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At Lust: Exposing the Ally of Porn (1st Rough Draft)

By Donald A.F. Manyimo
Excerpt from The Sex Controversy

If there is anything that I have desired to destroy in this section about porn among my fellow
people especially Christians is the guilt trip that has gotten hold of many by the throat. This guilt
has led to shame which eventually takes away the power from a person if that particular
individual starts identifying themselves with a bad persona. It simply means there is no hope for
them to change even if they wanted to which is a very terrible position to be in. First of all its a
generally beneficial human trait to have feelings of guilt for something that you supposed to feel
guilty about. For instance a normal person should feel guilty if they have taken advantage of
someone else and the reasons are obvious. Most of the problems we are currently facing in this
world can be solved overnight if everyone just adopted a heart and mind of compassion. A
person should feel remorse if for instance they murder someone and this is why we label people
without these feelings sociopaths because a person without these feelings of guilt after
committing a clear guilty act is someone to be very scared of. Guilt feelings are responsible for
stopping some people from committing heinous crimes in the first place. There is a study which
was done on ex-cons and they found out that those who had denied their guilt feelings towards
the crime they had committed were more likely to return to jail than those who felt guilty about
the crime they had committed. The findings were published in the journal Psychological Science.
There are many cases where I can easily state the usefulness of guilty feelings as human species
and to our global society. When you do something wrong its a good thing to feel bad about it so
that hopefully you will not repeat that action, this is to protect the individual and those around
him. This is all well and good but what about things which are not as clear to conclude as bad
things like porn? I know that there are people who just see black and white when it comes to
things labelled pornographic material, either it is wrong or it is right nothing in between. Porn
has generally been given a bad name and in many instances for very good reasons but as I have
stated discussing the effects of porn that its rather misinformed to just label all porn bad. Not all
porn is equal e.g. child porn is not on the same immoral plane as porn between two heterosexual
people. Failure to acknowledge this fact is responsible for the rapid confusion that has gripped

the discussion which involves this particular subject. This is the reality that some people are not
willing to accept because they already have their own conclusions about issues concerning porn.
Look around you dear reader and what do you see? Let me tell you what I see, all I see around
me is colour. We live in a world where many things are not as certain as we would want them to
be. The only certain thing in this world is uncertainty. Nothing is certain but as humans we
constantly strive to achieve this. Even some of the crimes which I have stated above like killing
someone can have instances where it would not necessarily be a bad thing. A question which
really needs to be answered is what is wrong with watching people having sex? Most people
really feel guilty about watching sexual imagery and usually its a secret thing that they have
done since they were young. Can we really justify these guilty feelings? Is the shame associated
with watching porn a good thing just as the shame association of raping someone? I want the
reader to suspend any concept that they have about porn just for a while and really look at this
from a perspective of people just having sex, not the strange genres which are supposedly
becoming more popular as time progresses. There are of course confirmed negative
consequences of exposure to porn but from a theological perspective its really not as certain to
conclude this as a sin using scriptures. Something that is bad for you is not necessarily a sin eg
drinking a lot of water is not a sin but it can be really bad for you, a condition known as water
intoxication - there are people who actually died from this! We have established that its a
normal human trait to be sexual and there is nothing wrong with that. So personally I see it rather
not unusual for a human being to be interested in watching a sexual activity between or among
his fellow human beings. Show me a person who doesnt enjoy watching people having sex and I
will show you a liar. Why do you think porn is so common? However its another thing to be
interested and its another to be obsessed with it and I believe one of the biggest culprits making
this obsession possible is the shame that people eventually have. Shame is such a powerful
feeling and it can totally take over a persons life which we all know as addiction which Im
going to discuss later on in this section. Im aware of the argument that the mere act of watching
porn in the first place is a sure pathway to be obsessed about sexual material. But is that really
true? Can we blame coffee because there are people addicted to coffee? Can we blame television
because there are many people turning out to be couch potatoes? Maybe, but it seems just a
convenient way to do such a thing and this takes away the real issue at work here which has
more to do with the person than what needs to be eliminated. What needs to be changed is the

