Pornography's Sales Pitch (Part One)

I once heard someone claim that he knew someone "as well as he knew himself." I get what he was saying, but, for me, that seems like a poor benchmark. There are times where I feel like I don't really understand myself. For example, I teach for a living. I'm daily in front of dozens of people who have their entire attention on me. I TRY to keep their attention. Yet on the other hand, there are times when I am intimidated by calling someone I don't know or ordering at a drive-through. That doesn't make much sense to me (though me acting irrationally is basically the story of this blog).

I've overcome a lot of shy tendencies, but in hindsight I realize pornography and my shyness have a complicated connection. Why would a shy, anxious teenager do something that was so opposed to everything taught by family, society, and religion? People warned me, in words almost as clear and powerful as warnings not to jump off a cliff, not to go anywhere near pornography. I would never jump off a cliff, so why did I jump headlong into a pornography addiction? In recovery I've come to see a relatively unprotected part of my defenses that satan could attack. Or, to switch analogies from city walls to marketing, he understood exactly how to hawk his goods in a way that was almost irresistible to an insecure, prideful kid.

Here's the sales pitch: this product will give you full control over when and how you feel socially fulfilled, and there's complete safety from the emotional pain caused in human-to-human relationships--and the best part is it's free.

Sounds pretty good, right?

The Lie of Complete Control

Everyone hungers for satisfying social connections. But, especially to an awkward teenager, the goal of feeling respected, appreciated, and liked seems a long way off. Some of us by nature obsess about what people think about us--did I say something stupid? Am I wearing something ugly? Did I do that wrong? When the answer to any of those questions is yes, we jump to label ourselves: "I'm not good enough," "I must be stupid," etc. We feel like there must be something wrong with us.

Luckily, satan has a surefire solution. He says, "why rely on others? Other people aren't in the right place at the right time. They don't understand you. You can satisfy your own needs!" Whenever we feel inadequate, emotionally disconnected, or sexually unfulfilled, satan would have us believe that we can turn to pornography and it will solve our problems. Put another way, there's a story of the priest who asks the teenager if he has a problem with pornography and masturbation, to which the teen replies, "Nope, no problem--it works every time." Satan wants us to believe it works every time. It seems like the perfect, most convenient solution.

The only problem is that it's a lie. At first it seems like your problems disappear whenever you want them to. Eventually you realize porn only provides an emotional smokescreen to cover up the problems. All the while, satan keeps you believing you're in control: first he alternates between telling you that you have stopped (when you've recommitted to being good after acting out), or that you could stop whenever you wanted (when you're about to act out). After a while it becomes clear that neither of those are true, but by then you're hooked. Pornography cannot be controlled and used--it is the one that does the controlling and using.

This sense of false control is like some remote control cars and a race track my wife and I got for our kids a few years ago. We discovered that the remote control cars they got for Christmas fit perfectly on a two-car, figure-eight race track we already had. What could go wrong? It sounds like complete control--a track to keep the cars in and simpler controls (since they only had to worry about forward or backwards). The only problem was that both remotes were tuned to the same frequency. So at first it just seemed like both kids just held the buttons down all the time, doing non-stop figure eights. It took us a while to realize, but eventually it became clear that even if someone let their button go, their car wouldn't stop. The safety and control of the race track came at the cost of freedom to go wherever they wanted, and it turned out they couldn't control when they stopped after all.

Satan wants us to believe pornography solves our insecurities...or at the very least meets the same needs in an easier, more convenient way. Years after we buy this product, though, we realize our self-esteem is crumbling faster because of the addiction, our relationships are hollowed by our secrecy and shame, and our desperate attempts to "let go of the button" and stop our car only lead to it going faster and faster on an endless track to nowhere.

Part two, including "the lie of absolute safety" and "the lie of no cost," coming up.