

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Part One: What Is Pornography (Really)?

Chapter 1: Who Is John Boychuk

Chapter 2: What You Shouldn't Look At

Chapter 3: But What About Anne?

Chapter 4: Disposable Chapter

Chapter 5: The Bridge

Chapter 6: The Flame
Part Two: What Do I Do?

Chapter 7: The Firepit
Chapter 8: The Fuel

Chapter 9: The Pyrophobic: Skeptic

Chapter 10: Epilogue

Selected Bibliography
Dedication

To all those fearless souls that were brave enough to pick up this book.

Note

Proper names have been changed in order to protect the identity of women and men who were unable to approve their inclusion in this book. The content does not change, but don't expect to find some of these individuals. Real names have only been used where a name is already public record (i.e. national news story, famous author, celebrity, etc) or explicit permission has been sought to include that individuals proper moniker.
Introduction

Here I am, 32 years old. Twenty meters away lies the spot where a young man's cold lifeless body stood precariously close to kindling a 200 person strong race riot. Malaysia, where I live, is not a nation devoid of racial tension. In 1957 the British left Malaysia (then Federation of Malaya) for good. The racial divide between Malay, Chinese, Indian and the blessed but marginalized Orang Asli left as much turmoil as could be expected. Old Britannia beckoned our sovereigns, and at once (in no small part thanks to the British) the Malaysian power vacuum was thoroughly and resolutely closed with ethnic Malay rule.

Now to be under the law of a foreign belief, to be ruled by a people that so thoroughly demark themselves from others, leaves one acutely unresolved dilemma: Will we serve this new power? To be absolutely honest, I prefer to pose the same question in a slightly different form, namely: Who's the boss? Will Malay rule Chinese, Indian, Orang Asli? Will Chinese or Indian achieve the equality they seek? Will Chinese attempts at reformation and politics be met with the same resistance as that of the Malaya Emergency? Finally, who cares?

I care, most Malaysians care, but while you remain outside the country where I have been blessed to sojourn, I do not believe that Malaysian politics is the reason for you picking up this book. To be honest it has little to do with our topic. An analogy could be made regarding the potency of addiction to pornography and the absolute rule of sovereign political bodies. Further analysis might place you and I alongside the Chinese or the Indian. We may see ourselves as a minority destined to rule, persuade and reason with a crowned head - in this analogy: pornography. Maybe we are not one for politics. Maybe we lay such a fundamental claim to our soul, person and spirit that we ignore all political potentates to enjoy our position as the authentic inhabitants of our physical and spiritual landscape. As Orang Asli we were here first and the machinations of politicians is of little concern to us. But again, that is not it.

Now I hate to use Malaysia. The beautiful country that it is, suffers too much from political theories and utterances. Unfortunately, it is where I am, and this volume begins with the story of a young man. Also probably 30ish, the young man lies on the pavement. His body is clad in green. Green shorts, not quite camo. Light green shirt. Sandals, white leather, perhaps white foam. It is hard to tell. The mans face is covered with a cloth, no bigger than a tea towel, that completely hides any hints of his potential identity.

Looking further back you see his near new vehicle. This car was made 10 kilometers down the road at Malaysia's premiere auto plant. It is a sports sedan similar in price and appearance to a brand new Honda Civic or Accord. The driver's side door is missing. Not much else can be seen as far as damage except for the few pieces of his car and the other driver's vehicle; strewn about the accident scene.

Further back still are the young men who pulled the victim from the vehicle. They stand three abreast not paying much attention to their dead friend, but rather staring into the air in a nervous manner. Waiting. For an ambulance that would not have any function here? For a police car that could take any amount of time (it was later found out that at this very moment a police officer was also killed in the same small town, leaving the police somewhat unavailable)?

But the reason that the three men are so nervous is that as we zoom back even further we notice the two to three hundred young Malay men. Some have dismounted their motorbikes and mopeds. Others have pulled their cars over and entered the crowd with their vehicles parked less than 100 meters from the accident. Driving by the scene the young men look more like a crowd after a football match than observers of an accident.

You see, in Malaysia, the death of a Malay can spark retribution riots. Members of the Malay community upon finding the identity of the accidental killer, will proceed to beat to death, or within inches of death, any non-Malay that would take their life. The fear on the three friends' faces now appears in sharper focus. The cost of this accident is not just one young man's life: it could be many.

Police arrive. The crowd is dispersed before the dead young man found company on that asphalt road. The local vendors take pictures and the crowd leaves while the victim is handled in the proper Malay/Muslim fashion. But this ending doesn't really illustrate the damage done. In this small town of 80,000, mostly university students, one is dead. The man under the tea towel shaped cloth was not going home at the end of the night to share macabre photos and tell stories of what almost was. This young man is dead. This young man who could afford a nice car, nice clothes and spend time out and about in our small town is now awaiting burial.

I imagine that whoever he was made no plan in his day for his eventual death. He thought about where he was going. He thought about details of his appearance that would make him stand out. His car had been cleaned and his alloy wheels looked as meticulous as his well kept attire. All that effort. Wasted.

That is really what this book is about. I don't want to write a book about death. But this book is at the end of the day what pornography is about. The book is about what pornography leads to. And finally this book is about a life lived with pornography. In short the book is about waste. Wasting a life.

I can't offer you any help unless you see what pornography really is. When I picked up my first pornographic video, I was probably 11 years old. That is the average age in the western world. At that age I was barely able to make an informed decision about what I just picked up. It appealed to my base faculties. I had little control over my juvenile senses. Now I was caught in a world of observation and sensation.

But years of addiction and now freedom have taught me one thing: you need to know the truth. This book is being put together primarily for my friends. Occasionally I have friends ask for advice because they are trapped in a life of porn. While I applaud their effort to remove their body from the mire that entangles them, it is not very often that the same person is quaking in fear. Don't commit murder, we get that one, it equals prison. Don't steal, OK we get that too, prison. Don't commit adultery? Don't lust after a woman? Are you serious?

The first section of this book exists for one reason: to highlight a clear picture of what pornography is. We already have books about sex that exalt its lofty characteristics (and those books are necessary) but this book seeks to look at the very real underside of sex. But I'm not going to leave you there. One or two people have asked me how I overcame pornography. And I do mean serious pornographic addiction. I know there are answers and as much as God has equipped me by His grace to utilize them, I will share them with you.

Finally, this is a dark journey. My wife doesn't like the fact that I'm writing this book. She protests not because I should not write a book like this or that it does not need to be written, but that the process of thinking about and writing a text like this is quite overwhelming. Pornography and sexual sin is something that is no longer part of my life and it has not been for at least 6 years and another 3 years before that trying. I have no desire to relive those lessons that I've learned. For that reason I may not be the best teacher. Something about having to desperately cling to Jesus Christ because of our state and situation makes a greater trainer that I could.

That said remember what Peter said after listing necessary traits of a Christian: "But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins." I do not want to forget what Christ saved me from. Reading through this book which contains things I don't ever want to experience again, remember that Christ redeemed me from them all and He will do the same for you.

Let's begin.

Part One:

What Is Pornography (Really)?
Chapter One Who Is John Boychuk

John Boychuk was a pervert. A young man consumed with consuming. I wish my story was one of intrigue and subterfuge. I wish that one had looked at John Boychuk and saw the great archetypes: hero, villain, the oracle, the innocent, the caregiver. I must admit, I truly believe every good story is Biblical in nature. Star Wars has the evil villain spent on destroying the galaxy. Luke Skywalker is trained by a sage in all that is good. The primary purpose of his mission and that of his allies is to thwart all that is evil, redeem the antagonist and see the return of right and good against overwhelming odds. But alas, the odds are not really a factor because Luke, Han, Leia and Chewie have right on their side!

Man, if my life was like that it sure would make a good story. But it's wasn't. My story was a more gray affair. Monotone that reaches deep into a soul, stretches it over a page and reveals how utterly devoid of contrast it is. David and Goliath: God versus evil. Bridge on the River Kwai: war versus man versus self. Samson and Delilah: man versus nation versus woman versus grace. Gladiator: man versus injustice versus Rome. But none of that was a description of me. Perhaps I had wished it was. But it wasn't.

The reason this brief introduction to me exists is because it introduces you to a live test subject. Usually if you watch a documentary the opening scenes introduce the filmmaker and their desire to explore their subject matter. It lends some authenticity to the film and it engages our trust. We see their genuine desire to report on this topic and that often remains the hook for the entire film. We keep asking how does this matter to me. For me, to present to you a book of facts and figures, anecdotes and stories, would be a huge mistake. Pornography is about people. It always has been. From the man who drew the murals on the brothels of Pompeii to the woman on the end of a webcam, pornography is ALWAYS about people.

So let's start with one person. The one person I can perhaps write about the most intimately. The failure. The gray shade of a boy. That person who was not to be pitied. The person who chose his fate, again and again. I begin by looking at one who was a wasted soul: me.

Porn was not a way of life for me. Growing up in Western Canada, my upbringing was almost perfect. Suburban house, neighborhood friends, not super popular, not ostracized. Happy. My father owned a small retail and manufacturing business. For almost 8 years it fed our family. Mom was a stay at home wife. She loved us. Most people actually thought we were probably the most well behaved, upstanding, successful family in the neighborhood. By comparison our problems never seemed manifest. No one looked at us and saw any fractures or flaws. And really that is how it looked to all of us, our family of four.

Now growing up in Western Canada is a blessing and a curse. There was little we as kids could ever want. Nintendo, Sega, Cable TV, Personal Computers, Bikes, Pocket Money. But the cancer that infects every young boy from a non-Christian home in Western Canada is purposelessness. No matter how much you had it was never satisfying. So while I have heard stories of people addicted to porn for reasons such as escapism, it was never that way with me - not in the beginning. I can't even remember the first encounter I had with porn. It was so ubiquitous. Our communities young people, really in a way, anticipated it. Just as some young boy is eager for the next baseball season, we were eager to purchase, encounter, experience Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler.

How could you blame any young boy? The world was talking about "it". Growing up in the 80s and 90s gives you a funny perspective on sex. We weren't around in the 70s. We lived in a semi-rural semi-Christian utopia that forbade opening businesses on Sunday, fostered Amish/Mennonite communities and rarely ever saw flesh on a billboard. Remember I am not talking about any self-enforced censure. Western Canada in the late 80s didn't allow sexually provocative advertising as a matter of community standards - not Canadain-Pseduo-Moral-Religious law. The internet did not exist. VHS was just making inroads into communities. I remember purchasing our first VCR while BetaMax and VHS were still battling it out. Personal media just began to exist.

Magazines, that was it. A friend or friend of a friend or a family member would purchase it, some boy would steal it from them and we would all pass it around. Really we didn't know what to make of it. Most of us viewed pornography before we were through puberty or could see and understand its effects. The environment of exposure existed before the biology of our young lives could influence our compulsions.

For me that changed very quickly. A friend's father had porn in his tool shed. As friends it was our duty to distribute our findings (alcohol, tobacco, pornography) as best we could. So, it was distributed, and as I would become a future engineer, I duplicated the video to 8mm at the age of 11. Pretty much every one in the neighborhood saw it. I don't remember that time in my life with much detail. But I remember that video (21 years later) almost frame by frame. As a kid I didn't even really understand what I was looking at. I knew I was hooked. Having experienced this at 11 without any encounter with a female or another person made me aware that sex was sensory \- I can do this myself. That is not to say I would. It is merely to say sex is about me, no one else is really involved or needed. This is something sexual partners in the future would attest to.

And that was it. Not much more happened: a move overseas, a move back. 13 years old and various attempts to woo or engage some female really illustrated how difficult it was to romance someone without a care for them. My parents got a divorce. As part of the settlement I chose the parent to live with; my dad. I genuinely loved him as he loved me, however, him having a computer sealed the deal. In 1994 having a computer was a big deal. Games like Quake and Warcraft II were released. Multiplayer games were available. Modem sessions between friends lasted all night as we played whatever we wanted until we couldn't fight off sleep. It was a utopia. Computer, friends, freedom.

I have never once said that one of my friends or I were moderates. If we drank we drank (which wasn't very often), if we smoked we smoked (which we didn't as well) and when pornography was available we viewed it (often). When you are 13, everything is extreme. One smoke is all the way. One beer is far too much. So when it comes to pornography we had already gone far too far with a few magazines and a video. When the internet came along, shortly after electronic bulletin board systems, our access to porn was to be unlimited.

And what do you do? No one ever told you pornography was wrong. While you couldn't smoke or drink, our parents and friends did - on occasion. While we couldn't drive yet, we would. And while we couldn't vote, marry or get a job it would come eventually. Pornography was just our eventuality updated. It was our way of taking what was obviously not wrong and drawing it closer. Adults kept the wine, beer and cigars. Porn was something else they were hiding. Now to a culture of teenagers liberated from not only parental discipline but often parental care \- sometimes as a result of divorce, neglect, greed, parental problems, etc - we took control of this one aspect of who we were. Rebellion, out and out. But no one ever told us about consequences. In fact most of our parents were involved in porn somehow anyway.

So at 13 I and my friends had conquered the world. Occasionally our sexual sovereignty would come in conflict with reality, as a parent saw what we were doing, or our ostracism from peers became greater and more evident. But who cares. At thirteen we were embarrassed at getting caught not remorseful of what we did. Who were these people that we looked at? They were essentially the same people as our parents. We never met any eighteen year-olds. We never met anyone over our own age. These people didn't seem real. We downloaded images off of a computer miles away. As far as we knew the person in that picture didn't exist.

And that is a teenage sex addict. At seventeen I met my first girlfriend. It hurts to even write those words because I did not treat here as a friend and never really treated her as one should a girl. It is not to say I was not kind, as I should be. It was just that it was all about me. She had low self-esteem as almost any young 17 year old does and that meant I was worshiped. It meant that I made the relationship about me. After breaking up with and getting back together with (all in order to pursue other sexual opportunities) I realized how horrible I had treated this young girl. She was not unattractive, unkind or unintelligent. Nothing about her lent her to the treatment she received from me, just her overwhelming desire for the relationship and perhaps a difficult childhood.

The point is, sex was still all about me. There were other women. Ones who I still remember. I didn't drink, so everything was calculated. These women were wooed. I cared little about them. I do now. Each one is important. Each I have spoken with. All I can see have scars.