mindset and attitude of how people approach things that we face in a day to day basis. Does it
really make sense to make a protest for coffee makers to stop producing coffee because there are
coffee addicts? Does it make sense to stop producing coffee because there are people being
exploited at coffee plantations? Why not concentrate on the exploitation of the people instead of
the end product. So my goal has been trying to figure out the source of these guilt feelings and
they trace back to most of the guilt feelings that people associate sex with and that is religion,
which has been my song throughout this book. For the most part of this chapter I did not discuss
much about religion and this section we going to discuss and I can easily show that the way we
feel about porn is probably due to the opinions of some people about what some religious text
says about the subject. Im going to do the exercise that I have done in most of the preceding
chapters of looking at what in this case the bible says about pornography or more specifically
what it doesnt say. I hope the reader has adopted some ways of having the ability to do this
independently after reading the preceding chapters as I have shown how to interpret the bible and
understanding the use of the words and looking at the verses in context to the culture of that time
because that is exactly what Im going to do in the next paragraphs you going to read.
Conclusions are left to ones own discretion on what needs to be done on a personal level. The
biggest problem with some antigay activists is that they want to police in how other people
should act and think towards sex which really is not a reasonable goal. Of course having written
this book I already have my conclusions but I ask the reader to gather up their own conclusions
and own them. Some may not believe me but Im not looking for people who agree with me
although I confess its a good feeling but I am urging people to mostly think independently.
Frankly I can never say this enough times.
Unfortunately there is no scientific consensus that watching porn inevitably causes addiction as
this is clearly a slippery slope argument and neither is there adequate research to support my
premise that guilt and shame associated with porn is actually causing a great deal of problems
than solutions to the porn addicts. So my premise is honestly based on my own experience. The
first time when it really became apparent to me of the effects of guilt is when for the first time in
my life I didnt feel guilty after accidentally ending up at a porn site. Well now as I write this I
see that it was almost inevitable for this to happen considering the content I was looking for but
one thing that I didnt feel when I was on that site was shame. It wasnt there at all! If I could
share the feelings that I had at this moment with you then it would make my life way easier to

explain the argument that Im presenting here. I had this sense of power that I never experienced
in my life before pertaining to things that are of sexual nature. Before this whenever I would
come in contact with anything deemed pornographic material I would feel all the negative
feelings you could think of which were mixed with feelings of arousal. As I stated above that the
purpose of feeling guilty is some form of negative motivation and this helps a person not to do
something bad repeatedly. It acts like some form of internal police system and evolutionary folks
also can explain why humans have developed these types of feelings. When it comes to material
like pornography you can do your own research of how many people who have been helped by
these guilty feelings to stop watching it spoiler alert the record is not good for shame here. This
is the usual scenario of someone who watches porn; they watch and feel guilty about doing it
promising themselves not do it again only to go back and then repeat the very same thing and a
vicious circle is created which only promises to be a porn black hole only a few are able to
escape from. Once you repeatedly do something which you believe to be bad, you will inevitably
then conclude you are bad. I strongly believe that the guilty feelings associated with
pornographic are mostly manufactured and they are contributing to the destroying of peoples
lives as they become powerless to fight any negative effects of porn. This power is the one I felt
the day I was on this porn site because I did not have a sense of shamefulness or guilt. The power
that porn once had on me wasnt there anymore. So what did I do when I was on this site? Well I
simply looked for the material that I was looking for specifically and then downloaded it and left
the site. That was it! It took me a couple of minutes for me to realise what had just happened and
this was such a good feeling. Of course there are also other factors which could have contributed
to this sense of power that I had over porn but I can tell you with conviction that the absence of
guilt contributed a great deal. So with that in mind let me address porn addiction.
Porn Addiction
One cant possibly discuss porn without addressing the issue of porn addiction as it has shown to
be so rampant in this current age of high speed internet porn porn addiction has reached
epidemic status. For this section Im not going to look at the scientific explanations of how
people get addicted to porn my target concerns the effects of shame to addiction. The number
of people who are getting addicted to porn is increasing rapidly and the ages of addicts are
alarmingly becoming smaller and smaller. But here is the catch; are these addictions real or

