn industry.

We can all change matters if we do something.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

You Don’t Have To Live With Porn

Does porn have to be part of your life? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

My friend Sheila Wray Gregoire has a blog post today on emotional immaturity and porn. I am going to be addressing this largely assuming a male user of porn. I realize there are women that struggle with porn use, but I am speaking to men.

Let’s start with some looking at what I think is “natural” for men. Men by and large have a natural drive in them for sex and that is not wrong. Men also like the sight of a beautiful woman and that is also not wrong. I also don’t think it’s wrong that men have a natural curiosity about sex. They grew up with girls throughout their school years and all of a sudden when they get around middle school or so, they start wondering what those girls look like under all those clothes.

Let’s face it. Women are beautiful and God made us to notice beauty. It is not wrong. Now what you do beyond that could be. If you just treat that woman as an object such as all that matters is her body, that could be a problem. Honestly, what starts off a lot of dating relationships is looks, but if your relationship stays there, you’ve got a problem. You should never lose sight of the beauty of your mate, but you need to find more than physical beauty.

Porn is the answer many guys turn to, but it is the wrong answer. They get a distorted view of masculinity, of a woman, and of sex. As I drive around the Atlanta area listening to the radio, I listen to several commercials for ED. When I have watched ScrewAttack’s Death Battle recently, there have been ads for a medicine like Viagra. I seriously doubt senior citizens are watching Death Battle en masse.

Why would this be? I suspect a lot of it is porn. There are a number of guys I’ve heard of who have to have a dirty magazine nearby when making love to their own wives because that’s the only way they can be aroused enough. You don’t want that to be you do you?

In a proper marriage, when the two come together, the union is complete and no outside sources are to come in. One can have friends and family, of course, but for emotional and sexual needs, your spouse is supposed to be the one to complete the circle. Looking outside in porn is saying you are inadequate.

Many wives have this happen to them when their husbands confess to them about using porn. One common question is “Am I not beautiful enough?” She feels like less of a woman. Now ladies, you are fully justified in believing that, but walk a fine line here. You need to be honest with your spouse about how much this hurt you. You need to let it be known that you will not tolerate porn use and this is one rare case where I think it’s justified to withhold sex. On the other hand, if your husband has confessed and is truly repentant, be willing to work with him on this process. By coming to you, he has done the right thing. Don’t leave him regretting it.

Now for guys who are single, I do think there is some emotional immaturity here. Porn is an easy solution to a desire. Looking up a woman who is willing to just take her clothes off like that requires nothing of you. You have no risk. You do not put yourself in danger of being rejected. It’s not like the woman on screen is going to suddenly see you and go “Ewww. No!”

But the thing is, she also doesn’t know you. She doesn’t care about you. While you treat her as just a body, you are also treating yourself as just a body. You are treating yourself as someone who is incapable of getting a real woman so you go and get a fake one instead.

And really, is this a woman you would want? Would you want a woman who just takes her clothes off for anyone who makes a click? Would you want your wife to do that?

While saying that, I want to fully realize some women sadly have no choice, and this is something men need to keep in mind. Some women are trapped there because of human trafficking. This is a very real situation in America. I have some books here on the topic that are autobiographies and they are heartbreaking. These women are often just as much looking for love.

If you’re a single man, tell yourself you’re capable. If you want a real woman, go out there and be a real man and win the heart of a real woman. When you do get to be intimate with your wife then, it will be your real woman sharing her body with you and giving you the fullness of her love because she believes you are worth it. That’s much better than porn!

Like all acting, porn is fake. Get out of it if you are in it and if you are not, stay away from it. It is a real temptation, but you do not have to live with it. There are groups that help with porn. Celebrate Recovery is a great place to go. There are also plenty of programs like Covenant Eyes and XXXChurch that can help you.

And guys, women are a real beauty and treasure. Any time you use pornography, you treat that beauty as common and disposable. Don’t do that. Women deserve better and so do you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Boys and Sex

What do I think of Peggy Orenstein’s book published by Harper? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’m convinced that today, there is a war on boys. Much of our society is geared towards the feminine and traits considered manly are often looked down on. Consider something as simple even as how schools are run. Girls often have a much easier time sitting at desks for prolonged times. Boys tend to need to be more active.