I think we like archetypes because they appeal to who we want to be, who we are and who we know we should be. One strong archetype is the protector. When a deranged gunmen entered a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, 12 people died. Men actually got up to protect their wives, girlfriends and dates when James Holmes started shooting. This is the protector. I wasn't that. Not that I have any desire to be that in these women's lives, but how I wish I could retroactively save these women from sexual relationships with me. None are better off. I remember the girl who said I could do what I wanted to her. The girl who everyone hated because she was loud. The one who returned because she tried to care for me.

And then I came to Christ.

And then I left Christ, I walked away. I didn't really come to Christ. Maybe I did; it's complex. But I remember ultimately reading a book about a man who cared about one thing: getting stuff. I was studying at one of the best universities on the planet and all around me people were pursuing their dreams. Their dreams however were also all about getting stuff. To read this book by a Christian really set me on edge. I believe God really opened my heart while I was reading it. This author did want one thing, but the thing that he wanted was used to help people. He didn't come right out and say it. He didn't say "give me stuff so I can get people to know Jesus Christ". He just, said God wants to bless you (groan) and every time he talked about that blessing he mentioned his desire to use it on people. Here is a man that wanted everything - just like my fellow students at university - however he didn't even mention himself. To see someone, even if only on paper pages, who truly wanted something for someone else made me agree that there must be a God. Only God could do that.

So after being an atheist for years, I said to those that asked "I believe in God". For some this may not be a big deal, for a staunch atheist - this is life changing. So from that moment on I thought I was God's gift to...um...God. I was voting for Jesus Christ - like that mattered. But I was sincere. I meant it. I did believe there was a God. I knew I needed to make changes and I did. I let people know I was Christian. I told my girlfriend. Told my family. Probably bought a t shirt.

Now again, I was serious. I did want to see things as Christ saw them. I remember coming home and having a steamy couple of moments with my girlfriend after telling her I was Christian. Strangely I knew what we did was wrong moments after - this had never happened before. And from that time on I was abstinent. I see things were indeed happening in my life. I left university to hang out at a homeless shelter. I was a part of pretty much every youth Christian event that took its faith seriously in our city. I told everyone I met that God was real. Every friend to a man was shocked. John is the LAST person we thought would become Christian.

Fortunately during this time I was able to speak with all of the women I had sexual relations with. I apologized and they could see I cared. I didn't do this just to tick the boxes (although I knew I had to). I did this because I knew I did something wrong and if God even cared about them 1% as much as I knew He cared about me - then I had to tell them I was sorry. Of course people - when you are a new Christian - always think you're a bit crazy. I don't know if it is because all the change in you reflects on them. Perhaps they know intrinsically that if you are saved, perhaps they need to do...something. Perhaps it is fear. And perhaps it is enjoyment. Some, including one lady who I had had relations with, laughed at the whole thing. And I don't encourage people to do the same, but we became best friends pretty much until I got married. I still miss our arguments and I know she is worried that Jesus Christ might know a bit more about her and ask a bit more of her than she wants to give.

But I walked away, remember? After my father had died and the funeral had been handled, I officially pulled out of university after completing two years with mixed success. Traveling to New Zealand, where my family lived, I arrived to comfort them. Believe it or not, my mother - who had been a very, if at all - nominal Christian all her life as far as I could see, had joined a very Bible believing church. My Step-dad had initiated the move I believe, but still to see these two at church was amazing.

But to make what could be an excruciatingly long story short, let's put things in point form. With three months on my visa, I joined the church, moved in with my mom and step-dad (and baby brother), extended my visa and consequently ended up staying at a pastor's home. Now if you have ever lived with a pastor, it is amazing. The whole reason someone would let you into their house while wearing the "pastor", "evangelist", or "Christian" hat is because they want you to see their whole life - from dunny to dishwasher - while they attempt to encounter God. Think of it like boot-camp. The intensity may not be the issue - but the focus is entirely singular.

And life fell apart. The young pastor and his wife had two young men staying with them along with myself. I believe the best way to describe my stay there was "foundation inspection". When large bridges are employed - Golden Gate, Brooklyn, Sydney Harbour - engineers will actually proceed along those structures to determine if they can handle the daily traffic that is expected. Cracks reveal structural weaknesses. These cracks are found by a number of processes that involve examination of all aspects of the bridge. My life didn't withstand the inspection. I don't know how to describe it. I just came to the absolute and inescapable conclusion that I couldn't live the Christian life. I didn't love enough, I didn't serve enough, I didn't cease from sin enough. I was not experiencing some delusional overly critical paranoia. I actually to this day maintain that this was the correct state of my life. Nothing I was doing or had done made me qualified for life and fellowship with Christ, Christians or a role in the church.

I remember sitting on the floor. I could feel the need to repent (turn 180 degrees from sin to God). I could feel without any doubt the absolute certainty of my predicament. Without power, without hope. Repentance was my only option. My hope was to turn and perform the right acts. Perfect is the demand. I needed to be perfect and to my eyes the perfection was too heavy, too lofty, too arduous. Asked to repent, I did not. With the certainty of hell obvious, I could not repent, I could not proceed to perfect by any means. Being utterly sinful, being utterly depraved, fallen short.

My only hope was religion. Trying to hide amongst the advice and counsel of well-meaning pastors I was soon found out. The biblical counsel is very clear (Matthew 18:15-17). So after meeting with one person and now making light of their counsel, I dove headlong into sin. My employer was a Christian and former friend of my fathers. I began to use my desk to surf porn incessantly. I would actually go to client's sites and view porn in server rooms. On stolen laptops. On PDAs. Anywhere. I was warned again. Finally after breaking my collar bone, and going to work to view porn with those broken bones I was sent before the pastor who said "Do this once more and I will kick you out of the church.". I knew this didn't just mean the church, I knew this meant I was getting kicked out of Christ, essentially. I wasn't such a liar that I thought I could hide my junk at another church.

So I left the church, moved in at my mom's - who gave me a spare room. I ate, bought a sports car and did everything I could to drown the pain. I remember once, after my lamentable decision to remain sinful, watching a ceramic fireplace and seeing the log burn continually. It dawned on me that this was my lot. I would be as this log. Always on fire, never consumed. The thought horrified me. I drove to the city's red light district to buy anything that would assuage my terror. I remember buying a coke and bread. It was something.

Eventually I was kicked out of my mom's. Not because I was looking at porn, but because I really didn't do anything to care for the house. 6 months after arriving at my mom's I had gained probably 20 kilos and my step-father and my mom said "you can't do this to us - you need to move out - we will not talk to you - get sorted out - we love you". It might sound harsh, but at this time I was arguing and yelling and my baby bro was maybe 4. They just wanted me out so I would understand the gravity of my situation - they did love me.

Another 6 months later, I was in my own apartment. I hadn't worked in about the same time. I bought a one bedroom flat and remodeled it. I looked at the internet and rented movies. I remember that for those months my only conversations were with the Burger King drive through lady and my good friend Victor (not his real name). My friend - the pastor - came and asked me out to McDonald's. The mere presence of someone who knew Christ was overwhelming: in a good way. To hang out with someone who knew the Truth was too much. My friend had his brother in law visit. A friend from the church. God in his grace was giving me a way out.

I sat in my friend's car. I was maybe 24. No job, no family, yet my friend says "Do you want to give your life to Christ?" Now I knew what this meant. It meant everything, no holding back. Everything would belong to Jesus. Where I writhed on the floor almost two years ago knowing that I had nothing to prop me up against Christ's righteousness, here I was being given the opportunity to live for Christ! I took it. I earned nothing. I put everything in. No work, no me, no votes for Christ, just God deserving everything and Him simply allowing me in. And I dove straight in.

So God didn't want the John who had it all together; the "Christian" John. Christ wanted the nobody that knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only way to appease God is via Christ. My soul was saved that day.

And that's who I am. Porn continued to be a problem after I gave my life to Christ. When I first learned of Christ while still in university, years ago, it just disappeared. Before I was kicked out of the pastor's home, before I was threatened with expulsion from the church, before this there was no conflict, no porn. From that final encounter with my girlfriend years ago until my absolute expulsion from church, pornography had not been a problem. I'm not sure why. I just never thought about it. I was too busy "serving" Christ to think about it \- and I think it was a miracle. But coming to Christ after dipping all the way back in to porn, I now found a very real struggle with porn and myself. That is also what this book is about. It is about one man who was smart enough to hand his entire life over to Christ and the results as He taught me to beat this damned addiction and body of mine! (I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.) I want you to have the same victory over your dead carnal desire as I have.

I am married now, I have been free from porn for a number of years and do not even consider lust an option. Jesus Christ wants you this way (1 John 5:4).

Chapter Two: What You Shouldn't Look At

You can probably tell a novice writer by his inability to remove his subject matter from the process of writing. A book on Trains stands as a good book if it is a singular volume on all things rail. A book on pornography fails for the same reason. As I said previously, pornography is about people. Without this intimate infringement of boundaries, a book about pornography would simply be another voyeuristic snapshot of figures, vignettes and unrelatable episodes: much like porn itself. So the boundary is broken. You know me. Or the portion of me that was addicted and has fortunately perished in Christ.

I love authors. My favorite might not be Luke, but he is very high up the list. From Antioch, a city sacked by the Mongols in the thirteenth century, Luke was possibly a physician of Paul (formerly Saulos of Tarsus). Luke comes from a Hellenistic Jewish background and delivers - quite famously - one of our four Gospels. Should Luke receive credit for what he wrote? Should John receive credit for his account of a vision received in another book: Revelation? Should Isaiah receive credit for the record of his prophetic utterances at the hand of God? Perhaps not. But knowing that Luke was a very real man, from a former - now Turkish – city, who wrote, distributed and potentially went to death for what he was putting on paper (papyrus more correctly) makes me value the God-inspired contents of the page even more.

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is perhaps one of the more famous portions of Luke. Everyone fears the judgment of the rich man. Everyone identifies with the gluttony or greed of the man to be condemned. Some see God's justice, His ability to meter out recompense for those lacking in this age. But I have not referred to it for that reason. This parable is the only parable spoken by Jesus that mentions a name. We don't know if this was the record of an actual occurrence. But we do know that the man who sat begging at the gate was given the name Lazurus meaning "God has helped".

In contrast to Lazarus is the man without a name. One finds it remarkable that in the 46 parables of Jesus, no other names are recorded. Doesn't this glaring opposition to the 45 other parables cause warrant for attention? Why does this name exist? We see from the parable, that Lazarus exists primarily without identity here on earth. We know the destitute, sick and those close to death are not often popular. The man - Lazarus - had little more than difficulty and lack here on earth. While we do not know, we can imagine that one who spends his time waiting at another's door, does not have much time for deep friendship, companionship or relations - unless you consider the dogs who lick his filthy body.

But what about the rich man. He had all his needs met. He had all his desires attended to. He had no need to consider the base emotions, such as compassion, due to his preoccupation with his wealth. The rich man is not described as a man of remarkable fiduciary acumen. His building projects and financial success are not highlighted. His consumption is. His appetite, his comfort. This is the meaning of rich: satiated. And that is the very name he receives. God assigns identity to Lazarus, the one waiting for God's help, but the satiated one does not even receive a personality. Remarkably the rich man is so entwined in his decay that upon realization of his predicament, he does not ask to abandon his vice and be transported to heaven. He does not ask for rescue, he asks for reprieve. So identified with his namesake, the satiated man asks Lazurus to relieve him; not to be seated in Heaven.

What loss. That is porn. Donny Pauling, a former porn producer turned Christian, relates how after numerous pornographic shoots he would eventual see "the light sucked out of their eyes" in reference to women who continued to shoot pornographic material.

I can relate. As a man consumed with pornography I remember what it took away. For those following Christ, we know that "sexual immorality is a sin against your own body" (1 Cor 6:18 NLT). We see the acute change in our demeanor with more and more exposure to porn. Few people look at themselves upon reading that verse and say "man, I totally disagree." The crystal meth addict, the heroin addict, the food addict, the addict period, understands the state they are in. A deterioration occurs. As consumption occurs, regret follows. And in the case of pornography, the effect of continued exposure is soundly experienced by the individual.

However, that is not the only effect. Heroin addicts may destroy their body, but the social cost of addiction is always felt by others. Whether it is co-morbidity with societal crimes, or merely the effect of unrestrained consumption on the parents, brothers, daughters and neighbors, this type of addiction leaves a long scar on those within arm's reach of the addict. However, this is not so with the porno addict. By assimilation of the above verse only and ignorance of reality we have retracted the discussion of pornography down to a matter of personal choice. Pornography is private. Right?

After a few years of debating atheists (something that I am by no means good at) my own convictions about being a former atheist always boil to the surface. Charles Spurgeon once said "It is a mark of wonderful transformation in the character of some men when their heart begins to go a little outside their own ribs, and they can feel for the sorrow of other men!" I never enjoyed a good yell with an atheist/skeptic/etc. My idea of a good time was the time spent after a meeting talking about television, advertising, club politics, university. I don't think a single person cares for a word I said. Now don't get me wrong, if the Bible got spoken, great. But tethered to that must be friendships, companions, hard fought concern - because that is the content of Christ and the Bible. To that end, whatever I did with skeptics was pretty much a failure. My passion to share how Christ changed me. Trying to share how my life had had such stark similarity to their ideology and practice really truly failed. My heart was in the right place but my methods lacked.

Maybe I couldn't properly convict. Maybe I couldn't properly engage. Who cares. Toni, a fellow worker at the university commented that we know we are close to Jesus by two indicators: 1) our love for His loves and 2) our hatred of His hates. Well we definitely loved the Skeptics. But, we lost. The shining beacon of hope in our efforts with formal atheist groups was perhaps only our confirmation of what we believed, what we hated. Firstly, it is Jesus Christ's job himself to change hearts, we merely obey. But secondly, we were vindicated. From our experiences as skeptics, atheists, doubters, whatever ourselves - we came to a firm resolution that what we claimed about our experience was true. We knew that what we left behind - the sins - we truly hated.

This needs no clearer illustration then another quote by Charles Spurgeon. Keep in mind that this quote is some 120 years old. "A curious fact can be proved by abundant evidence, namely, that the boast of human [reasoning] is closely followed by obscenity..." I have been an atheist because I loved pornography. Hatred of Christ or love of sex, I can't say which arose first. Aldous Huxley famously said opposition to morality was the result of love of sexual freedom not the result of deficient morality or a deficient Moral Arbiter. And that really is it.