something our society invented just like pornography itself? Is it like drawing the lines on a
crime scene for murder and then looking for a corpse to fill it? Porn addiction is not an official
diagnosis; its not in the DSM-V (the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, known as the bible of psychiatry). There are many avenues that can be
explored in regards to addiction problems and this just so happens to be one of them. Im stating
this because I dont want to give the wrong impression that this is the holy grail of solving
addiction problems it is not! However it could be incorporated in recovery programs. My goal
for this discussion is to try and bring a different perspective of looking at porn in comparison to
the one which is popular. The angle that Im looking at it if you havent realised that yet is shame
and its contribution to addiction and other elements which makes shame resilient. With the way
porn is so accessible and the over sexualisation of the global society a new strategy to help porn
addicts is needed and what Im proposing is not necessarily new but a new way to think about it.
Trying to break free from this addiction is extremely difficult especially with the way its been
currently done. Its more like trying to quit smoking living in a tobacco factory or it's like trying
to quit crack while the pipe's still attached to your body. Everywhere you turn there is sex;
movies, music videos, billboards, advertisements, books, animations. Sex is everywhere! The
way that sex is ubiquitous makes it extremely difficult for those who are trying to overcome porn
addiction. What is the strategy that is so common to help people who are addicted? Avoidance.
Addicts are usually strongly advised to avoid anything that has sexual stimuli until full recovery
and even in some cases people are encouraged to stay away from porn for good altogether. The
advice of avoiding things that are sexual can be found mostly in religious sects and the members
are told to shun anything sexual unless it is in the context of marriage and even in marriage (see
Marriage or Contract) there seems to be certain restrictions depending on which religious group
you are looking at. I hope you see now the problem with this advice because of the nature of the
way porn is so accessible. The intention is good in that it considers the addict to stay away from
sexual triggers but its a really difficult thing to ask someone to avoid something that is so
evidently everywhere. There is a book titled Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual
Temptation One Victory at a Time1 which talks about overcoming porn and sexual addiction and
to be honest it contains good advice for Christian men and I highly recommend it. I like the fact
that the author acknowledges that we are sexual beings which surprisingly enough some act like
this is not a reality. The problem I have with the book is the same problem I have with most of

the advice circulating around about overcoming the porn addiction which focuses more on
avoiding than gaining power towards it. I do acknowledge that there are people who could
benefit from this strategy but I strongly believe that applies to very few of the addicts or even
those who are mildly struggling with it. Of course Im not suggesting that recovering addicts
should consciously look for pornographic material as this is clearly counterproductive move but
they should be taught or rather shown the path to deal with the sexual environment that they have
no control to. You can tell the average man to simply look away if there happens to be an
encounter with sexual material but that is a tall order for someone who is a recovering addict if
most of the places you turn there happens to be the very thing you would be trying to avoid.
Let me try and elaborate what I perceive to be the major causes of addiction and why they are
very important to know them. The causes of addiction vary from person to person and the
personality of someone is very crucial on how they respond to things deemed to be addictive. For
example there are personalities which are more inclined to be addicted to something and there
are personalities which are more resistance to that. This is important to know because it helps
people to limit the amount of judgement towards the so called addicts; some people are just
wired that way due to a lot of various factors. Its one thing to hold someone accountable for their
action its another to place unnecessary judgement on that person. The environment of which a
person grows contributes to the whole aspect of addiction and what the person is necessarily
addicted to. For instance a child who grows up in a family of alcoholics is more likely to turn out
to be an alcoholic than a child who grew up in a family without alcoholics or very few of them. I
can relate this statement to my own family, all my siblings are not alcoholics to the best of my
knowledge and this has influenced a great deal towards how I personally relate to alcohol.
Another interesting thing is that a household which is too strict about certain things or a
household which is too conservative is likely to be faced with the problems which they try to
avoid. You are probably aware of the stereotype of the notorious offspring of church ministers
those stereotypes are sadly true at times. There have been countless examples of the dangers of
repression and there are studies which clearly show the negative effects of repression. News
making rounds about the abuses of catholic priests are so common and I will not touch on that
here but a rather funny example about the effects of repression is that of Russia. Russia is a
country which is totally against and very hostile towards homosexuality but the funny story to
this is that Russia is known to have the largest population of people who watch anal