We have terms like Toxic Masculinity going around and then there is the MeToo movement, which I suspect had noble aspirations, but quickly became a way to get any man in trouble. Men are also put in a dangerous position when it comes to female beauty. Compliment a woman on her beauty and you are objectifying her. Say nothing about it and you are ignoring her.

Peggy Orenstein decided to study the topic when it comes to sex and boys and her boys she interviewed were mainly high school and college age. A lot of what she saw dealt with the hook-up culture and pornography. How do guys view this and how does that differ from girls?

This is also written from a secular perspective so much I will not agree with upfront such as not being favorable towards abstinence only positions and support for the LGBTQ community. Despite that, this book is quite insightful. Any parent should read it, even if you don’t have boys but have daughters instead, so you can know what is coming.

It also highlights for me that this is an area we are deeply lacking in. Most people today hardly ever think about sex. Yes. I seriously said that. They don’t. But don’t I watch TV or listen to the news or listen to music today? How am I missing it?

Easy. We talk about it. We dream about it and fantasize about it and watch it and just plain do it, but we don’t think about it. Most of us don’t have a place in our worldview for sex. It’s just a recreational thing that we do together.

So it is that boys and girls think very differently about sex. Porn was one of the first topics covered for boys. It is extremely rare to find a man like me who never struggled with that. The result? Our boys grow up with a twisted view of sex. They think they have to perform a certain way and can often have sexual problems as a result. They can also think all girls really want it and when they say no, they don’t really mean that. They just want the boys to push harder.

Some boys had even gone so far as to get a flip phone to be able to avoid porn. Pornography is controlling so much of the thinking in society about sex today. It’s no wonder there’s so much chaos in this topic and young boys need to be prepared for this. Of course, I’m listening to this and wondering “Why not realize that the boys aren’t the problem, but the porn is?”

Boys also worry about experience like I said. They can get nervous when with a girl for the first time and they think it’s going to happen. What if the girl has more experience and the guy is unprepared? What if he makes a mistake? (News flash guys. You likely will with your first time.) Some guys are either hesitant to perform or can’t.

There is another problem behind this. Guys are trained to not talk about feelings or emotions or express them. For me, I think of a guy like Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII who shows no emotion even when tragedy strikes repeatedly. Men who show emotion or weakness are told to man up. Most men don’t go to their guy friends to talk about problems because that’s not something guys do. (Again, thankful I have guys I can talk to about problems.)

There’s also a section on how guys can also be victimized. Yes. At parties where guys get drunk, they can be victimized by girls and many of them don’t like it, but how are you going to speak out? Your guy friends will say something like, “Dude. You got laid anyway. Why complain?” They do complain because believe it or not, many guys want sex to be special.

Also, a guy can’t help it if his body responds to sexual stimuli just like a girl can’t help it if hers does. A girl can have reactions to sexual stimuli even in rape. That doesn’t mean she likes it or wants it. A man does not need to be shamed for his body functioning. As someone told me recently, “If you’re a man on the beach and a pretty girl goes in front of you in a bikini and you don’t notice, it doesn’t mean you’re more spiritual. It means you’re dead.”

However, guys too often are doing the assaulting. They are too often of the mindset that the women really want it when they don’t. Of course, a lot of this talk about the necessity of consent could be greatly lowered if we would just encourage people to wait until marriage, but for some reason that’s unrealistic. Guys can cause great damage to girls without realizing it or intending it.

One great takeaway from the book also is contrary to what you think, guys want older men, including their Dads, to talk to them about sex. They also want a real conversation. They don’t want a quick five minute event and that’s it. There should be regular ongoing communication.

What I would like to see more in future works is what sex means really to guys. As a married man, I know what it means to me. It is more than just a recreational activity and more even than just having children. Guys need to understand this. Of course, girls do as well, but this book is about the boys.

I said at the start that while the book is secular, I think parents should read this, including Christian parents. Girls even should read this to learn about what you’re going to be experiencing. Christian parents especially need to read about the hook-up culture and the damage that it is doing to our children.