Some have lost their identity, just like the rich man. Sexual sin has robbed us of faculty. Discussion with university students on the importance of sex always devolved into some opponent's firm proclamation of pornography's legitimacy! But wait. We were raised on pornography, are we really objective?

Time Magazine placed a Food & Drink piece in its pages in 2013: Forget the Food: Fast Food Ads Aimed at Kids Feature Lots of Giveaways. 99% of fast food ads are aimed at children according to one study reports Time. The American Academy of Pediatrics stated two years earlier that the FTC needs to clamp down on fast food ads. This is an organization of some 65,000 pediatricians. I agree, you agree, kids shouldn't have to suffer needless health concerns. We all sympathize with this report. In 2006, Sau Paulo, the world's fourth largest city, banned outdoor advertising. The billboards promoted sex shops, fashion, food, cars and phones. They are all gone. Even if we don't agree, we empathize. We have had visual intrusions. The serenity of green space is more alluring than the gaudy enticements of some attention starved clothing brand.

But what about porn? I have looked at a hamburger and become ravenous, physically eager for any morsel of succulent meat, melted cheese and a drizzling league of sauces, decadent additions and golden side of warm lightly salted fries. To be honest, I was physically responsive merely writing that sentence. We know that there is a strong biological response to images of food. Our body will actually release certain chemicals in our brain to prompt or promote food acquisition. Advertisers understand that children are less able to control these responses. Ray Kroc, famous promoter and CEO of McDonald's, believed that the way business was gained was by targeting children and then their families would follow. How true. What was the last memory you had of your parents choosing McDonald's for their date night excursion sans enfants.

And yet we don't allow this to cross our mind when we discuss "our porn". It is a private discussion. Science and biology are potent weapons to defend our viewpoint but dangerous and unnecessary opponents when we form our own sexual beliefs. This begs the question. If I was born in 1981 and my life and childhood were inextricably entwined with and influenced by pornography, what are the chances that yours might be too. If you were born after 1981, you may have grown up during a time where you have always had access to electronic information. You may have grown up in a time where statistically our opinions on moral topics such as homosexuality, sexual content in media, attitudes of sexual culpability amongst public figures, cohabitation, divorce, abortion and other sexual topics has flipped either during your lifetime or shortly before it.

Imagine that. The sexual landscape has change unalterably. In the middle of this landscape is the young man, woman, teenager, young adult with access to unlimited sexual imagery. Add to this the fact that biologically young men and women are more susceptible to sexual imagery than at any other time in their life and you should be horrified. James B. Check of York University found that youth 12 to 17 have the highest level of interest in pornographic material. Mark Kastleman explains that young men have 20 times more testosterone than adults and as a result are much more severely affected by sexual imagery.

Thirteen billion dollars are made on pornography in the United States each year. Some have even placed global pornography sales as high as $100 billion (but reliable stats are hard to find). Companies such as General Motors, AOL Time Warner, Marriot, Hilton and Westin have either received or continue to receive revenue from pornography according to ABC News. My father used to work in big tobacco as a relatively high positioned executive. He told me stories of how for every smoker lost in the US, two more started in Asia. Rumors even circulated that the major tobacco firms had created distribution plans, performed marketing research and created elaborate packaging prototypes for an expected legalization of recreational marijuana. These companies don't care too much about how they make profit. McDonald's (which I love), General Motors, and Philip Morris don't have any morality that is not imposed on them by the public or employees. Why should porn?

Your youth has been the amalgam of market studies, biological research, greed and numerous factors that make you, for better or worse, the prime consumer of pornographic material at a young age. This is not a conspiracy theory. Whether or not you believe that someone makes money on each mouse click you make, the availability of sexually explicit content for an eleven to eighteen year old is unprecedented. Add to this the very real fact that upwards of 10% of all internet pages are pornographic. Add to that, that while you may not pay a pornographic website for content, your very clicks on that site results in Pay Per Click ad revenue for the person promoting a given sex site. Finally, add to that, that in the same way that you will adore, cherish and seek out a juicy hamburger at McDonald's, your body during your teens is more physically responsive to sexual imagery than at anytime during your life. You have a body furiously sending gratifying and enticing chemical signals, a life as a minor that has probably not yet developed an understanding of the complexities necessary to maintain a sexual relationship and on to top of all this off; a private opportunity to gratify, assuage and satisfy each physical longing. You simply reach out your hand and click a button. Hey, if you want a burger you have to at least get up and go for a walk.

And that's it. Why do we think we have an objective view on our sexuality. Raised in a fog of explicit imagery. Surrounded by sexual satisfaction. Without much real inducement to produce meaningful sexual relationships and targeted by our violent biological sexuality and ever increasing pornographic access. If I saw someone who grew up on the moon, I would expect a different perspective than mine once they reached earth. This same expectation holds for the youth I see today. Left to grasp for air on a barren rock, devoid of life and most importantly not knowing that there was any alternative. I can't see beyond my senses because I have never been beyond them. In the same manner, perhaps there is a better sexuality beyond this prescribed biological sensibility you might now inhabit.

Chapter Three: But What About Anne?

Lives without depth. Days consumed by compulsion. Donny Pauling - former porn producer - recalling how "the light left young women's eyes". John Boychuk telling you of his life spent without intensity, potency, strength, virtue. But that is all entirely subjective. Isn't it? While I know that the main character of my life story isn't me, I can quite honestly state that on my own I am a man of brute nature. I tend toward addiction and compulsion. Years, literally years of life spent in front of a computer screen. By my calculation I have spent an entire consecutive year of my life looking at pornography (approximately five thousand hours). But who cares? Grown men spend their lives making scale models of battleships with Lego. We hardly write books about this.

Pornography plays havoc with adolescent biology. Men and women make money - to the tune of multiple billions - on younger men and women. Years could be lost obsessed over images and fantasy. But I spend relatively similar time eating. Delicious deep fried treasures are also offered to youth. We know it's unhealthy, but we hardly consider the consumption of french fries immoral. And while I absolutely fear any loss of identity and person, while I believe that the Bible is absolutely clear that sin and compulsion lead to an irrevocable loss of person and personality - you might foolishly disagree. Maybe Ed Diment and his 23-foot-long USS Intrepid Lego replica, which took years of his life and tens of thousands of dollars, is no different than my pornography addiction.

Now don't get me wrong, I am throwing away years of internal shame and hurt over my addiction to make that claim. Before I acknowledged Jesus Christ, I would have said the notion of believing in God was akin to a fable. Yet, the life I lived was still marred by shame and regret over pornography. Consuming porn, no matter how culturally acceptable, was a reproach even at a young age. I believe self-deception is perhaps the strongest mental trap any young man or women will encounter (Collosians 2:8). However, throughout my life before and after attesting to a belief in Christ, sexual sin hurt (1 Corinthians 6:18). But what did I have in life, without a love of porn everything meant nothing. I am not prone to hyperbole, however, the shame of pornography was dwarfed by a compulsion towards sex. Remember my observation and sensation were my identity - like the rich man, I was the "sex" man.

However that is not the goal of this chapter. You aren't reading a book about me. Additionally, I maintain self-deception is a complex and powerful phenomenon. So while you may attest that you are Christian, or perhaps you are like I was and make no allusions, thinking Christ is a myth - or at least His significance - you have had experience of the personality, identity, soulish, life sapping effects of sexual fantasy. But who cares, we don't want to look too closely at what the sex industry has done to our life. Sex, regardless of how we obtain it, is still so seemingly pleasurable and to be honest, I am not terribly concerned about issues of person or identity: I just enjoy sex (right?).

If that rings a bell, then I am writing this chapter for you. In years of struggling with smut, my battle was decidedly personal. It was not that a vector did not exist between my personal sin and my public life, it is just that I felt I could maintain some separation between public and private in the future. This was another fantasy ("For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open." - Luke 8:17). But even in my years of fighting pornography as a Christian, I never saw how my sin affected anyone but God and myself.

Now that it bothered God was enough for me to take this offense seriously, but having missed something of the dimension to which porn effects those around me, I believe I spent more time fighting my addiction then I should have. I am not putting the data on this page to shame you further. I am not a Greenpeace recruiter poking your inaction and lack of foresight in an effort to gain your support. I genuinely think that seeing this information will help you see porn for what it is. Don't say to yourself "my addiction is only mine". Whatever self-loathing we carry, whatever shame and condemnation that we may ascribe to ourself, we still often understand the value of others. While I might be able to say "Hey, I don't matter too much. God hates sin & pornography, but He forgives. This is between me and God.". While I might say "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that God's grace may more fully cover me", that self-deception is peeled away when I see my sin for what it is. I lose a place to hide my compulsion when it is not private, when it is not personal, when it affects others.

So what about Anne? Anne isn't a real person. Or more appropriately Anne is a real person who it is impossible to think about without emotional pain. Let's pretend Anne isn't real. Anne is wearing a shirt. Typical. College kid faire. The rest of Anne's description is all too vivid. The location is all too vivid. The faceless words of the men around her are vivid. Anne smiles. That is Anne. Not much more. I fill in the gaps - college kid, naive but not unintelligent, the girl who is too personable for me but desirable, desirable not because she is pretty or amazing in anyway, just that her smile indicates that she is more satisfied than I. She either enjoys making the video that I am watching or she enjoys that the video will end and something more important and entertaining occurs - shopping, time with girlfriends, family engagements, study, life.

So we have a pretty basic picture of any women in a porn film. Donny Pauling recalls that he had two offices, one at home and one by the university campus. He states that "...at the end of the interview, after we have painted a nice rosy picture and after they've seen photos of all the places we've been, they would paint themselves into this picture and I would take it away. I would say 'I...I don't think this is for you'. And the more that you tell a college age girl what she can't do...the more she wants to do it. And we'd lead them down a path where they would make $500 a day just to shoot the photos." Donny Pauling recruited more than 500 women into porn. Photos were the beginning. Harder and harder stuff followed. The women's - girl's - brothers, dads, uncles would see the site. Major sites, where the photos would wreck their lives. Major sites where the girls would phone Donny and plead with him to remove the content. It was too late. Donny had sold it.

"And their lives would just fold."

"You literally watched the lights go out in their eyes."

"Over 500 girls have been recruited by me and not a single one has ever come back and said 'Thanks, you know for getting me involved in porn. I love my life'" Donny laughs. The laugh turns to a wince.

"It was kind of heartbreaking, but I justified it."

"In my experience, the girls in porn are not broken. They start off as college students. They are just people's daughters. They're not objects, you know, that don't have feelings."

"It wouldn't be long before they'd be calling and crying on the phone and asking me, you know, please remove this content it's destroying my life."

"You don't hear, in the porn credits, about the girl...about the girl who was curled up in a ball between takes sucking her thumb because her mind's so blown by what she's been doing, that she doesn't know how to handle it."

"It's all fake."

"It's just acting. And it's not like regular acting where they go home feeling good about themselves."

"They're just people who have bought into a lie. And it is so easy to get caught up in and then you don't want to leave."

Pauling talks about how he disarmed young women, with his college aged girlfriend behind him, convincing them to buy into the lie. Donny mentions how he justified to the women that what he was doing was in accord with their best interests. Famous feminists had been quoted as saying that women had a right to do this. Women had a right to do porn. This was part of Donny's pitch.

Anne. She probably sat next to someone like Donny. Anne probably listened to the pitch. Maybe the sparkle I saw in her eye was the excitement of living the dream that Donny promised. She bought the lie. But for someone like myself, one vantage point is never enough. One who is addicted develops a preference. Maui wowie, Holland's hope, sour diesel. So the search for the next hit, ended up at a peculiar website. You see Anne, like most young women, is all over the internet. Before social media, Anne had a website, a blog. Not Anne the bright eyed, the excited, the animated - Anne, the real Anne with problems, with concerns. Anne's website was an attempt for her to reconcile what she had done, how intimately people had known her, with a need for connection. People would write in, people would comment. Not about anything but Anne. How she was affected by the industry, how she was part of the industry and - what appeared to me - an attempt to justify the industry that she was still in.

Anne was not leaving porn. She didn't look conflicted. But every word that Anne wrote, illustrated how she was a real person, that existed between my neurological euphoria. Someone's daughter. It was my first experience with an Anne off the video strip. This was a real person. The facade had cracked. But to be honest. It didn't matter much.

Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant did a study in 1979 (published 1982 in the Journal of Communication). Zillmann and Bryant state that their controlled experiment, which involved massive exposure to porn, "...resulted in a loss of compassion toward women as rape victims and towards women in general." These Indiana University professors subjected 80 male and 80 female students to varying levels of repeated pornographic exposure. One group received massive exposure, the other intermediate levels and still another no pornographic exposure. The first test was to determine students perception of healthy normative sex. The students in the massive exposure group believed that "novelty" sexual experiences were occurring in the general population at rates almost always at least double that of the non-exposure group.

Think about that. Young men and women, watch pornography and report widely different perceptions of the world. But that is not all. Men and women exposed to pornography did not find its availability offensive. Today that is a funny question, because availability is the name of the game, but in 1979 porn was bought in a brown paper bag on the seedy side of town. Essentially the students ceased to be offended by porn. Additionally the massive exposure group did not even recognize certain films as pornographic, while 70% of the non-exposure group did. Finally, after being entwined in the visual fantasy, not even a majority of mass-exposure students felt that the broadcast of erotic material nor the distribution of it to minors was offensive. Think about that, people watching porn for a mere matter of weeks cease to feel it is of any importance to moderate access to erotic imagery.

But the real purpose of the study and the reason I mention it here is because of its importance to our perception of women. Male students exposed to mass doses of explicit imagery, upon being asked what the appropriate punishment for a rapist should be, responded 49.8 months - on average. Ok that is four years. Female students responded 77, coming from the same mass exposure group. However men in the non-exposure group selected sentences of 94 months. Women responded with terms of approximately 143 months, almost twelve years. For both genders, the necessary perception of justice for a violent sexual crime was almost halved (And please note that Zillmann and Bryant took special care not to include any violent or coercive sexual content in the study).