pornography. The irony of it all, it seems as if the repression of homosexuality in this country
has created an unfortunate obsession to anal sex as a result. That being said in my home country
Zimbabwe homosexuality is totally frowned upon but this is different as the authorities are not so
fixated in controlling the sexual lives of others which I believe is the key difference of
approaching differences concerning views about sexuality. Anyway we going to discuss about
homosexuality in a later chapter but what Im attempting to highlight is that repression also
contributes to how people respond to certain things. The mere act of repression can actually
cause a person to be obsessed with something and this is probably just human nature at play
(refer to The Forbidden Fruit). So if you look closely what I have written above is that the things
like personality, upbringing and environment is responsible for the way human beings relate to
porn. So this is how I believe an addiction of porn is born (I have immensely simplified it to be
readable but you pick the general idea from this assessment): A person is initially introduced to
porn maybe at a very young age, and at this age a negative program from outside influence from
the persons guardians to authorities is already in place about sexuality which makes this person
to develop mixed feelings after this discovery. This only promotes further curiosity as the arousal
element which is caused by the material leads a person to come back to material he feels should
not be watching. A sense of guilt visits the person and they try to avoid it in the future only to be
more curious to come back again. Some people argue that a person just inherently knows what is
right and wrong even pertaining to sexuality and this is deemed to be the elusive consciousness.
But if people realise how early a person adopts the ideas of those that surround them then you
would realise in some cases if not most what we call a conscious is simply voices from your
environment replaying if you encounter situations which involve a particular subject once
addressed before. There are constant messages that this person hears about the pervasion of porn
and this further increase the guilty feelings. But this does not necessarily curb the desire to view
the pornographic material as it is intended to, so there is this back and forth battle between
arousal and guilt. This circle then formulates to shame and the person has taken an identity of an
addicted pervert. And this shame feeds on three elements which were made known by the
brilliant guilt and shame researcher Brene Brown (author of The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of
Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are2) and these three elements are
secrecy, silence and judgement. Consequently the psychology behind this is that generally
speaking if someone believes what they are doing is bad but they cant seem to stop then they

start being secretive of their doings and they inevitably dont talk about their struggles and
this is due to the fear of judgement from others. These conditions are the bedrock of addiction
and the good news about all this is that they can be avoided to help those who struggle with porn.
I have addressed about how people are different as this also translates to how people handle
addiction and this knowledge helps to remove the element of judgement which in turn puts you
in a position of helping others. What I have discovered personally as I have with many things
contained in this book is that you can help a great deal of people by removing the element of
judgement. The thing about human intuition is that people will pick the judgemental aura from a
person even if the person tries to mask it. A person rarely seeks help to where he or she perceives
to face judgement. There are people who have come to me seeking help because they strongly
felt there was no judgement on my part. To be honest with you I am not going to claim I dont
judge because that is not true but I believe I have managed to reduce that habit of judgement so
much especially in situations which could benefit a great deal if that element is absent. So Im
just an ordinary person but I can assure you that I know a lot of secrets of people some of them
are not even friends of mine and I have seen first hand that people can be helped a great deal if
they have a place to talk about their problems. As I said we as human beings have certain
intuitions and can pick up in some cases if someone is judgemental or not. The mere act of
saying Im not going to judge isnt enough as the old adage goes actions speak louder than words
so I encourage people to minimise their level of judgement towards other people. It actually
takes a lot of practise but very possible. This might not be easy for some people but I strongly
believe with all my heart that its a peaceful way to approach life in general and avoids many
problems and more importantly you become the source of help that people are desperately
seeking for. In order to be effectively non-judgemental towards others the first crucial step which
should be taken is to be non-judgmental towards ourselves and it appears as though the way we
project to others is a reflection of how we view ourselves. Keeping that in mind as we move on
to see if the guilt feelings we have are justified and what we should do about them.
Thou Shall Not Lust
People especially those that are religious always want to know if something is right or wrong
because they want to do something normal to avoid judgement from other people. They want to
avoid the feeling of shame. This is why when issues like porn come into the picture questions