Dare I say it, but churches need to be talking about this too. Youth groups especially should be preparing our young adults for adult life and marriage if they choose to go that route. By all means teach abstinence, but teach why we do that instead of just the don’ts. Give youth a whole worldview of sex so that when they’re with their significant other on a couch, they have more than just a few verses in Paul to keep them from getting their game on.

Bottom line. Read this book and learn from it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Passion Principles

What do I think of Shannon Ethridge’s book published by Thomas Nelson? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Usually when I find any book on marriage on Kindle for sale, I try to get it immediately. This one was no exception. Ethridge’s book is geared more towards women, but men who read it will find it very helpful as well.

Ethridge wants women to have the freedom to enjoy sex in marriage. At the start, a lot of stories are told about women who struggle with this and then stories are told about women who have found freedom. It is not the case that sex is made just for the man. Women are meant to take joy in physical union with their husbands.

Of course, it starts with God. Ethridge lays down the theology first saying sex was all God’s idea. He created it and made it the way it is for married couples and to show how He relates to His people. She looks at the Old Testament first focusing on the Song of Songs and Hosea.

From there, we go to the New Testament. Here we look at what Jesus has to say about sex and how sex relates to spirituality. She also asks the question about if sex will be in Heaven. There is no chapter explicitly on Paul which I would have liked, but that doesn’t mean he’s not covered at all.

Many chapters from there start to have a shift as much more is not so much about the physicality of sex as it is the emotional, mental, and spiritual side. It is still something worthwhile to be covered as Ethridge places more of the therapist hat on, including dealing with people who have a sexual past and people who have affairs either physical or emotional on their spouses. There is also material on overcoming pornography and why Christians should not use pornography.

Towards the end, we get back more into the physical side with questions about the bodies of the persons involved. What can you do or not do in the bedroom? What about oral sex or sex toys? What about when you have children?

This is a good book for women to read and I urge them to do so, although men will get something out of it as well. Your marriage is meant to be a place of joy and as is your marriage bed. If you want good advice to get there, this book is a great place to start.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Jesus Is Better Than Porn

What do I think of Hugh Houston’s book published by Jesus is Best? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

From the moment a guy hits puberty, one of the thoughts that goes through his head is the wonder about what certain women look like underneath all those clothes. A guy can see the girl and think that there’s only a thin barrier keeping him from viewing paradise and that barrier is clothing. A guy desires to see that beauty.

This is not an evil desire in itself. Women were made beautiful and God knew what He was doing. As a married man, I am always happy whenever my wife trusts me with all of her beauty. There is nothing like it in all this world.

Well, there could be something out of this world that’s even better, and that’s Jesus. Hugh Houston thinks so and does so as a man who wrestled with pornography usage for decades. He started as a young boy and it continued even into his marriage.

One of the hardest moments was having to tell his wife the truth. I am not going to begin to understand what this is like for a woman. It is a form of cheating and it leaves the person thinking “Am I not enough for you?”

Houston then describes his life of escaping from porn and the lies that pornography told him. He describes being in recovery groups and what men and women go through. He also says that porn cannot deliver on its promises and does so with Scripture, reason, and other Christian writers.

There is great advice here on overcoming addiction and it would help someone with any addiction, not just porn. Houston writes in a personal style practically begging the reader to not get involved in the addiction. He also has several helpful resources to help a person on the path to escaping addiction.

He also does stress the pain that it causes the other person if you are married. This is important since there are even some pastors who have told couples having sexual problems to try watching pornography together. It might work some in the short-term, but in the long-term, it will do more harm.

As I have said, when I drive around the Atlanta area here, I hear many ads for men struggling with ED. I am convinced one of the main reasons for this is porn. Men have been so aroused by fake women over and over that they find it hard to be aroused by a real one right in front of them.

The book is also a short read and it would be great for people struggling with porn, or who have spouses who struggle, to read together. Each chapter ends with questions at the end for discussion. If you are struggling with porn or know someone who is, this is a great place to go to.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why Not Use Porn?

Does porn disgrace a human being? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently, I was on a Facebook thread where someone had been talking about changing their VPN to show being in Italy where apparently, PornHub is giving a free gift to people under quarantine. I jumped in some and was dialoguing and all was going well and seemed to quite down. Later, I saw the thread again and realized Facebook hadn’t notified me that people had replied to me, a problem I seem to be having with Facebook lately. I didn’t want to jump into what looked like a dumpster fire then, so I figured I would now.