But it goes even deeper. While pornographic exposure may diminish our compassion for a woman abused and the justice needed, we also see further erosion of female identity. Bryant and Zillmann asked the students whether they support expansion of rights to women (remember this study is taking place during the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment, the fight over reproductive rights, equality in the workplace and campaigns against sexual harassment). Students without exposure to pornography during the study responded as male and female respectively that 71% and 82% supported further women's rights. The massive exposure group, male and female, reported a 25% and 52% level of support for further rights. Pornographic exposure killed these students' desire for further protections and rights for women. According to a recent television documentary "NSFW", the same participants in this study also exhibited a significantly lower desire to have daughters in the future when exposed to massive amounts of pornography.

Zillmann and Bryant note that exposure created "visions of hypersexuality". Why? They say that characterization of young women as "anonymous, panting playthings that men liberally exploit for sexual self-gratification" may have something to do with it. "Women are portrayed as hysterically euphoric in response to just about any sexual and pseudosexual stimulation they receive at the hands of the 'male magicians.' Needless to say, sexual reality tends to fall short of such magic.

Pastor and friend to porn stars and sex workers in Las Vegas, Craig Gross says "of course girls love anal, it pays double." The vision of "socially non-discriminant females" is the pornographic norm. Easy, available, constantly eager, always smiling. Period pain, jobs, peers, children, family and study are not something a woman has. It is a consumer product. Maybe it is not as monolithic in its enterprise as pro sports, or network television, but it still has something to sell and it does so with greater success. Porn is a product. The pink websites, the smiling faces. It all harkens to a painted and lacquered hamburger at a fast food advertising photoshoot. It is not the reality.

So what. We have a study, a porn producer, and a male pastor to porn stars who all think this is smoke and mirrors. They think that porn is not about real sex, it's just about appealing to your libido, your lust, your carnality, your consumptive nature. It doesn't have value. It is the filler in the meat. But these are men, the consumers. One of the biggest break-throughs I had was at the hands of women like Anne.

Anne didn't leave porn - to my knowledge. But Anne had clothes (on), style, personality. Anne was, in short, a person. If one extreme of pornography addiction is the ability to take hypersexualized, ever-willing, depersonalized, exploitable stereotypes of women and blend them into my perception, perhaps the opposite extreme and possible remedy is Anne.

For those of us that grew up in the nineties, our generational narrative definitely included the light-hearted American sitcom Friends. Six thirty somethings, three male, three female, lived, ate, shared coffee and laughed together. The episode that has, perhaps, the greatest ethical critique, was the episode where Joey and Chandeler accidentally receive free cable television pornography. Hours, days of watching the channel for fear that it will be shut off, spur the two friends to view their world differently. Chandler goes to the bank and is disappointed that the teller doesn't proceed to sex. Joey tells a similar story of ordering a pizza without receiving sexual advances from the delivery woman. Finally, they turn off the porn and happily walk away from this hyper sexual experience.

Women like Anne - who is all the women of porn - are the return to normal. The lives that have been effected. The personalities that run deeper than their preferences in the bedroom. These are the real victims of porn. Zillmann and Bryant mentioned the same thing. The effects of porn are most obvious to women and our perception of them.

Head over to XXXChurch.com if you have any doubts - a website about and for people in or around the sex industry. Listen to women like Brittni. People reached out to her, loved her and spent time, money and effort to help her out. Listen to Brittni talk about freedom in Christ. A woman who couldn't be more than thirty years old talking about walking away from prostitution, pornography and stripping. Brittni talks about the love members of the XXXChurch offered to her. She displays how grateful she is that Christ took her out of a 7 year journey of illicit sex. Rachael, one of the people that reached out to Brittni, didn't judge her, didn't nag her, just loved her. Brittni shows her gratitude.

Brittni makes several mentions of how beautiful her friend at XXXChurch is. Something obviously important to her. Brittni is a women who appreciates beauty, recognizes it, probably desires it for herself as most young girls and women do. She was one of the college age girls who, like Donny described, was flattered into the industry. Brittni felt loved. She was told she would be a star, put in makeup, the center of attention. And the story from then on is not even mentioned by Brittni without further elicitation.

Hundreds of movies, made at eighteen to dress like a little girl, two to three scenes a day. Brittni was a "rubber barbie doll". She had to find ways to continue filming. No emotions. Undressed to put on lingerie to undress. Drugs, living life in her alter ego, left her hopeless. Wanting to be famous, wanting to be loved, left Britnni to say "it's not worth it...the only people that love me are my fans and I'm actually kind of disgusted by them because they see me at my most personal moments. It's not worth it. I would give it all back."

"We are worth it, and women we are worth real love. And we are not going to get that love from the industry. I want women in this industry, every woman in the world, to feel what real love feels like. If they are anything like me, [they] don't know what real life is."

Brittni giggles, "I believe so many more souls in that industry are going to be saved."

XXXChurch states "Jesus Christ loves porn stars". Women in the industry agree. Their website is full of industry women who are done with porn. Women who like Britnni, would never go back and would do things differently if ever that was possible. I've seen these women, as they talk about their life, as they talk about where they have been and about life, about hope and a future. This is my new porn. I love these women. I don't spend any time with them. I don't save copies of them to my hard drive. But these women are my picture of women. Their life is about reaching out to other women like them. They look like my mom or niece or cousin or neighbor or friend. Real women, that look fat in jeans. So real. Not hypersexualized. Boring, like the women I love today. Not about my sexual pleasures. As multidimensional as I am. And that is the real crux.

I am unique. I am valuable in as much as I reflect God - which is well... the image I bear, as do you. My personality does not merely extend to chemical responses. Pornography and sex and stimulation may have been my compulsion but I sorely do not want it to comprise my personality - whether it eventually might have or not. I hunger, thirst, care and need caring. I cry (not often, I'm a man after all), hug, suffer, love. My needs are as much a part of me as my charity. The world is not about me, but living in it as a man created by God, I live and have a purpose.

What if I said to you that African-American's were not intellectually competent? What if I said to you that they were inferior? What if I justified this opinion with social neo-Darwinism, religion or status quo? What would you call me? A racist. Not just a flat term, a term rife with connotation and acrimony. I must hate. My preference is recorded in history next to lynchings, the slave trade or Ota Benga. It makes sense. These acts of ignominy are necessarily evil because their cause is necessarily evil. Racism is the systematic, repeated, prejudiced removal of a person's true identity. The slave caught by the East India Company was no less a man than the slave trader. We might know this now. If I was to walk into any major American city and pronounce that brothers with different pigments in their skin were inferior, I would be attacked and rightly so.

Racism cost African-Americans' identity, freedom and life. If you watch porn aren't you essentially the same? Those women who have horrible hair days, hurt, suffer and benefit from emotions, are no different than a black man at the end of a hatred filled white racist's gaze. You remove their personality when you look at porn. You remove their similarities. You cease to recognize the same identity in them that exists in you. Women are a mere outlet, a source of sexual expediency. Mother's don't exist in the world of porn. Sister's don't exist in the world of porn. People don't exist in the world of porn. Just you and your desire.

Add to that, that evidence shows you adopting this viewpoint long after your biological excursions. You paint the world, now, with the same brush that takes personhood away from the woman/girl next to me. You respond to issues of sexual justice differently. You demand lesser controls on the censure of pornographic material. And should you have one, your sexual relationship is colored by your desires in front of a computer screen. As a man you have just rewritten sex. You have just moved the boundaries. You have just shifted the metaphoric battle of the sexes to a new realm. The battle is no longer equal partners but dominant, needy you and desperately non-social, biologically expedient female.

This is hate.

My father used to say that you can't treat your sister any different than your wife. And he's right. My treatment of one woman, or one human being is a real reflection of my treatment of all. How can I excuse myself in front of a computer screen. How can I watch with abandon and disregard and think that I will be able to function as a loving and caring individual to women who seconds ago had no function beyond the biological? And ultimately why should anyone think they are an exception to oppressive physiological impulses, compelling research data and honest personal testimony? The Bible says, "Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?" I doubt it.

And that is where we are. An addiction that leaves you diminishing people's worth. A whole half of the world's population is now disposable. Your mom, sister, aunt, whatever, is less than human - not just different - lesser. You have lost a part of you. Your experience is so much more gray without sexual definition. Sexuality is now just a single person affair. The collateral of lives - yours and those you view - is still moot next to your urge. And finally the personal struggle between God and you hasn't even begun to receive its full design as you are actively blind to His heart which hurts for not just those consuming porn, but for those women, girls, sisters and wives who you are consuming.

What next?

Chapter 4: Disposable Chapter

I am missing a lot. A non-fiction book could easily run 800 pages. This doesn't. While the issue of pornography is a dark spot on our culture, there is a lot that remains to be said. This book will leave it unsaid.

But for those of you that have read the previous pages and missed the point of how deep this error goes, this chapter is for you. If you haven't been involved in pornography long; if you have merely entered through the doors, do not read this chapter. This chapter takes us fully into pornography. While stories remain of darker experiences and acts, this chapter takes a peek.

If you remember, I am currently living in Malaysia. I have been for just about one year. While living in my home town of Auckland I read a book; a book on counterfeits. The core of the work was that all counterfeit - purses, clothing, watches, medical equipment, even aviation components - led to support of organized crime. It was a compelling and seemingly well researched book. There were stories of New York knock-off bazaars and the level of criminal involvement. There were stories of overseas investments in the Chinese mafia. All in all the message was clear: buying counterfeit goods equaled supporting crime.

It doesn't seem real. Living just outside of Kuala Lumpur, I see merchants who sell counterfeit goods. Some actually make them in their shop. This doesn't strike me as entirely sinister. I don't see the profits of these illegal DVD stores supporting organized crime - and in effect prostitution, human trafficking, drugs, extortion - any more than the tire shop, or the auto parts store. The story sounds good in a book, but it doesn't appear to hold much weight in front of my eyes. There is no connect to reality.

This is the chapter that paints that reality with a number of darker shades. If you have read the previous chapters, you know the social cost of pornography. This chapter looks at the social depravity. There is - in our minds - a difference between status quo and taboo. While we have already seen that exposure will immediately alter our status quo, we still maintain that there is a taboo. The hardened addict and the casual client will identify aspects of error that are beyond acceptable. So if the line that separates acceptable and extreme has moved in the last thirty years - and it has - there is still uncharted territory. There is still an area of pornography that most consider wrong.

This chapter is about that territory.

Nashville, Tennessee. If I remember correctly a sermon was recorded here that paints a very real picture of that extreme territory. The canvas is prepared. We have a pastor describing a woman. This woman is probably in her forties. She is a professional women. She has worked for the FBI for a number of years. Part of her job is to examine videos that confirm criminal sexuality. If she can see a video, perhaps she can determine the location. Perhaps she can lead an investigation to stop whatever criminal act is on camera. This very short story begins with her talking to that pastor in order to relate and perhaps further comprehend what she has seen on camera.

A young woman - 4 years old. Her father. We have heard this story before. Using his daughter an onlooker records the entire thing. Records for distribution? Records for posterity? But the innocence of the young girl breaks through. Not complicit, she yells out. She yells out to the camera for help. "...make it stop, make it stop!" We wonder if the FBI agent is the first person to harbor concern. The more the agent watches, she realizes that the young girl is not appealing to the camera. The young girl at four probably does not even have a perception of the audience on the other side of that recording device. The person holding the camera, this is who is being addressed. "Mommy, mommy, make it stop..."

What of this young girl? Used. What of the audience? An opportunity to enjoy elation - if that is what it is - at the cost of, essentially, a life. Dolf Zillmann, whose work we have already examined, reported in a 1986 study for the Surgeon General that "repulsion evoked by common pornography diminishes and is lost with prolonged exposure". Will there be a time when the above story is merely "relatively" repulsive; bizzare, yet accepted by some? Zillmann further elicits, "Prolonged consumption of common pornography does not lead to increased enjoyment of frequently consumed material. Only less common forms of pornography that depict less common forms of sexuality tend to elevate enjoyment."

So that's it. Years of addiction. Years of consumption. Something more bizarre awaits. I remember at the age of 12 or 13 looking for images of women my age. This discovery was all the more rapturous because it was illegal. A young man, seeking out girls like he knew.

Jay Matthew Riley, at the age of twenty one, walked into a local branch of the FBI. Jay had been downloading child porn, a "pornography that depict[s a] less common form". The year Jay was arrested, was also the year that a little known phishing scam was being conducted against users of potentially illegal websites. Some enterprising scammer had set up a web page that informed the user viewing it that he or she had been caught. The website outlined how the FBI was now monitoring this individual web visitor.

A scammer was looking for money. Impersonating the FBI, this website and its creator expected payment. Instead, Jay walked into his local FBI branch and wanted to come clean; or at least accept the phony offer on the website for absolution at a fee. Jay has been charged with three counts of possession of child pornography, one count of using a communication device to solicit certain offenses involving a child and one count of indecent liberties with a minor.

Jay is twenty one years old and is finished. But this is taboo. This is extreme. Why would you even think of looking at the images Jay did? Excessive exposure may lead to more bizarre forms of stimulus, but you and I are not Jay. I might read the story off of a website in the United Kingdom next to article thumbnails that entice me to read about some celebrities lack of pants or addition of body parts, but I'm not Jay! Robin from North Carolina is the first to let others know that he or she is not like Jay. In the comments for the article, Dan from Missouri lets people know how different he is. John from Seattle, Paul from the UK, Drummle from Newcastle.

Let me be the first to say, I was exactly like Jay. Understand what I am saying. I have never been to jail, I have never been charged. My wife knows that I once saw an image of a young female engaged in sex - truly it horrified me. I do not need your forgiveness. I need forgiveness from the young women who I have seen.

After years of addiction, soft led to hard, hard led to harder. Women in places I couldn't comprehend. Women who had been men. Men women and more men or women. People reduced to mere toilets: places for me to leave my fluids had I the chance. This was years of addiction. Just as Zillmann found, the common to the abnormal to the extreme.

But Jay is barely an adult himself. Perhaps 3 years out of public education. After years of access to explicit images we see, according to his charges, a man consumed with viewing images of women who were his peers a few years ago. I do not excuse Jay, but there will be many more Jays. There will be many more men - and women - who as a result of early exposure tend toward the extreme. For someone without social skills, for someone with little hope against available imagery, Jays and Johns will begin a retreat to the glow of an LCD screen and emerge in front of you broken individuals.