like is watching porn a sin is so common in discussing the matter because people want a moral
map to avoid judgement. Human beings generally have this need to fit in and this sometimes
requires a person to be vulnerable towards others. You find these type of questions in many
things concerning sexuality especially from the younger population like is masturbation a sin, is
kissing a sin, how far is too far when dating etc. Its clear the reason why these types of
questions are even asked in the first place is because the youngsters are very curious or simply
want to engage in such activities or already doing it but because of the negative program that
people have been fed throughout their lives, they feel very conflicted between doing something
your body is screaming to do and staying in line with certain precepts that have been laid before
you. Some will simply ignore the messages about what they shouldnt and should do pertaining
to sexuality and do it anyway and we label such as rebels but some will try as much to follow the
precepts that they have known. Other people, who really irritate me to say the least, act as though
they never do such a thing only to do that very thing in private and we all know them as
hypocrites. I have written this before and I will write it again, there is at least one person out
there who vehemently talks bad about porn and later on goes to see that very thing in private.
Why the dissonance? Considering how porn is common you would think by now people would
be discussing it freely but still there are issues that are hiding behind the shadows because people
fear being labelled as perverts. Lets face it a lot of people watch porn but very few would like to
admit this in comparison to those who actually watch it and this is so common to people who
have been raised in a conservative environment. I was one of those people and one day I just told
myself enough is enough and you are reading a result of my decision to address this subject this
very moment. Now let me look at the verses which have been used to condemn pornography and
which have contributed to the way most people in this world feel about it. The following verses
are found in Matthew 5: 27-28 (KJV) which were uttered by none other than Jesus Christ
himself, well supposedly:
27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart.
I have heard the following verses in reference to the prohibition of looking at porn so many times
I have lost count. It became rhetoric so much that I started to believe the supposed premise of

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what the verses mean. These are like the magical proof texts that church ministers and most
religious folks I know use if ever they are confronted with the question is looking at porn sinful.
If you are not very familiar with the bible and sometimes even one is these verses look very
convincing but if you dig deeper like I have done with some of the proof texts used to condemn
other areas of sexuality then they will start to fall apart. Some groups which are anti-porn like to
identify with the statement as not affiliated to any religious group and I understand the positive
move with that however what people feel towards porn have deep roots from religion, no doubts
about that. No matter how true what the negative effects that they present may be, the negative
feelings all started with religion and these ideas are aftermath of that. Im not downplaying the
negative effects of porn but I just want people to simply acknowledge the roots of the stigma
towards porn. Like any proof text its always wise to read the whole chapter where the proof text
comes from to fully grasp the context of the quote. Many Christians know this principle but very
few people practise it and sometimes this principle is simply used to explain away certain
difficult verses found in the bible. For instance there are verses where Paul clearly forbids
women to speak in church (1 Timothy 2:11-12; 1 Cor 14:34) and for Christians reading this who
believe in equality, these two verses tend to be very problematic. So instead of facing the verses
as they are, they hide behind the mantra of context. Frankly speaking no matter how contextual
you may attempt to be towards these verses what is clear is Paul (or the author pretending to be
him?) meant exactly that; women should not speak in churches. Since most Christians believe
that the bible is infallible it is difficult to argue with verses which are clearly unfair to women so
what do people do then. Either they try to explain it away by the context strategy or they accept it
as it is but very rarely do my fellow Christians simply disagree with the message. Personally I
dont agree with the message because I believe there are women out there who have way better
things to say than some men in churches and instead of trying to defend the bible by coming up
with some complex explanation I just accept the inevitable fate here of disagreeing with the
worlds most adored book. If you think Im just being politically correct to say there are many
women who deserve to teach in church you should not forget I just disagreed with the worlds
most worship book. This is hard for many to do even for me because the bible is the Book and
if you disagree with one thing in the bible then its possible to disagree with everything
contained in it, the argument goes. Hey how can you disagree with the message coming from the
infallible Word of God? If you dont agree with it then its definitely you who is in the wrong

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and not understanding, the reasoning goes. Some Christian movements like Calvinist follow this
advice from Paul to the dot and I respect their attempt to be consistent in this area but I know this
is never possible to achieve with the bible in every aspect of life and I can easily show other
areas where our dear Calvinist falls short of the glory of consistency. So Im very aware that the
whole context thing can be misused very much and Im not immune to it but having this
knowledge I try as much to avoid it.
That being said it is still very important to look at verses in context to truly understand the
meaning behind what is being communicated and I will show that for the particular verses in
discussion for this section. The verses come from what has become popularly known as the
Sermon on the Mount where Jesus gives a different or rather original interpretation to the Jewish
laws found in the Torah. What should be known from the onset is that what Jesus was saying in
these verses was nothing new or radical to what was written in the original Torah. He was simply
stating the real meaning of certain concepts which were now being abused by the scribes and
Pharisees and the general public. An example of this is the verses like the one found in the books
of Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Exodus about an eye for an eye (Exodus 21:24; Deuteronomy
19:21; Leviticus 24:20) which was meant as a figurative commandment in reference to the
judicial system meaning that a person should be judged accordingly to the crime committed
which if you think about it actually makes a lot of sense if you steal you should be judged for
stealing not murder. But people were misusing this commandment especially those in authority
to take matters into their own hands which would result in a lot of chaos because if you just
decide that someone is guilty and then choose their own fate without including the judicial
system it can only lead to trouble. He [Jesus] even states that he didnt come to destroy the
written laws but to fulfil them and by that statement I believe he was also saying he didnt come
to change anything regarding the law but to uphold it. So was Jesus saying that fantasizing
having sex with a woman was equivalent to adultery? If that was the case then a huge chunk of
the male population is constantly committing adultery because its almost if not impossible to
always keep your mind away from thinking sexual thoughts when you happen to see someone
you are sexually attracted to. This also just seriously downplays the real act of adultery and there
are serious consequences of doing that. This type of outlook to these verses is known as thought
crime i.e. a crime that is committed in the mind. Its as ridiculous as suggesting that thinking
about murder is the same as committing the actual murder. There are three key words which