I write this from the perspective of a man. I realize that women can struggle with pornography as well. My wife has overcome that addiction so I defer women to talk to her who want some help.

For one thing, porn requires nothing of you. Nothing. In the past, you would have to at least brave up to go to the magazine rack or ask about that one room at the video store. Not so anymore. Hypothetically, if I wanted to, I could access porn from anywhere in the world. I could watch it in the check-out line at the grocery store. No more do little boys have to hide under bedsheets at night with a flashlight. Now they can hide with their iPhones.

Traditionally, if a man wanted a woman, he would have to risk himself and ask her out and be prepared for rejection. Then he would have to go to the time and effort of wooing her and loving her. The hope in all of this is that physical attraction would become long and lasting love.

In the past, most marriages were arranged. You would literally go to bed with a total stranger on the wedding night. My thinking is that sexual behavior was meant to build the bonds of love and make the man realize that if he wanted the woman, he needed to treat her well. Repeated behavior leads to real love in that case. Sadly, too many men decided to shortcut the process and not stay faithful to their wives just to get what they wanted.

Moving on, I find it interesting that those of us with a more conservative position are actually the ones that seem to treat sex more seriously. Someone can sleep around with several people and say “It’s just sex.” I find it difficult to picture someone who believes in covenant monogamy really saying something like that. “Oh yeah. Doing that sex thing together. No big deal.”

Sexual activity is something different. If I were regularly playing something like Mario Kart with a female other than family, my wife could get concerned, but that would not constitute cheating. If that became a heavily emotional relationship and then a physical one, we would be cheating, but the activity itself does not necessitate that. Somehow, when sex enters the picture, a boundary has been crossed.

A more polyamorous lifestyle might try to say that it is just sex, but what if it isn’t? What if we are bumping against reality? What if it could be that sexual behavior actually means something? What if sex really is reserved for a covenant relationship? Could we be desensitizing ourselves to that?

This is also because what you do with your body means something. I am normally a non-social person so I don’t talk much if I don’t have to. Suppose you see me out across the street somewhere and say hi and I wave back. Okay. All is well. Now suppose in a different universe I just scowl at you or I even give you the finger. You go home that night wondering if you offended me some time or if I’m just having a bad day. You don’t treat those actions as if they’re identical.

Sometimes, non-Christians get amazed that it looks like God cares so much what we do with our genitals. Of course, He does. God cares what we do with our whole body. Much of society cares as well. After all, rape is something illegal and that is very much involving one’s genitals.

If our bodily actions mean something, then what we are telling people sexually is how much honor we give them. Give that honor to just anyone and it doesn’t really become an honor. A woman taking off her clothes for a man is telling him what position he holds in her life. Also ladies, if you are married to a good man, he will never tire of your body and he will love it no matter what happens to it.

One analogy has been made has been to picture dating as a marketplace. Each woman tells what she is worth by how long she withholds sexual intimacy. Is she worth dinner and a movie? A week? A month? A year? Engagement? Or is she worth a lifelong commitment?

We’re not even talking about some other moral implications yet, but they’re worth getting into, such as PornHub’s recent trouble in being connected with sex trafficking. Watch porn and you could be enabling that. You are taking someone’s daughter there and treating her as just an object of your own enjoyment instead of a person in her own right.

Furthermore, I think guys who watch porn are just making it harder for them to get real women. After all, you can tell yourself you will never get a real one, so you might as well watch porn. That’s the only way you’ll see a naked female body in your life. Right?

If you do get married, you want things to be special anyway. When a man takes off his wife’s lingerie for the first time, he shouldn’t be immediately comparing her to countless other women he has seen in pornography. He should be able to enjoy her for her alone. I suspect this is also why so many commercials I hear are about ED and problems like that. Men have been being aroused by fake women and needing more and more for so long that fake women can’t do it anymore.

Pornography is addictive behavior. It will do you no favors and this implies even if married couples think it will spice things up for them to watch together. There might be short-term benefits perhaps, but in the long run, the costs will be greater. It’s just not worth it.