Don't think you can sit on the fence. Even if by a miracle you could, the industry you support, the money from your clicks and your online purchases creates an environment for lost souls to sink deeper into a mental fantasy that will destroy them and the lives they consume on screen. To the casual users - who should not be reading this chapter - I say, do you think that you can engage this material? This material that wreaks havoc with our brains, emotions and biology? This material that statistically warps our conscience and destroys our standard of offense?

I think those on the fence, might read this story like the one of counterfeit - "I hear what you are saying John but I don't buy it." A fake Rolex doesn't support organized crime! A chance to view porn won't lead to prison! Maybe. The real question is, to what level can you incorporate this into your life? Can you view an image or two? Can you stop from watching image three or four? I know of no one that can. Maybe you are not a John or a Jay, but I challenge you to stop. Let Zillmann's findings of more extreme images around the corner prove false to you. Let Jay's story be merely laughable. Let my story,speaking of my intimate addiction at the age of twelve, in a book on pornography, not be yours. But can you stop?

Chapter 5: The Bridge

"Prolonged consumption of common pornography does not lead to increased enjoyment of the frequently consumed material." "Prolonged consumption of common pornography spawns doubts about the value of marriage..." "Prolonged consumption of common pornography leads to diminished desire for progeny...the strongest effect ...concerns the desire... for female offspring." "Prolonged consumption of common pornography breeds discontent with the physical appearance and the sexual performance of intimate partners." "Prolonged exposure to [pornography] promotes insensitivity toward victims of sexual violence." "Prolonged consumption of common pornography promotes acceptance of...the violation of sexual exclusivity..." "Prolonged consumption of common pornography...[diminishes altogether] moral condemnation of sexual improprieties..." " Prolonged consumption of common pornography distorts perceptions of sexuality." *

*Surgeon General's Workshop on Pornography and Public Health.

Chapter 6: The Flame

Don't run away from porn. Don't. Don't expect that you can. Porn is "the most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today" states Mary Anne Layden of the University of Pennsylvania's Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program. "The internet is a perfect drug delivery system" says Layden "you are anonymous, aroused..."

Jeffery Satinover, a psychiatrist states "Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance. That is the cause of masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opiods. It does what heroin can't do in effect."

I have known addicts. Best friends have had addictions to all kinds of drugs. Mind altering substances that have left them as different functional people. Broken lives. Jay, a broken live. That young child, a broken live. Still psychologists like Carol Queen thinks that "pornography is not particularly problematic in most people's lives."

This sets the scene. We live in a world that does not find pornography necessarily wrong. That was the purpose of this book. To look at pornography through the eyes of one individual. To look at pornography through the eyes of another's personal story. The science is there, but in a world content to "think" that pornography is still not a problem, you will always have the choice to foster and accept your preference. The world won't condemn you for what it accepts. I might. Jay might. Anne might. Brittni might. That four year old girl might. But most won't.

In fact you can't run away from porn. Biologically porn is potent. Whether Queen agrees or not, years of pornographic addiction led to a place of having to retrain my brain. I have read accounts of drug addicts and successfully adapted their techniques to my life. But who cares? You can't run away from this. If you leave, if you successfully detox, if you successfully run thousands of miles from any computer, any person, and any woman you still don't win.

Jesus Christ famously said "I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." If you turn off your computer, if you never see another woman, are you still an adulterer? Are you still immoral? Are you still a man given to orgies? Are you still a worshiper of that image that you once saw? Are you still a companion of prostitutes? Are you still a fornicator? Are you still effeminate, trading your sexuality for your fantasies and bizarre sensualities? Are you still homosexual?

If you remember my story, that story of a young man, in an apartment he built, away from family, stuck headlong in a practice he chose, addicted - again - to pornography, then you might remember the story of a visit from a friend. This friend from church, answered a question I never asked. Standing on the other side of my beautiful 555 blue Japanese domestic model Subaru STi, this man thought I wanted to get my life right. Staring past that car into my glass fronted lounge, that man, seeing all my diversions, my arcade machine, my hand made desk, my stolen iBook, heard me say I wanted to get my life under control.

What a joke. Beyond gaining kilograms of weight a week, desperate for porn, desperate for anything to cover the pain of my current situation, stood a real dilemma. A very real option lay open before me. The sting of being kicked out of church was fading. The pain of having my family recognize my fault and take action, was becoming something past tense. Maybe they could accept me. Maybe the world would look at me as moderately successful. Maybe Christ could be put behind me. Something too difficult, something too lofty. To this scheme I didn't relate. It beckoned me, but I was still flawed. He still knew who I was and I knew too much of who He was. I couldn't hide. As Jonathan Edwards once said "Godliness is more easily feigned in words than in actions". I knew too much.

But that is not what my friend heard. My attempt in front of my Christian friend to, maybe, pretend that I was attempting to come closer to Jesus Christ was met with this answer, "Don't". That is right. This man said "Don't"

Tony Robbins is a self-help author. Famous for a popular TED talk. He was famous before that for appearances on Oprah, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS. Scores of books sold, Tony Robbins will take you and make you a better you. My friend said, "do you want to make yourself better? Do you want your life to be a Tony Robbins success story?" I have paraphrased, but that comparison to changing my life in a manner similar to Tony Robbins made me immediately think of the impossibility to change my life in another way: the way Christ outlined. The call was simply, do you want to put a coat of paint on a broken down house, or do you want to rebuild.

One of the advantages - if I can put it that way - of being a Christian and then becoming addicted to porn, is that I knew the right way to live. I knew what was called for. I knew the standard or the glory of God that I did not attain. When someone sees your life and the mess that it is and sees your attempts to fix that life, the easiest way to blow all of that effort and self-help out of the water is to show the standard of Christ. What did Jesus do?

Why would I want to fix myself? Why would I want to get better? My life was a mess. I was a sinner destined for hell and I wanted to remodel my moral kitchen. This is really it. Some people will read this book and come from a Christian background. Some people will read this book and consider themselves Christian without any real history of following Jesus Christ or looking to Him. Still others will read this book as non-Christians, people who neither believe nor adhere to a word of what Christ has said, or a word of what is found in the Bible about God. Fine. Just don't waste your time with change.

Famously, my former church's youth group ran a video that showed a young man on a boat. The young man's words were simply "I don't want to rock the boat, I want to blow it up." Christ wants to blow up the boat. The longest body of lyrics in the Bible records one song that includes these words near its opening verse, "How can a young person stay on the path [away from porn]? By living according to your Word." That's it. The answer thousands of years ago to the audience of this song echos today, "By living according to your Word." The Bible doesn't tell us to avoid meat on Tuesdays, it doesn't tell us to hop on one foot, it tells us to live according to the Bible. For those of you who are not Bible scholars, you may not know that Jesus Christ is the embodiment of these words (John 1), Jesus Himself states that "Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets [the Word]. No, I came to accomplish their purpose." (Matthew 5:17) The whole point of Jesus is the Word of God and the whole point of the Word of God is Jesus.

The psalmist (writer of the lyrics we mentioned) didn't come to say, perform four hail Marys and turn in a circle, he basically said "seek Christ". If you have a porn problem you have a worship problem. Worship is just the offering of our gratitude and affection to something. The choice is between sex and something else. The psalmist states that we need to put that affection and attention on Christ. To that end I would argue that my problem with sexual sin is ultimately about what i decide to worship. Now I don't mean what I sing to, or what I dance to. Worship, in the bible is a word that basically translates to "bow down to". If you have trouble with pornography the psalmist says live according to the word, live according to Christ, bow down to Jesus Christ.

Charles Spurgeon, the great English preacher, said "when you who are living in [sexual sin] and dishonestly speak badly of Christ and of Christians, you only speak after your own manner - and we cannot wish you to alter your tone until God has changed your heart!" Edwin Louis Cole, a pastor to men in our own generation, tells the story of how he met a drunk, a man without a home, filthy, odorous, and generally repulsive to the common man. This drunk man grabs Edwin's sister by the hand and while his sister is singing a song of worship to Jesus Christ at an outdoor event, this man says "There is a difference between being white washed and washed white". On further discussion with the man, it turned out he had once be a dean at a Bible college and he was responding to their song regarding being cleansed by the blood of Jesus.

You see, a mere fix up, will never help you or I. The drunk man, had had an encounter with Christ, thought he was clean and off he went. Like me trying to fix any aspect of my life, or you presuming that perhaps you can walk away from porn unscathed misses the point. God has to be good - and He is - so if God were to send us a solution to our problem, if God were to care about you and I, if God were to recognize our death, our disease and our despair, He must recognize it and address it in the most potent and beneficial manner possible. And that is what Jesus does. Is Jesus the master physician? Yes. Can Jesus heal disease? Yes. Can Jesus help you financially? Yes, He could. However, not one of these is the reason He came. Jesus came to die, left heaven to die. Jesus came to die violently to bring glory to God by redeeming us. Now don't get me wrong we are not the main player of reality, God is, He is the center. But, that God, who is the center, was concerned enough about His creation that He acted. His action was not provision, or health or long life. His action was forgiveness at a high price.

God looks at the world around us and He decided that the solution is forgiveness. Our most basic need is forgiveness. We all deserve prison, death. We deserve the disease, the result of our greed, the consequence of our theft, our gluttony. We have hated God, we have hated our neighbor. And to this God sends Christ, His son, the second member of the Godhead to die so that we could be forgiven.

Notice that this was an absolute arrangement. Christ died absolutely for us. Christ, as God, received death so that we might not, so that our relationship with our Creator, the God that loved us enough, might be returned. This same level of absolute surrender and obedience is what God demands of us. Nothing we can do will earn reprieve. Nothing we do could restore our relationship with a God who neither walks in nor loves filth. "If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it." (Jesus speaking in the book of Luke). "Whoever wants to be my follower must deny themselves and take up their [death] daily and follow me." (Jesus in the account of Luke). "...in view of God's mercy...offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, set apart and pleasing to God - which is your reasonable service." (Paul speaks of Christ to the followers of Christ in Rome).

Jesus wants it all. Tony Robbins style repairs mean nothing. My wife is my wife 365.242 days a year. Had I said to her at the altar that I would love her for 360 days of the year and another woman for 5, she would have left me. My 5 day lover would have another 360 days more to choose from. Rightfully so. I can't put on Christ (Romans 13:14) and bow down or worship another. Christ won't be my 5 day lover or my 360 day lover. "So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth." (God speaking as recorded by John the Apostle in the book of Revelation).

And that is just it. Don't fix porn. I have not told you of my fear of Christ. I have not focused on your offense in front of God. I could tell you how in fear of Christ I got up on a bus and preached to a group of people because I had just read Matthew 10 ("Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell."). I have not spoken of the men before me who have sinned sexually and identified their sin as one solely against God ("Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight").

Some will find this heavy handed, but the Bible is clear, we are "dead in our transgression and sins." Our problem is not hurt. Our problem is not broken lives. Our problem is not shattered dreams. Our problem is our offense before God and our consequent death. If you never see the inside of a prison, if you never have a boss or coworker interrupt your corruption, you still die.

I remember lying on my bed after a period of viewing porn. My heart was grieved. The shame of what I had done extended not just to my mind but to my heart, to my soul. I cried, having full knowledge of God, Who had died so I wouldn't have to view pornography - remember I knew who Christ was \- and my fear was not at the potential to go to prison, if I had viewed illegal pornography, my fear was to go to hell, and know the kindness of Christ and His love and sacrifice in my life. My fear was to tear myself away from this God. Know when I say sacrifice, I don't refer only to the sacrifice of the Cross as some dead historical event. I refer to the active very much alive work of the Cross. I refer, also, to the men and women around me who have picked up their cross, who have followed Jesus Christ, and poured themselves out for me. They, also, in Christ have loved me.

I still remember the evening I was working late, very late at work, and I had downloaded an entire folder of images. At 2am in the morning a man came to the door of our building. The security guard had noticed that someone was still inside. I had accidentally dislodged the entry indicator marker from the door and he wanted to know what was happening inside. The church that I attended had an office about 8 doors down. I had a hard drive of images waiting for me. I answered the door. This man had a kind smile on his face the size of our city's Harbour Bridge. I wanted to dismiss the man. He kept speaking. He was a Christian. Sheepishly I said I was too. He was so excited. Excited to tell me stories of how he had come from a nation of far more persecution and trouble than here. And he was so happy. So happy to speak with me. This light shone so bright in my darkness. I never saw this man again. And this light of Christ was spurned as I returned to my corruption.

I have had grace in my life again. But I never forget this time that a Christian spoke with the heart of Christ, not condemnation, not death, but love, love for me and yet I dismissed it. I never forget that offense. But Christ did.

I never feared prison or poverty. Hell, separation from Christ, offending the God Who had loved me so deeply and thoroughly; that was what I feared. ("Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."). I am written off. My life is spent. I have told of my darkest times. I have told you of my failures. Christ found a young man who had seen images that most could not imagine, before his eighteenth birthday. I am the pervert. I am the lost soul. That is what Christ forgave. That is what Christ loved.

I stand here a new man, a new creation. The John that watched these images died years ago. If I had to go to prison in the future for being a Christian in a foreign country or merely for past crimes, that is fine. I am dead. My wife, my relationships, my family, my friends - they are all gifts to a dead man. I walk this earth for Christ. That beautiful Savior who asks for all, raised me. People often ask for miracles. I am a miracle. A dead man, with no hope, no reprieve. If anything I do in the future brings one man to this realization, this realization that our offense is against a God who cares, a God who forgives, a God who loves, a God who pens justice, then any shame is well spent.

This book is a chronicle of offense. Offense against man, woman. It is my hope that you will read it and throw away your ambivalence. The punishment that we receive, the corruption that we create is from God. Think about that for one second. God did not author our sin, He never chose it for you or I. But when you see a book like this, dripping with consequence, that is an illumination of Christ's rule, Christ's code. The broken lives, the little girl, the imprisoned man are all merely fruit. The tree that bears this fruit is God himself, the embodiment of His law. God is justice, God is everything that is sound. The pain in these lives, the social consequence of this crime, the judicial actions of the FBI - they all flow from God's justices, from God's single command "Do not commit adultery" - which we have broken.