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need to be looked at closely in these verses and these are lust (epithumeo), adultery (moicheuo)
and woman (gune). If you have forgotten what these words mean or you havent read them go
back to the very first chapter under the section of How Did We Get Here? to get the hang of what
you about to read but you can still understand on some level if you skip that. So this verse was
written in Greek and the original word used for woman was gune which if you recall could mean
a wife or simply a reference to a female depending with the context. If we look at the context of
this verse this word clearly is referring to a married woman as adultery according to the
scriptures can only be committed between a married woman and a man whether married or not.
So for this commandment we have already eliminated the single woman. Some argue that most
probably the single women will get married in the future so in essence you are still violating
someones future wife by having sexual fantasies about her. I have two words for that argument
Mind Acrobatics. Anyway if thats true the bible seems to have skipped that part because
sleeping with an unmarried virgin was never considered adultery and no man was ever stoned
(the capital punishment found within the Hebrew Bible) for doing that even though he was asked
to marry and refused to; the only judgement that he got was disgrace. So I can tell you with a
clear head that Jesus was not talking about sexual fantasies of single women or even men.
Okay but what about the married women? One thing you have to know about lust as it pertains to
sexuality is that it is a very strong word which shouldnt be taken lightly and I can put it in the
same room with the word obsession. Although we are accustomed to associating lust with
sexuality its not always the case, you can also lust for something that has nothing to do with sex.
Let me illustrate the difference between a fantasy and lusting. When you see lets say your
neighbour driving his latest car and you start fantasizing about driving your own someday, that is
not lust that is simply fantasy no harm there. But when you start to obsess about how you can get
hold of your neighbours car and you even start to plot ways to get it or you will be waiting
anxiously for an opportunity to get it whether it is right or wrong, that is lust 101. See the
difference? A biblical example about lusting to further cement this illustration is that of King
David when he had lusted towards the wife of one of his best soldiers Uriah named Bathsheba.
David saw Bathsheba bathing and started to lust over her, that very moment he had already
sinned, not because he saw a married woman naked but he was so drawn to her that he had made
up his mind he wanted her and he was going to do everything he can to get her. Anything after
that was just aftermath but the moment David lusted it is the moment when the deed was already

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done and that is what I believe Jesus meant that when a man looks with lust to a married woman
he has already committed adultery because in reality there is no going back. If you become
obsessed with something you will not rest until you get it and that my friends is the same with
lust. To show that this was lust, since he was in a position of power he could easily get her to
fulfil his lust which he ultimately ended up doing. And the rest is biblical history. Fantasy can be
part of the lusting process but it is far from being an equivalent. Of course it is a very good thing
not to fantasize about someones spouse but equating that with adultery is complete
misunderstanding of the message Jesus was laying out here. The tenth commandment talks about
not coveting (which in the Hebrew language is exactly the same word with lust) after your
neighbours possessions and this is what it means. This is wrong because you have made up in
your mind that you want what your fellow neighbour has and will go the lengths to get it no
matter what. So Jesus here is basically rehashing the tenth commandment, see nothing new. So
again I can state with a clear mind Jesus was not talking about sexual fantasies and neither was
he addressing pornography as we know it now because it didnt even exist at that time.
I know what Im about to write is something that I have already addressed prior to this section
but its also important to state it again; Im aware there are certain ideas or things which didnt
exist in that era which do now which are clearly bad where its helpful to use biblical principles
but it doesnt really work here. However you cant possibly argue that watching people having
sex is wrong using biblical principles. But with the way most porn is nowadays this is honestly
simply not good for society because it is actually an attack on the real beauty of sex but knowing
that most people just take porn to mean anything sexual, this is the wrong perception Im
actually addressing here. I have indicated also why it is very important to distinguish what type
of porn is being discussed because it brings a lot of confusion if that is ignored. An example
which I have constantly talked about is that of child porn. Honestly I cant say the bible does not
condemn child porn and Jesus never says anything about it so it must be okay that is
ridiculous! This genre clearly violates the principle of love because child porn clearly is an
exploitation of children. So any porn which exploits people is not good and believe it or not, not
every porn material (by that I simply mean imagery of people having sex) exploits people
although a lot of it that is out there is doing exactly that. Some people have realised this shortfall
and have started to make content that involves real people having real sex. Im not talking about
amateur porn here as I have come to realise that most of the so called amateur porn is not really