Not only that, but once you as a man have a woman to complete the unit, why would you need more? It’s basically saying your wife is inadequate to meet your needs. Sexual rejection is always painful and one of the worst ways of it is saying either implicitly or explicitly, you don’t meet my needs.

If you are struggling with porn, get some help. Go to a group like Celebrate Recovery. Get a filter on your computer and devices from programs like XXXChurch. You can beat this and it will be worth it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Some Thoughts On PornHub and Sex Trafficking

How should we view women today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A news story is out about the FBI looking into groups like PornHub for sex trafficking. For those of us who know something about the porn industry, that sex trafficking is involved is not news to us. It’s not to say that all women in the industry are victims of sex trafficking, but I have no doubt that some are.

So let’s talk a bit about porn and why it should be shut down.

Now in the past, if you wanted to look at pornography, you had to go somewhere secret and be discrete. You had to go to the magazine stand or to the video store and there was a chance you could be caught. Unfortunately, with the good of the internet came the evil of porn and then rule 34. That states that if it exists, there is porn of it on the internet. No matter how innocent you think something is, there is porn of it out there somewhere.

As I drive around Atlanta, I listen to talk radio. Everyday practically, I will hear a commercial about erectile dysfunction. It’s constant. Why is this? I always tell my wife the same thing. I suspect it happens so much because so many men have watched porn for so long that they can’t easily be aroused by a real woman. They only go with a fake one.

This is not to say that all causes of erectile dysfunction are due to pornography. Saying women in porn videos are fake is not to say they are not real people. It is to say that what is presented is a false idea of what women and sex are meant to be.

As a man in charge of a group for guys on Facebook who are Christian and married, engaged, dating, or hoping to date and marry, when I meet a man about to marry, I ask him if he would like to talk about what to expect. This is something every guy (And every girl) needs if they haven’t had sex before their wedding night. One thing I always tell them is to think back to what you have seen on TV and movies. Think back to all the sex you have experienced on there. Now throw it out because none of it is realistic at all.

In the movies and I am sure in porn, everything works flawlessly. There are no mistakes. There are no accidents. No one has to put down a towel. No one gives a touch that is not liked. The woman and the man have perfect ecstasy together and they both orgasm at exactly the same point and everything is wonderful.

Sorry. Real sex will involve trial and error for some time and you will always be learning.

So men get a false idea of what sex is.

Not only that, it leads to a consumer mentality of women. Women are objects just to be wanted for their bodies. The purpose of a woman is to parade before a man in all her naked self and let him glorify himself in her. On porn, the woman on the other end is irrelevant. You don’t have to know her name or care about her or do anything for her whatsoever. She is your servant entirely.

Now I am not at all knocking the idea that a woman is beautiful. I saved myself for marriage and when I see my wife’s body in all her glory I am utterly amazed and mesmerized. After nearly ten years of marriage, Allie is still the woman out there that totally turns my head. She is my great gift and I will jump at any chance I can to see her body.

That’s the way God made it too.

You see, the beauty then inspires me. If I want to have the joy of Allie’s body, I need to treat her right. I need to love her. I need to honor her. Now even if I don’t feel those things at the start hypothetically, which I think happens in arranged marriages, by doing those actions over and over, I come to love and honor her because it becomes habitual and habits change your thinking. For me, loving Allie is really second nature now.

I don’t go and say “I can’t see Allie’s body now for reason XYZ” and jump on to porn instead. That treats her body like a consumable good. I can say that when I see her body, I do see her physical form and I am amazed, but the beauty I see goes beyond the physical. It is not just her body in a transcendent way. It is as if I am seeing her. I am seeing not just her form, but I am seeing vulnerability and trust. I am seeing her. How she is to be with me and me with her is how we are to be before God.

Pornography will teach you that the purpose of the woman is to serve you. If you are married though, your purpose is to serve your spouse. Women are to seek to please their husbands, as so many husbands like to say, but husbands are to seek to please their wives. It doesn’t just mean doing something on Valentine’s Day or anniversary or birthdays or special events like that. It means doing something every day that you can. Believe it or not guys, it wouldn’t kill you to get out the vacuum cleaner every now and then.