I hope that you see that. Understand how deep you have gone. If you have created or distributed child pornography contact the FBI in the United States or the RCMP in Canada (Contact information will be included at the end of the chapter). Christ did not come to make life comfortable for you. Justice demands that you go to prison. This is not a matter of rehabilitation. It is a function of consequence.

If you have watched pornography, you will have a war ahead of you. In forgiveness you will still need to battle against the image that has captured your mind. If you have committed sexual sin that may not be illegal you will still have to deal with the consequence. I didn't walk away from porn an unaffected man. In Christ, I walked away from porn a free man. My life was healed. It took time.

And that is it. Justice is not peeled back at the call of Christ. Christ mandated that judgment. Christ loves that child you have seen naked, that woman you have abused as much as you and He will not remove earthly punishment. Christ offers life. Life lived with Christ and for Christ. That is it.

I could spend my whole life in prison or a foreign land, I could care less for what is metered out to me here; my death is suspended, canceled. So don't read these pages as an absolution from temporary pain. This story is one of being put right at a foundational level. "A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you." The One Who prescribes justice wants to forgive you, wants to give you the heart to see what you have done and weep before His eyes. This will lead you to fix these issues, it will lead you to answer the call of justice. To call the FBI if necessary, because it is about Him and others, not you – as much as He loves you.

I am putting this prayer here. I know more intellectual Bible scholars may scoff at the idea, but there is a time where you need to speak with God. This prayer is that:

"I am sorry for all that I have done. If I have just begun to look at porn I beg you to pull me out of this world before I can't. If I have spent a life in porn, I ask you to perform a miracle. You are a God who makes this possible. You are the God that prescribes justice and consequence, I beg you to remove the punishment that I so desperately deserve. Help me to fight the physical battle to leave porn. Help me to see what I do for what it is. Help me to understand the hurt that I have wrought. If I have committed criminal sexual activity, I get on my knees. I need to put you first, my ultimate affection. The crime that I have done will see me go to prison, it will see me mocked. With you I don't care. I am not here to see my name on the evening news. My goal is merely to seek You for forgiveness. The crime that I have wrought has effected so many and I will gladly bear whatever punishment this world can ever provide if only to know You. Forgive me. Give me the courage to confront my evils. Your Word says that there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed. I know that I can hide nothing and I know that I need You, Lord, to confess my crimes before man. I trust You, You know my guilt, You can forgive me.

"My life is ever before you Jesus Christ. I put it all before you. Whether my life is one spent in grace and provision or grace and prison, I will love You, I will follow You. I will humbly seek You. Please be with me. Please draw near to me. Please forgive me. I am the least of men, I deserve nothing, but if you truly can forgive, I give everything to you. Please teach me what to do next."

Again, remember what I said "Something about having to desperately cling to Jesus Christ because of our state and situation makes a greater trainer that I could." Remember "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me". That is a verse that talks of God as a personal coach. God as one who strengthens. "He will teach you all things..." says Christ speaking of the Spirit of God which dwells in believers. If you have given your life to Christ, you have a road ahead of you that you will walk, if you have sinned sexually you will need His help. It is time to start obeying and leaning on this God whom you trust.

For those of you needing to contact the FBI in the United States, please contact the CyberTipline, which is the correct organization to contact within the FBI.

For those of you needing to contact the RCMP in Canada, please contact your local RCMP detachment to report a crime, which is the correct procedure for the RCMP.
Part Two:

What Do I Do?
Chapter 7: The Firepit

I have spent no trivial amount of time deciding whether I should include this chapter. Here I will look at some of the methods I have used to battle the physicality of pornography. It will be a short section. It is really secondary to the rest of the book. This chapter is here to help you set boundaries and make decisions in light of following Christ. If you try and employ these tactics without Christ, you may very well walk away from porn. That said, I believe it will be a Pyrrhic victory. You will understand why, having read to this chapter..

That said, if you are not merely remodeling your moral kitchen, but seeking new life in Christ, I believe these tips are some simple methods to aid you in your battle against the very real biological nature of sexual addiction.

First off, your brain is a mess. Portraits of a drug user's brain reveal synapse activity widely different than normal. Users of crystal meth actually have entire sections of their brain that will become unused after repeated drug use. With repeated use the pleasure center may be eroded completely, making it impossible for a meth user to feel pleasure. Oddly, this sounds similar to pornography use which causes a diminishing amount of pleasure for repeated similar activities. Meth users may find that their pleasure centers can heal, however their cognitive abilities may be irreparably damaged.

Now, keep in mind that dopamine is released in massive amounts when using meth. Similarly, during the use of pornography exaggerated levels of dopamine are also released. The important corollary is that pornography and meth both involve a substantial effect on your brain and its chemistry. So let's mess with our brains! The best advice I ever received from a friend was "rewire". His analogy was that my brain was a mountain with well-worn paths. I needed to begin to wear new paths, not fight on the ones that existed.

This advice is good medicine. If you have a computer at the office, where you always view porn, you need to make a substantial shift in your daily life, not merely approach your work computer in an attempt to reach some sort of mental compromise - "Hey computer, you don't show me any pop-up ads and I won't click any, ok? Please?". You need to get rid of the computer all together. Find a new job if possible or necessary.

This one is always a bit controversial, but, feel free to break stuff. I got to the point where if I used a computer to surf for porn, I would break that computer. Just as we are to "chop off the arm" that causes us to sin, I would chop of that electronic gadget. Hey it's better than going to hell and missing Christ! It got to the point that I had broken a 42 inch television, scores of computers, laptops, handheld devices and a phone or two. So porn was really costing me. Sticking to this bizarre rule allowed me to really see the cost of what I was doing. Secondly, the Bible says "Hate the clothes stained by sin" talking about our physical attire. Developing this hatred of the devices I used to surf porn was biblical and illustrative of some of the more minor costs of this behavior. Charge yourself $1000 each time you sin. You'll quickly realize your heart is not with your sin.

If you have a computer at home, get rid of it. I was surprised how peaceful and normal my life was without a computer at home. In fact I spent 6 years without internet at home. Today I am free of porn and have had internet at home with no temptation, desire or motive to search porn. But, it took years to get to that point. If your cell phone is a pathway to porn, get rid of it, buy a simple candy-bar feature phone. Just don't compromise.

You will have to create all new pathways. When I would get "tempted" into porn, it would start with a banner add, or a news article that cared little about the exposure level of its subject. I would know exactly where to go now that my brain was humming. So I must either get rid of that stimulus (those news articles in this case) or I have to get rid of the opportunity to satisfy that urge (the path to porn that exists on the computer). Some people get accountability partners, some people turn their computer around so people can always see what they are doing and still others get rid of the computer. This is all rewiring, all wearing new paths on the mental mountain. The habit should always become disclosure, not privacy. The habit becomes enjoying time offline, not always being plugged in.

One of the important things to do is develop an emergency out. My emergency out is two things: 1) food, 2) aggregate websites. The first sounds weird. Simply put, the body in a state of pornographic arousal or pre-pornographic arousal is entirely fleshly. It is perhaps not the best trade, but while my body is screaming for stimulus, I have found that going to the office kitchen, or shop down the street to enjoy a beverage or piece of chocolate or whatever, is a powerful remedy. My body produces dopamine when I eat - and so does yours - so essentially I am fighting dopamine with dopamine. My second ally is aggregate sites. I have found a few websites that I enjoy - presurfer.com, darkroastedblend.com, notcot.org - with heaps of pictures, almost never any images of women in undress, these are the perfect sites. I have rewired my brain to respond with a mouse click to these websites instead of a mouse click to another website. These websites are full of graphics and enjoyable information and create a similar dopamine response, as I am engaged in this form of benign entertainment.

Now moderation is the key. Try not to rely on the emergency methods too much, they are emergency methods after all. The dopamine affects you feel from these activities may leave you a fat loner who spends all his time browsing pictures of bizarre 1960s concept cars.

Ok, we have cut off entire avenues for porn to enter our lives, what next? You need people in your life. If you do not have people who you trust, a pastor, a father, etc, then you will probably lose this fight. I am not saying you will lose this fight, but you will make it exponentially harder. The whole problem with pornography is that it is easy. Make it hard. I got to the point when battling pornography where it was easier to not look at an image than it was to later go to my pastor, mentor, etc. This is what you want. While porn is always available, it becomes infinitely more inaccessible when every time you view it you know that you will have to talk to your dad about it. This is embarrassing but necessary.

Now remember, this is someone your trust. If the person who you talk to is neither concerned nor trustworthy, please find someone else. Often this is referred to as accountability. Accountability is not about psychological therapy. The person you speak with and share with will probably encourage you, brush the dust off and send you on your way, but that is not the purpose. The purpose is merely to reflect this verse from the gospel of Luke "For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open". You see, porn exists today in the form it does because of its anonymity. But this is not the truth behind porn. We have already heard of women who entered pornography and were found out by fathers or brothers who were viewing websites. I will vouch for the fact that, you will get caught. No one who has a porn addiction stays anonymous, it always comes to the surface. Accountability is acknowledging this fact and utilizing it to fight against porn. It is understanding the difference between being ashamed of what you have done versus being ashamed that you merely got caught.

One final warning, make sure that your accountability partner is someone older or wise or in authority over you. You don't need to talk to your mate. He is your mate after all, not your priest or your mom or you boss. A friend might be a good person to go to initially, but the role of accountability partner really needs to be someone who is older and more responsible than you who has beaten or never experienced a battle with porn. This reality of speaking with someone in some form of authority makes the whole process more authentic, legitimate and beneficial. Friends often want to help but do not know how or are struggling with the same problem.

So we have rewiring (get rid of that internet), we have emergency tactics, we have accountability, what else do we need? Church. You need church. Really you need Christ, but where people that follow Christ and read His Word and live His Word are, is at church. The bible tells us not to give up meeting with other Christians, instead we meet each other and encourage one another. Primarily we are encouraged by the presence of God at any good church and the truth preached there. If your church doesn't read from the Bible, or just reads little portions of it without really living any of it, then you may need to find a new church.

If you can't at some stage walk into a church and feel uncomfortable, you are probably not at a good church. God is so much more than us. Walking into a bible believing church, should feel a little uncomfortable. Uncomfortable because all the people are more friendly than you are used to, uncomfortable because the pastor speaks of holiness and that bothers you a little, since you are not perfect. You see, Jesus Christ was sinless, I am sinful. Walking into a Bible believing church I feel my sinfulness, my inadequacy next to Christ. This does not mean that I do not go in. This, also, does not mean that I do not feel loved once inside. This just means that sometimes the dead parts of John that knew and enjoyed and love pornography or theft or myself or whatever, more than God, is scared and terrified to enter that building. I go in anyway, because I need what is in there more than I need these dead memories of sin. That is what you need.

Find a church that is hard to walk into - not a cult, make sure it is the Bible being preach - when you have a bad week, a bad month, a bad year, you need to hear someone tell you what is on God's heart - "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." "For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again..." You always need to hear that.

Finally, adopt this verse "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." You can't think about two things at once. Your affections can only be in one place. Focus on something else. Read your bible, understand it. Read of people who have made this bible the cornerstone of their life (Nate Saint, Nick Vujicic, Charles Colson, Jackie Robinson, Rabi Maharaj, Heidi Baker). Watch movies about God (Finger of God, End of the Spear, Courageous). Read what was written by great thinkers, speakers and evangelists (Winkie Prateny, Sye Ten Bruggencate, Charles Spurgeon, Alfred Edersheim). Even just look at flowers if you have to – enjoy Christ and creation. Basically fill up your mind with what is right.

I almost missed the above bit of information because it is so naturally the outflow of coming to Christ. But it is so essential. Eat up this new relationship with Christ. Hunger for who He is and what He says. Fill your mind. I call this brainwashing. You need to be brainwashed because, I'll be the first to point out, you have a dirty mind. Also, do not read this book again. If you have gotten this far and want to turn away from sexual sin, then enough is enough. Don't think about it, you know the problem now move on.

Now you should notice, at this point, that I am really jamming these tips in. These two are extremely important, but unfortunately I will not give them the coverage they deserve. First, remember the acronym "H.A.L.T." Satan attacks when we are weak, Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired. Do not let any of these conditions become an excuse for sin. Recognize when you are in any of these moods and address the problem any other way than with pornography. Finally, and perhaps one of the most important tips, stay busy. I forgot this tip, simple because I am now busy so often. David saw Bathsheba while he was looking into people's homes from his roof. However before this story is recorded in the Bible, it is stated that David remained home "at the time when kings go off to war" (1 Samuel 11:1). You see God had called David to do something - work. David stayed home and with too much time on his hands he used those hands (and his eyes) sinfully. Often we need to get about the business God wants us to do - our work, our job, our relationship, our volunteer jobs, our church responsibilities or merely our hobbies. Don't let too much downtime be your excuse for sin: get to work, get busy.

Condemnation is something we often bring upon ourselves. We hold onto our supposed guilt more than our beautiful Savior because we do not see how we could possibly be forgiven. Well you are. If you trust in Christ for your life and salvation it's done. Don't do it again with your own condemnation. To wallow in condemnation is simply to say "God, I can do this forgiveness thing better, I need to jump through a few more hoops first."

It is finished. Don't look back. I have looked back to write this book for you. I looked back because someone dear to me asked me for help and I could honestly say "I don't remember most of that life." I am done. I will turn forward again and not return to the guilt of my past. Christ has put it all behind me. If I had to walk a million miles, if I had to stand before an audience and have my name called in derision and accusation, I would gladly do so, but I would never take that guilt onto myself again because Christ has paid the price I so resolutely could not. I know my forgiveness. I walk in it every day. I see it in my wife's face. I see it in my young sisters smile. I see it in my soon to be born daughter. I know where I have been and I will not go back. Resolutely leave this past! ("The old has gone, the new is here!")