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done by amateurs, just professionals in porn acting like that. A movement like
makelovenotporn.com is a very good example which represents the true beauty of sex and is
fighting for people to have the real concept of sex. Real world average couples send their own
home videos to sites such as these having sex with no unusual angles and fake mourns or most of
the pity elements that constitute most porn out there. I know for a fact this type of porn if I
should call it that will bore the crap out of many people who have been accustomed to
mainstream porn but I encourage such people to watch these types of videos to reframe their
minds about sex. When you become accustomed to the real thing, you will spot a fake a mile
away. Im not against sexual imagery just as Im not against food but I urge people to stay away
from junk food just as much as I urge them to stay away from mainstream porn because its only
a healthy move for the individual and society at large. Now for my fellow Christians by all
means if you have not been looking at porn please dont start now because I wrote that there are
actually some genres which are not dangerous. I know there are a lot of Christians especially
young men exposed to porn, unfortunately the issue is just not discussed as much but if you dont
watch any sexual material good for you, let it stay like that. This step of watching real people
having sex is a step for those who are already in a deep hole of other extremely dangerous genres
like violent porn. As much as I dont care about the attacks on me personally, I surely dont want
to be the ammunition that some porn advocates use to make people watch porn. It all comes
down to you as an individual. You should have your own cost-benefit analysis and the discretion
is left to you whatever outweighs the other. My whole point was to address the issue about
shame and the problems associated with it and how the bible is misused to make people feel
guilty about porn or anything equivalent.
So I hope the above written material has released someone from the constant guilty feelings that
are associated with porn which are not helping people that are having difficulties in this area. I
didnt start having this sense of power over porn by avoiding it and constantly assessing what I
was watching, I got it through the acquiring of knowledge and adapting a new mindset of what it
is and what is real sex and also through eliminating shame that had taken over my life. Im now
not threatened by porn, a porn pop-up can come, I can accidentally end up at a porn site, I can
walk in on someone watching it and my reaction will be.meh. There is no longer such a thing
as sexual triggers for me. Now Im not saying I have it all figured out and now porn has zero

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powers towards me, I still have my struggles and still learning but I know Im on the right path
and I want you to join me.

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Discussion questions
1. What is the definition of pornography?
2. What are the effects and what are the myths of pornography?
3. Do you know the history of how we came to have pornography?
4. What has made pornography so popular?
5. What do the scriptures say or dont say about pornography? [Discuss any verses which
are used as proof text.]
6. Is it beneficial for individuals to feel guilty about watching porn, if the answer is yes care
to elaborate how?
7. What do you believe is the best way to get over an addiction and what can you do to help
someone who is addicted to porn?
8. How does shame fit in all this, do you have evidence that it is responsible for the porn
addiction?
9. Is there such a thing as watching porn in moderation?
10. Do you believe porn is also an epidemic in the Church, if so why is it not a topic of
discussion in many churches?

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Recommended Readings
1. Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time by
Stephen Arterburn (2009)
2. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and
Embrace Who You Are by Brene Brown (2010)
3. Shame Resilience Theory. In S.P. Robbins, P. Chatterjee & E.R. Canda (Eds.),
Contemporary human behavior theory: A critical perspective for social work (Rev. ed.)
by Brene Brown (2007)
4. Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain by William Struthers
(2009)
5. The Holy Bible