Pornography cheapens the people in your life and will make it harder for you to love. In sexuality, it’s important to know what pleases you or else your spouse won’t know how to bring you the happiness they should want to bring you, but your main goal should be to please your spouse. Many a guy will say that despite the idea that sex is all they want, they are not really pleased with sex if they do not think they have pleased their wives. That is their real goal.

Now I realize that women also struggle with porn. This is not to diminish that, but as a man, it is easier to write to the men. The women can find their own parallels, but if you struggle with porn, please get help. Get an accountability partner. Get some software on your computer and other devices that can hold you accountable. Join a group like Celebrate Recovery and get some help. This will not be an easy battle, but it is worth it.

Remember on those videos also, that girl on there is someone’s daughter as well. She deserves to be treated respectfully and with dignity. Women, for you, please never lower yourself ever to win the heart of a guy. If you have to lower yourself, he is not worth it. You are worth more than that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Wired For Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks The Male Brain

What do I think of William Struthers’s book published by IVP? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Women are beautiful. Seriously. If the only evidence I had for the existence of God was my wife’s beauty, I would say the case is closed. I honestly can understand why some men get obsessed with pornography. We want to see beautiful women and they are such a mystery to us.

Pornography seems like an easy fix then. You get to see women and you get to experience their beauty. You don’t really harm anyone either. Right? What’s the harm.

Struthers writes that there is a great deal of harm. I want to stress at the start that I know pornography is becoming more of a problem for women as well and Struthers would not deny that I’m sure, but his main focus is writing about men. Men are often the ones who are much more the pursuers when it comes to sexual love and men don’t tie sex to emotions as much as women tend to. Men and women on average tend to treat sex very differently.

Struthers writes from a biblical perspective, but also from a psychological perspective. He writes about how men view sex and how pornography is degrading to them as men and degrading to the women. Pornography doesn’t enhance the joy of sexual pleasure. Instead, it winds up diminishing it. This book is ten years old and I think even more now it’s diminished than it was before. Today, there are men who are in their 20’s on viagra because they can’t get an erection watching real women because they’ve been watching women in porn for so long.

Struthers writes about the psychological and chemical effects that pornography has on the brain. He talks about how it is that a man experiences sexuality and how women should be aware of that. He writes about how many men experience shame with pornography and how it affects them. Sadly, there are too few men today who do not have any experience with pornography.

He also helps build up a worldview of sex and how it should properly be exercised in a marriage covenant between a man and a woman. This doesn’t mean that single people don’t have to have a proper worldview of sex. A single person has ways of bringing glory to God in their celibacy that a married person doesn’t. A married person has ways of bringing glory to God in their marriage and sexual intimacy that a single person doesn’t.

Also is the need for good masculinity. Today, we hear a lot about toxic masculinity. For many sadly, masculinity is measured by how good a man does in the bedroom. Naturally, a man wants to do good in the bedroom, but his masculinity is measured by far more than that. The measure of a man is really how much he can love, and when it comes to marriage, that will include showing love in the bedroom, but it also includes showing love everywhere else.

Also, men do need intimacy and by that is not just meant sex. There is a myth among women that all a man wants is sexual release when it comes to the act of marriage, which is just wrong. A man really wants to feel close and connected and loved by his wife and sexual intimacy is one of the loudest ways that a man gets the message that he is loved and accepted like that.

Finally, there’s a section on rewiring and restoring. There is hope and redemption for those whose lives have been damaged by pornography. Repentance and forgiveness is available to all who have stumbled.

I really encourage you to get this book and do something to address the problem of pornography. To sit alone looking at a computer screen to get aroused doesn’t require you to be a man. It just requires you to have a male body and a working computer with an internet connection. To go out and be a husband and maybe eventually a father as well, that requires you to be a real man. To have the desires for women but not feed them by viewing porn also requires you to be a real man. Go that route.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: We Too

What do I think of Mary DeMuth’s book published by Harvest House? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A few years ago, the #MeToo movement started. It really gained a lot of momentum when the Kavanaugh hearings were going on and sadly, that’s when I think it also lost a lot of it. Many people started viewing the claims with suspicion. There are also concerns now that a guy and a girl can hook up somewhere and later on she can cry rape.