My pastor friend said once, "walk away." He was talking about porn. We often think that we have come so far. We sometimes think that we have downloaded too much, we have come too close to the goal of our sin. Also please remember, in this fight, at any moment you can walk away before that lonely climax. Always remember as a Christian, you can walk away. After the first image, the fifth, the fiftieth. Come to your senses and don't let condemnation win. Anytime you walk away from porn without reaching that physical climax, without putting your hand down your pants: it is a victory. It is a win. It is a decision against your hormones, your biology and your flesh - it is a decision for Christ. Don't ever think you can't make that decision, no matter how late in the process. Don't hold condemnation over your head. Paul in his letter to the Roman church reminds us "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

Remember, Jesus Christ will not leave you. This whole book is about getting you to see the ugliness of sin. It is my goal to elicit the underside of sex. I am not saying sex is bad. I am not saying the enjoyment we have in sex is bad (that is a whole other book). Remember that God created sex. I have seen so many portraits of half-naked women selling sex with the word "Sin" or "Guilt" or "Forbidden" written in edgy text meant to evoke rebellion. That is absurd. That woman was created by God. That beauty was created for God. That beauty was created for that woman's husband, should she have one. Satan or sin or man doesn't own sex. We don't have an evil baseball team with John Lennon, Joey Ramone and naked women on one side with choir boys, nuns and bible thumpers fielding on the other. God owns it all. His gift of sex is His. I am not speaking against that. Remember sex is right. Sex that is committed till death is right. These images are not. This book is about looking at yourself in the mirror after looking at these images. And once you have, the only Hope you have will not fail you. Be "...confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion." Let me finish the chapter with one last story.

An acquaintance of mine, used to work for the New Zealand Police Service as a Detective and Police Sargent. He tells a story of driving an unmarked vehicle in an area of town known for elevated levels of crime. A young man, maybe 25, sees and recognizes the detective as a member of law enforcement. The young man runs. The detective speeds after the young man in his vehicle. He jumps from the car and follows the young man on foot. The detective in his late thirties uses every ounce of energy to catch and tackle this man to the ground. The young man had consumed almost a kilometer of road, park and sidewalk behind him.

My detective friend asks "What have you done, why have you run?" I cannot even remember his response. A minor parole violation. Shoplifting. Unpaid infringement notice. The offense was not worth the time of a senior detective. My friend asked himself internally "Why am I here, almost forty chasing after this young man who would probably not even receive a reprimand if he was taken before a judge?"

The man breaks down in tears. He tells the officer, who he does not know is a Christian, that he prayed a prayer to Christ a week or two prior. The officer understands why he is there. The young man's confession is remarkable, unwarranted. And into the human drama my friend is able to tell this young man something of significance. This police sergeant who is an elder in a church, who turned his own life over to Christ years ago, who saw his entire family turn to Jesus Christ, he is able to say "Young man, this meeting isn't by chance. I am here to let you know that God has arranged this meeting. I believe I am here to tell you one thing and one thing only. Jesus Christ, didn't take that prayer lightly. While you may have, while you may not have thought much of it, here I am now telling you that Christ can and will save you." That detective continued to process that young man as necessary by his position and vocation. But the significance of that moment was not lost on either the young man or the detective.

Jesus always gets His man.

"God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?"

Chapter 8: The Fuel

Without this chapter, this entire book falls to pieces. It serves no purpose without these following words.

Writing this brief book was a somewhat daunting task. Looking back at my past, digging up the mire that encased my life before Christ, left a bad taste in my mouth. The things I've written about here are not things I long to relive, rehash, rehearse or even remember. They are soundly in the past.

Secondly, this chapter does not really belong in a section of a book named "What Do I Do?". This chapter is aptly described as what has been done for you. Notice the names of the last three chapters. The sixth chapter is entitled "The Flame": the hope of this chapter is to take what you know about sexual perversion and highlight in in the very real spotlight of God's law. "Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunks, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God."

By taking the obvious viewpoint of Jesus Christ, God Himself, we see the absolute dire position of our heart and soul. If you have understood half the content of this book, you will be crying out to a – hopefully – merciful God to forgive you and wipe away your sentence.

And indeed, Jesus will do just that. The following chapter was entitled, the Firepit. The firepit is merely something that holds the flame. This chapter illustrates various tips to employ when fighting the very real physical and practical battle that is sexual addictions recovery. It is merely a guidebook to building up that robust hearth. It is merely instructions to protect an already burning flame. These instructions by themselves will not create a flame. The will not sustain it. They will only aid the burn, given a robust flame.

And that is a percentage of your fight. The practical has been excessively established. It has been made clear that only through Christ's forgiveness can we hope to see that flame start – that flame of sexual purity, that flame of desiring God over aberrant fantasy, the flame of life over death.

And that brings us to this chapter: The Fuel. John Bunyan in his famous fictional work "The Pilgrim's Progress" tells the story of a Christian (who's name I believe was indeed Christian) who was spent, was exhausted was continually under siege and turmoil, yet continued to continue. His heart was steadfast, his passion resolute, in the face of insurmountable adversity. Why? He describes it as such: "While I was a flame about to burn out, quite outside of my endeavor and expectations came reprieve, sustenance and supply that I could not account for. While others would douse my flame, the Lord Himself would continually add fuel to my fire. (heavily paraphrased)"

We have done one thing up until this point: we have realized where we stand. If we were smart, we not only turned from our sin but turned to Christ – the only forgiveness for our sin. This chapter is about what God has done for us. It is only through this chapter that you will understand how and why you can fight this fight. If the previous two chapters where a portrait of your sword and armor, this chapter is the strength to use them. If you have indeed read this far and are saddened at what you felt you can not do, if you see nothing in you that can fight this fight: don't worry. Jesus Christ already fought this fight: and won.

The word iniquity in the Bible denotes an act of deliberate offense. It is representative of a significant moral collapse. The repeated occurrence of iniquity may be a sign of a very real moral failure.

A large building, bridge or small structure can collapse under external strain. Often this architectural failure can be traced backed to the foundations. Major bridges are examined daily to ensure that the foundation that holds them upright is indeed in order. Micro-cracks can become large structural defects and need repair almost immediately. The road surface above is of much less concern to the daily operation of a large bridge.

Similarly, for those of you with an interest in engineering, you will notice that the building of a structure's foundations can take almost as long as the construction of the edifice; that structures above ground appearance. It is a true engineering principle that no robust, timeless, significant structure has been realized without careful consideration to the foundations.

If you spend a week on the foundation of a skyscraper and a year on its edifice, you will probably have to tear down that structure (or it will collapse). If you build a bridge, you will need to do extensive ground work and piling, if you ever expect to carry traffic.

The same principle is true in life. Jesus famously said that those who do not hear His words are, in effect, building their lives on poor soil: bound for ruin and destruction. Also, in the parable of the four soils, we see that a successful life requires deep roots. This same sentiment is repeated in Psalms.

Moral failure is just like structural failure. Often it is the result of poor foundations. When I see a building that has sunk 14 inches on one side, I immediately consider the foundations. When I see a professed Christian who has sunk into sin – especially of a sexual nature – I think of his foundations.

I don't think a Christian can practice sin and be a Christian. But you know what, it doesn't matter what I think, because the Bible absolutely asserts that very sentiment "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'" (Matthew 7:22-23). So a "Christian" in this type of sin has something seriously, seriously wrong. So wrong, in fact, that if he practices this behavior, the Bible says he is not even a follower of Christ. So whether you are a Christian who's foundations are faulty, or if it turns out you are not even a Christian, then something is wrong with your foundations (or they haven't been built).

So what are these foundations? Why do they matter? They matter because if we can not even be a Christian while practicing sexual sin, then we must have missed the very heart of faith in Christ if we continue in this behavior without change. Fortunately for you and I, the author of Hebrews, mentions the foundations of a Christian's faith when he is exhorting the church onward to maturity ("Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instructions about [baptisms], and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment" Hebrews 6:1-3).

The first two of these foundations are "repentance from dead works" and "faith toward God". You will notice that chapter 6 is all about the first foundation. It's purpose was to enlighten your heart to the condition which has been created in it by sin and your absolute need to cling to Christ for hope. The alternative, of course is death and hell. Not to mention separation from God eternally. Well the next step is "faith toward God".

However, let's camp on the first foundation for a second. I have offended a holy God. I have offended a God Who is so perfect, that even if by some anomaly I was without sin (think angels) I would not be able to look at His face or form, such is His magnificence and awe. My state is infinitely worse as I have sinned. The right punishment for my offense against God alone is eternal confinement and suffering. I am a created being rejecting the creator. The One Who loved me; I spurn. The One Who made me, I deny His very existence. The One Who authored existence itself, was never a thought in my mind, nor a consideration in my actions as I took all that I saw for my own and thoroughly ignored God and others. To burn, my lot and future.

Into this comes Christ. This light that exposes my vileness, exposes the sin and error of my existence, to show me the perfection of God. In the face of His perfection I am lost, utterly lost. Nothing I can obtain, nothing I can warrant. But wait! This God has come for me. There is nothing I can afford to Christ. He knows this. He only asks for my life. My living sacrifice. To know Him, to know rescue, eternity with My Lord and Savior, anything would be a mere pittance, could I ever pay in full.

And this is just foundation one. With this I see that the possibility of offending God for five minutes of physical pleasure is absurd. Trade my relationship with Christ for a feel good minute? I think not. I wouldn't trade my wife or my sister or step-father for that same reward, why would I do that to someone infinitely more important? At this point, I ask whether you are aware of foundation two: "turn toward God."

If you don't know Christ as Lord (Boss) and Savior, than you can easily offend. If you don't actually know Christ, cling to Christ, than you can easily sin. Jesus Christ is not some forgiveness Genie. Rub rub rub and grant me forgiveness. The scriptures say that "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left" (Hebrews 10:26)

If you can still sin you probably have a problem with your relationship with God. Perhaps you don't know how much it cost for Christ to forgive you. Perhaps you miss how much Christ loved you, to save you and love you even while in your depraved sin (pornography to pedophilia to homosexual perversion). I know that cost that was paid for me. I was bought at a price. I know that absolute value of my salvation. How dare I trade it for some porn producers cold cash!?

What, if I know this? What if I already know how sinful I am? Then, again, we focus on the second foundation. Having turned away from sin we have turned to Christ. What does that mean?

It means no condemnation. It means that while I struggle with pornography, I hate it and know that God is fighting with me. I know that I can do all thing through Christ Who strengthens me. God will strengthen me. I know that God will never leave me nor forsake me. Having put all my hope in Christ, I know that He is the author and finisher of my faith. He will see me through. I know that through Christ I am a righteous man. And that though I may fall back to the sin of pornography, I am that righteous man Christ has made me and I will always get back up. I will never settle for sin or depravity. All His promises are yes and amen. What Christ says about me is true, not what my emotions or the world around me says. If Christ says I can run a mile, I run a mile. If Christ says I can graduate college, I graduate college. If Christ says I am a Royal Priesthood (basically pure and set apart) then I am.

And this is just one paragraph. For the longest time I had a verse on my wall reminding me how powerful the grace of God was (that it was not something to be wasted or dismissed) and it made me daily realize how much God Himself was investing in me as He continued to show me His powerful and effective grace. And now I stand free of porn.

This is turning to God. You need to. Before you beat porn, after you beat pornography addiction and for the rest of your life. It is your only hope. The bible exhorts new Christians to feed on the pure milk of the word of God. Basically baby Christians should eat up heaps of their Bible. If, in consideration of this illustration, you saw a baby who would not drink milk, you would be scared. That baby was either very sick or dead. Same with a Christian.

The bible is our record of God essentially. We see what He has created. We have testimonies of what He is doing in the world. We see or hear of miracles, but at the end of the day it all starts in that Bible. It is our record of God. God Himself warns us that the Bible is living and active. You know how I know this is true? I am yet to meet a non-Christian with a firm grasp of the Bible. I have debated PhDs in the bible who know less than someone who actually reads it.

Get in your Bible, that is how God speaks to you – through his living and active word. One pastor once said "You love Jesus as much as you love your Bible". That is a very true statement. Don't be that dead baby. Actually get some nourishment from your new Father in heaven. You need Him. And that is foundation two.

The remaining foundations are important. They speak of identifying with Christ's death. They speak of the active power of the Spirit of Christ. But for now we look only at these two. It should be blatantly obvious to you that you can not have these two foundations in your life and still run directly into sin. Jesus is dead (and alive again) because of you. You need Him daily.

Start with these two and the previous chapter follows: emergency steps, accountability, re-wiring your brain, whatever.

I so look forward to hearing the good report of how you have walked toward Christ. Ultimately, you will only walk away from sexual sin when you do. He has died for you. Go overcome the world, just like Him.
Chapter 9: The Pyrophobic: Skeptic

Why do we need this chapter? The last three chapters have been pretty clear illustrations of how to walk away from sexual sin. This chapter is here to expose the root of some of our sexual sin. The next three pages should serve as a solid foundation to this short discussion.

"I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes...For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a the righteousness that is by faith from first to last...The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of human beings who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

"For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles.

"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen.

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

"Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment?"

Did you catch all that? Romans 1:16-2:3. Sometimes we forget that the Bible was written across verse and chapter numbers. Reading a chunk like this can give us a perspective on what is written.

So what does this have to do with a fear of flames (Pyrophobia)? Well, some of you are like me. At some point in your life, atheism or skepticism became a default mode of thinking and operation. Now the real arrogance of someone who can say they know enough to rule out any possibility of God and specifically a Christian God truly beggars belief.

Recently I read a philosophical quip claiming that it is really only God or a madman that can claim to know all truth – and consequently have certainty over whether or not something does or does not absolutely exist. Consequently that is what Paul is saying in Romans. "[claiming] to be wise, they became fools." Not being God, the atheist (or skeptic as they are now called – I personally missed that moniker by about five years) assumes that they know all and are able to make absolute claims about God.

You may also come from this maddening viewpoint. Notice that scripture immediately ties a denial of God into sexual sin: "...they became fools and exchanged the glory of God for images made to look like mortal human beings...God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another."

I no all of zero atheists/skeptics/hard-agnostics who attempts to hide a love or involvement in pornography or sexual abnormality. Dost thou protest? The Bible calls any sexual involvement, with another member of the opposite sex, undertaken without commitment and ultimate selfless concern for that person as sin.

Growing up in North America in the eighties and more importantly in the nineties, we had some sense of normal sexual behavior versus our sexual practices. Pornography was not as well exposed and could be associated only with those dark corners of town where men and women dare not be seen.

Shockingly, less than a decade later, youth growing up in the shadow of anonymous and unmetered access to sexually explicit material, no longer understand these seemingly antiquated notions of sexuality. I have spoken with peers who find sexual restriction unbelievably antiquated. While five years prior, we would have despised sexual constraint, but at least we were aware of an opposing morality.

