it's not the pornography that's the problem

the problem with pornography is not the pornography

One of the more important lessons for us to learn is that while the occasions for sin are external and 'out there', the real problem is with our lusts within. 

We must come to rethink the relationship between masculinity and being seduced. John Milton uses a striking phrase in Paradise Lost, referring to those men who were seduced by the 'daughters of men.' When shown the future seduction of these men, these descendents of his, Adam attempts to blame the women involved -'Man's woe holds on the same, from Woman to begin.' The angel replies to the contrary: ' From Man's effeminate slackness it begins.' 

At the heart of masculinity is the possession of authority and taking of initiative; by creation design a man is intended by God to be a head, a head willing to sacrifice himself. But part of our word seduction comes from the Latin word duco, which means 'I lead'. 

When a man is seduced he is being led, when a woman seduces she is leading. So when a man is seduced (whether by a living woman or a pornographic woman is immaterial) he is relinquishing and abdicating his assigned role. 

p21-22 Fidelity: What It Means to Be a One-Woman Man

The google book can be viewed here

Don't put it off

for better or worse

Some Respectives on Marriage Troubles

Depths to love

..romance has the same function as the curtains of a house - it cannot serve as the concrete poured for the foundation. What establishes the foundation for any godly marriage is covenantal faithfulness to the God who gives us marriage. He gave us the principles, the rules, the laws that govern marriage, and we serve God with a whole heart as we take these things to heart, and then treat our spouse obediently and lawfully with a good will, dependent entirely upon the grace of God in Christ. With the whole heart a man should ask what the Bible requires of him in his treatment of his wife. A wife must ask the same concerning the treatment of her husband. When Christians enter into the covenant of marriage this way, they are blessed with wonderful marriages. Not suprisingly, an obedient man and wife have strong emotional and romantic attachments to one another. But when romance is the foundation, the house does not take very long at all before it starts to crumble.    

p23 Her Hand in Marriage

Response & Responsibility

At the foundation, feminism is the handiwork of two kinds of men - destructive, overbearing men on the one hand and wimps on the other. Because of how God has made the world, men are always responsible for everything that happens in the feminine world - whether they want that responsibility or not. Consequently, feminism is not the work of dissatisfied women; it is the work of ungodly men. (Reforming Marriage p32)

Are your sexpectations right?

Adam: male & female

This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them mankind in the day they were created. (Genesis 5:2)

'In Hebrew, the italicized word translated mankind is Adam. In other words, God created Adam and his wife male and female, He blessed them, and called them Adam. She was, from the beginning, a covenantal partaker in the name of her husband. God does not call her Adam on her own, He calls her Adam with him.' (p15)

'God is the one who called our first parents by the collective name Adam. Now Adam is also a generic term for man or mankind. This shows clearly the biblical practice of including women under such a description. Our English use of the generic man and mankind follows this biblical example exactly. Far from being insulting to women, as feminists want to maintain, it reflects a biblical pattern of thought. The feminist reaction to this, and their rejection of taking a new last name (in order to keep their father's name!), is not just a small bit of modern silliness. It is a fundamental rebellion against God. So when our Susan Miller becomes Mrs. Robert Carter it is not just 'something' we do. It is covenant security.' (p18)

from Reforming Marriage, D Wilson

Independent?

In both passages where she [Eve/Woman] is named [Gen 2:23 & Gen 3:20], it is clearly stated that her two names reveal truth about her. The first reveals her dependence upon man - she was taken out of man. [Gen 2:23] The second reveals man's dependence upon her - every man since is her son. Millenia later, the apostle Paul teaches us that we are continually to remember these two truths in our marriages. Each wife is an Ishshah, and each wife is a Chavvah. Each is Woman, and each is Eve. [1 Cor 11:11-12] (p17, Reforming Marriage, Wilson, D)

exposed

Researchers (at a uni in the US) were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users.

But their project stumbled at the first hurdle when they failed to find a single man who had not been seen it.

“We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” said Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse. “We couldn’t find any."

James Taylor links here to some free resources to consider using as we battle together for purity.

Husbands

Reasons to love your wife:

#1 You are truthfully showing what Christ is like (Eph 5:25)

#2, #3, #4 ....(!!!):

What shall we do today darling?

The Father and the Son are one... They are not one because they have merged, but rather because the distinct Father indwells the Son, and the Son indwells the Father, while remaining fully and completely Themselves. The Spirit indwells the Father and the Son as well; each Person of the Trinity fully indwells the others (without confusion of the Persons). Theologians call this mutual indwelling perichoresis. We have the same kind of thing in marriage. Husbands must say, ‘I am the head of my body, my wife. I am head of the one who fills me.’ The wife must say, ‘ I am the fullness of the one who is my head.’ Anyone who comes away from a careful reading of the apostle Paul’s teaching on marriage with the idea that the husband is ‘the boss’ and the wife is ‘the slave’ is someone not to be trusted with any text.

(Wilson, For a Glory and a Covering, p8)

Strange Glory

[There is a ] slander that says because Christianity teaches that man is head of his home, it permits men to abuse their wives. What the Bible really teaches is very different. According to the Bible, to be the leader means to sacrifice oneself for the other, as Christ sacrificed Himself for the Church. If Christ is the pattern for the husband – and He is – then what the Bible calls for is self-sacrificial love that glorifies the wife. This is not a view that promotes abuse of any kind. [Ralph Smith, Trinity and Reality, p66]

The first chapter of Ephesians therefore helps us to make sense of the fifth chapter.

If you come to the fifth chapter with the wrong assumptions about what is going on, you will be hopelessly overwhelmed by a rigid Marriage Law.

If all that Christ’s coming did was raise the ethical standard to a higher level, then our condidtion is hopeless. But if we have received the grace revealed in the Incarnation – the grace St. Paul prayed that we might have in Ephesians 1:17-18 – what then? If you have the spirit of wisdom and revelation, how will you think of your husband or wife? If the eyes of your understanding are enlightened and you know how the saints are a glorious inheritance for Christ, then you know what a husband and a wife are. And you will not know it until then.

(Wilson, For a Glory and a Covering p9)