Despite this, no one would deny that sexual abuse is a problem today and it is sadly a problem in the church as well. This isn’t just the Catholic Church I’m talking about. It’s in other churches as well, including the Protestant ones, and our atheist friends are more than happy to point out when a pastor falls into sexual sin. Not only pastors, but many men in the pews are involved in this kind of thing. Even if a man is not actively using a woman in front of him, many men struggle with porn and women become objects.

Mary DeMuth writes from the position of a sexual abuse overcomer. I say overcomer instead of survivor because I prefer that term. Survivor refers to someone who lived through it. That’s great, but it’s even better when you pick up the pieces of your life and work on healing and overcome it so you can function still. The experience will always be with you, but God is a powerful healer.

DeMuth’s message is a simple one. I could sum it up this way. Listen. Really. Just listen. Too many times victims are not heard because the accused perpetrator is such a good man supposedly. When court hearings take place, the victim often stands alone while the church comes and sits on the side of the accused.

I was also pleased to see her reference the activity going on around Paige Patterson recently. That’s a topic I did some coverage on and what happened to him is a testament to how much more seriously we’re taking this now. The sad reality though is that women still often don’t think they can safely talk about what happened at church services.

By the way, that’s one criticism I do have of the book. DeMuth does state how much this happens to women. Something that is left out is that while it is rarer, men are abused too. I would have liked to have seen it pointed out that all abuse is wrong including that which happens to the male of the species. Men might be even less likely to report sexual abuse to them since that male pride kicks in.

I also do think it’s important that we teach women still some tips on safety. I know the victim isn’t to blame, but in this day and age, women need to be careful. If you’re a woman and your male boss invites you up for a meeting in his hotel room one night, I wouldn’t take it. We all know of stories about the casting couch at various places.

We men need to be protectors as well. A woman can feel much safer I suspect if she has a father, a husband, a brother, an uncle, a cousin, or some man who is willing to be there for her and let her know she’s not to be abused this way. We could all do our part to help fight the pornography institution and its constant objectifying of men and women both.

Sexual abuse is a shame when it happens anywhere, but especially so when it happens in what’s supposed to be the body of Christ. We who represent the one who honored women the most ought to be a place where any woman can come and feel safe. We also need to provide counseling and support to these women who have been through such abuse. Hopefully, a book like this will help us all be more aware.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Evil Of Sex Trafficking

What harm can visiting that porn site do? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last night, my wife and I watched an Indian movie with subtitles called Shivaay about a man going against the sex trafficking industry. It was fictional, but something made along the lines of Taken. Pretty much, you have a one-man wrecking crew going against a sex trafficking industry when his daughter gets kidnapped.

Most of us I hope would never ever want to participate in sex trafficking. While young boys can be the victims, more often than not, I suspect it’s females. After all, sex sells and usually men are in the market to buy. In these cases, young women are ripped away from their safe environments, even here in America, and find themselves in an industry where they are only valued for their bodies.

One such business they can be in is the porn business.

Now I am not saying that everyone who works in the porn industry, even the “performers” are there because they were kidnapped in the sex trafficking industry. However, we don’t know on the outside who was and wasn’t brought into it that way. Statements can be made, but we all know businesses can lie as well.

Readers know I have enough problems with the porn industry as I think it takes something good and beautiful and holy like sex and cheapens it. Many of us married men do indeed value the sex we have with our wives, but we value them for much more than that. If you are a man or a woman one day planning to marry, I recommend you obliterate any porn from your life now. Heck. Even if you’re not planning to, I recommend you do it, because the use of porn will make it easier for you to think of men and women as sex objects only or at least primarily.

When that woman is before that camera, that is someone’s daughter up there. Always remember that. That is a person who is beautiful and special in her own right regardless of what she does or doesn’t do with her body. She is also not just a body. She is a person created in the image of God.

As said at the start, most of us won’t get involved in the sex trafficking industry, but some do or else it wouldn’t be going on today. Many more do get involved in the porn industry. That could be unknowingly leading to the support of the sex trafficking industry. I hope that most who are viewing porn would at least oppose sex trafficking and be willing to give it up at least for that reason.

Please also watch the young people around you. If you suspect someone you know is caught in the industry, get some help from some professionals out there. Every life is precious and no one deserves to be used this way.

In Christ,
Nick Peters