And that is the outcome of unlimited access to porn. Additionally, in light of this chapter, that is the outcome: pyrophobia. Living a life away from and separate from God we have had our senses dulled to what is a valid and normative sexual expression. Sex in marriage is staid and bland. A life lived in self-centered sexual conquests is truly noble. The God who designed sex – not that I may acknowledge Him – could not possibly have a grander plan for sexual purpose and fulfillment.

The above lies are what you may have to battle. And if that is the case, let me tell you this. God invented sex, He knows the safe, proper and most amazing way to fit it into your life. I don't know any sexually unfulfilled Christians. They are either fulfilled in marriage sexually, or they are more then content to serve God as sexually pure and abstinent singles. God didn't make sex the cornerstone of our existence, but recognize, that those who do often can not acknowledge God. As Paul says they "suppress the truth by their wickedness."

I have never met an atheist, skeptic, whatever (pick a name) who is not emotionally, morally, practically and spiritual at odds with God. Having met an atheist who could point to their ability to avoid all of the filth associated with disbelief, maybe then I could interpret atheism as more than a person running from a lawmaker and lawgiver. The atheist does not find God for the same reason a thief does not find a policeman – it is not in their interest. There is no morally, philosophically, emotionally neutral atheism.

A study taken at an American university found that the ratio of those who "hate God" versus those that do not was highest amongst atheists as opposed to any other group (agnostics, skeptics, nominal-Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, etc). Imagine that, people who assert that God does not even exist hate that God with a passion. I don't hate Santa – although I think it is a harmful fiction – I don't hate the easter bunny, the flying speghetti monster, pink unicorns, thor, zues, etc, etc, because none of them exists, no matter how vile or innocent I might perceive their fiction.

So the point is this. If you come from Atheism, Skepticism, Hard-Agnosticism or any other God denying ideology, worldview or religion, please understand that your systematic denial of Christ was never about ancient, recent or modern history. It was never about reason (which God created, however we will leave out presuppositional arguments for the sake of brevity), science, philosophy, culture, health emotion, digestion, weather patterns or whatever potential assailant your mind could concoct. The battle has always been against people who don't want to have anything to do with Christ.

The battle will always be against people who don't want to recognize that God came, in flesh, to earth to redeem His own creation as Jesus Christ. The battle will always be against those who don't want to recognized that Jesus Christ died at the order of a Roman prefect. Those that can't acknowledge that the Christ was buried in the tomb of a wealth Jewish leader. Those same people deny that Christ rose from the dead, despite written record, historical testimony and the assertion of many men and women who saw the event first hand and were willing to die for that truth.

The first century, the world and our own time are inextricably different because of the rift that the events of Jesus Christ tore through them. We can't look at men, who witnessed the very event (and therefore knew categorically that occurrence's validity or invalidity) and willing went to their grave – often horrifically – without reevaluating our own acceptance of Jesus Christ death and resurrection. Men can die for what is false – not knowing it to be false – but men will not repeatedly die for a lie, knowing how fallacious it is. Perhaps you can think of one counter example? No, actually you probably can't.

We can look at lives today, miracles today, that illustrate the veracity of Christ's Words, death and resurrection almost 2000 years ago. These modern miracles. These miraculously changed lives or circumstances or physicalities all at the hand of Christ.

I still remember, at the University of Auckland, we engaged some two to three hundred skeptics. The people that bore the name "Reason" and we continued to participate in events. We continued to provide proof for God. Debates, presentations, videos. Finally, enough was enough. We knew a man through our church who could perform – at the hands of God – something that was verifiable and consistently nothing short of a miracle.

This man was willing to come and speak to an audience of 300 people regarding the miraculous. Regarding the actual tangible, Biblically attested power of God. Remember, our least populated gathering of skeptics and Christians was probably 16 people. Our best was over three hundred – and was one of the campus' best attended student events. The average for a Christian/Skeptic event was closer to twenty or thirty.

This event, after flying in the speaker, arranging a block of his time at the university and processing university booking paperwork and additional offline advertising resulted in...wait for it...0 attendants. If there is one thing a skeptic is not, it is quite. This event was softer than a whisper.

Skeptics read books about God by people who don't want to have anything to do with God. Skeptics have arguments on topics that are too trivial to engage the sovereignty, reality or justice of God. Skeptics will decry the inequality of women in the workplace but but champion the ability of women to participate in, profit from, and consume a form of media – pornography – that has been shown to harm them individually and as an identifiable segment of the population. It is a bit like watching the Cannes Advertising Film Festival, there might be a few seemingly humanitarian causes wrapped up in those technicolor dreams, but at the end of the day, they are all selling a product.

The skeptic will argue about soft tissue in prehistoric fossils, the importance of electromagnetic radiation in gauging astral distances, the necessity of fetal consumption as a mechanism for tRNA cross-species propagation. The facts do not change. A student of this material can form any number of theories from the proposed data. However for skeptics, the need to extract the supernatural is a presuppositional foundation. "All that is scientific is all that is knowable". While that is an entirely unverifiable statement, it illustrates that skepticism as an idea is very much a belief.

Skepticism begins with a belief that our senses and reason are all that is valid, then one uses these sense and reasoning to validate the claim. If it strikes you that this is viciously circular, then, it is because it is. Now I am not saying that we can not observe phenomena and they will in fact not be reasonable and coherent. In point of fact that is the way God made them.

However the problem for the atheist or skeptic is that reason begins with their imbued – well – reason. Again circular. Can people have faults in their reasoning? Can they be unaware of their faulty reasoning? Could it be possible that you or I are one of those people who have faulty inaccurate reasoning and are unaware of it? If so – or if not – how can we validate such a claim? With our reasoning?

You see, the circle of argument is just that, circular. If my mind is merely the accumulation of chemical chance and selection, why should I have any "faith" in its ability to calculate, evaluate and postulate upon reason? Selection may create a conscious that is suited for survival, but it does not necessitate a conscience that is reasonable or logically valid.

Furthermore, what of logic and reason and mathematics. These are all cohesive phenomenon. They are entirely unaccounted for in a world without Supreme intelligence (i.e. God). If this were not the case, that their was a Supreme Intellect, then we could not – nor should – assume that logic, or reason or mathematics is valid. Not having a grasp of the entirety of knowledge ourselves, nor having any method to accumulate knowledge to a complete degree (can we or could we ever be omniscient) we can only assume that an argument exists – a reality exists – that invalidates math, reason and logic.

This is the real problem for the skeptic. Without complete knowledge, it is impossible to assert anything with certainty. As an example, if we assume that Einstein or the internet or some phenomenally intelligent being possess a mere 1% of all possible knowledge and truth – and lets say we collectively possess, oh I don't know, let's say 40% (I am being very very generous) – then there is still a vast majority of reality that could invalidate my claims (I.e that there is no God, that fetal transfer of tRNA is invalid, that the redshift is a poor estimation of astral distances). However, even if we were to possess 99.99% of knowledge (and brother and sister, we ain't even close to that) we would still need to acknowledge that a fraction of a percent of truth could invalidate the majority of our reasoning.

Now I am not saying that an atheist has never known anything. The point that is philosophically and logically self-evident is that to know anything at all you need to know everything – which none of us do – or know someone who knows everything.

The reason the atheist or the Christian or the Buddhist can know anything, is because God made the world cohesive (or in such a way as to trick us substantially – although He would be violating the law of non-contradiction). So without a God that knows everything, we can't know anything. This is why some of the greatest scientists pursued their craft in the light of faith.

This is what made Einstein say:

"...Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

Secondly, Noam Chomsky describes science as:

"Science talks about very simple things, and asks hard questions about them. As soon as things become too complex, science can't deal with them. The reason why physics can achieve such depth is that it restricts itself to extremely simple things, abstracted from the complexity of the world....Science studies what's at the edge of understanding, and what's at the edge of understanding is usually fairly simple. And it rarely reaches human affairs. Human affairs are way too complicated. "

So lets bake this cake. The ingredients? Skepticism starts with reasoning – my reasoning, your reasoning – which we have no reason to think won't be invalidated tomorrow (if God doesn't exist). It validates its reason and senses through observation gained visa vie its reason and senses: in other words it is a classic example of circular logic. And from this dough we see the formation of a product that can at best describe the simple fringes of functional reality. So how does this cake – which is full of goodies like statistical analysis, empirical methods, experimental conduct and other delicious treats – end up looking like "Origin Stories" and "Moral Prescriptions" (or lack there of). In short, how did atomic physics equate to sexual morality?

In short, it didn't. Just like the madman who thinks he knows everything, the skeptic has to add a lot of blind faith and self-deception to the mix in order to bake his desired cake. Now don't get me wrong, I love faith. I don't love blind faith. No one does. However faith is simply adhering to a set of truth beyond your current circumstances. I have faith in my next meal. I do not see it in front of me. I have not begun its preparation. I do no even know that the necessary ingredients are in the fridge, however, I have eaten for the last few weeks, and I will not let concerns of my diet persuade me to abandon my current task. I have a reasonable faith in my next meal occurring. I have similar reasonable faith in Christ, given what I have seen, read, tested, experienced and logically deduced.

However, the problem for the atheist is that – as demonstrated above – the argument for the absence of God is not that strong – especially not under the strongest pressure. Are there bizarre arguments that could be made and won concerning marginal, invalid, abnormal occurrences of supposed Christian faith? Of course. Again, that is the meat and potatoes of skepticism.

Peter Hitchens (Christopher Hitchens brother) wrote that:

"The difficulties of the anti-theists begin when they try to engage with anyone who does not agree with them, when their reaction is often a frustrated rage that the rest of us are so stupid. But what if that is not the problem? Their refusal to accept that others might be as intelligent as they, yet disagree, leads them into many snares."

Interestingly, Richard Dawkins (famous atheist), stated the following at a 2012 gathering in Washington D.C.:

"Mock them, ridicule them in public, don't fall for the convention that we're too polite to talk about religion. Religion is not off the table. Religion is not off limits."

While I appreciate Dawkins attempt to bring about a discussion of religion (and Dawkins has done that), you can see that the tone of his argument is not discourse, but dismissal.

Circular reasoning. Dismissal. Battle lines firmly drawn around a presupposed ideology. No logical foundation for discovery or truth. Then from this we mysteriously deduce our origin, our absence from creation, our flexible morals. This is the ultimate wish fulfillment.

To again quote the words of Aldous Huxley, author of a Brave New World:

"I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever."

Harsh? Yes, but skepticism is not an ideology that exists visa vie a robust relationship with its antithesis. Skepticism mocks, ridicules, jeers. There is no discourse between God and one who hate Him. The authority upon which offices such as the police could even exist is the moral Law giver that every thief, murderer, villain and self-righteous baddie runs from. Just as I couldn't hope to extinguish the sun, these skeptics could not hope to confound God. That is why they don't. That is why skepticism versus God will always be an argument about lesser spheres of understanding and influence. Wait for the great debate between Richard Dawkins and William Lane Craig (who I am not a huge fan of) or Daniel Dennet and some missional church leader like Rice Brooks or K.P. Yohannan. It won't happen.

So why is this decidedly bizarre chapter present in a book on pornography and sexual sin? Well as much as we wish our actions had little consequences, they do indeed produce very real fruit. Romans 1 and 2 illustrate how God hands people who deny Him over to sexual lusts. This has always been somewhat self evident to myself. I need to worship. Worship just means, "bow down to" for those Biblical Hebrew scholars out there. I am not big enough or important enough to find meaning or satisfaction in myself (funny that). So when I take my eyes off God, what do I set them on? Something He created – the next best thing – man or woman, in this case pornography.

Almost all atheists I know (although not all) were first Christians and then became involved in sexual sin. Whether before or after, it is of little concern. The point I want to make here is that, most of you, like me will be coming from an atheist or skeptic background. Not so much because you thought really long and hard about the metaphysical concerns associated with your ideology, but because it accommodates your perversion. To you I wanted to write the preceding chapter. Being stuck in a world of staunch atheism, the modus operandi of rejecting an argument before it can be made is all too familiar. To those individuals that are coming from this background, this chapter was written in the hopes of you shedding some of your preconceived baggage: faiths and beliefs.

I don't want you to go forward without the truth. Get in your Bible, read it. Read books like "God's Not Dead" by Rice Broocks (which I have used heavily to form the backbone of this chapter). Listen to debates by Sye Ten Burgencate and ultimately get in some debates yourself.

At the end of the day, skepticism is one of the most untested blind faiths in the world. I often think about people who hold insane ideologies and how they would fair in foreign cultures. Skepticism confronts confrontation with dismissal. Skepticism exists in affluent corners of the globe. Skepticism is rarely every professed to those from other beliefs and cultures because those involved have so little understanding of the core and consequence of what they belief. But while this single digit percentage point global ideology continues to attract adherents in first world nations, young men and women will continue to feel the consequences of that ideology.

For those young men and women: this chapter was for you. Please don't let truth accommodate preference. Go find actual fact. And for those struggling with sexual sin, I hope this chapter helps you to leave behind some of the ideological baggage that made pornography acceptable to you.
Chapter 10: Epilogue

I felt I needed to write this final closing. I misrepresent the truth If I don't clearly tell you where I am, not simply where I have been.

This book in its draft form replaced many of the pronouns "You" with "Me" or "I". I originally did this to let you know that I had been there. To let you know that what I put on the page was not simply a description of what could be or might might be, but once was a very present tense is.

It no longer is a present tense situation. I had falsely sold a current affiliation with the content of the book you have just read. I have been associated, but not anymore.

Part of having participated in formal debates as a Christian, included the opportunity to debate Muslims. At the University of Auckland we had many encounters with the Islamic society. The last formal discussion we had – Muslims asking Christians questions at an open mic – ended up focusing on one primary topic.

We, my Christian panelists and I, spoke of how we no longer looked at porn, how we no longer solely cared about ourselves. We did not drink to excess, we did not party in places that saw us needing to compromise any of our convictions. We stayed away from drugs and honored our parents. The Islamic response – from over 60 young Muslims – was unanimously "so do we, what is the difference?"

At the time, I didn't understand the importance of this question, but looking back on the exchange I see the stark contrast between the life of the one asking the question, and the life of the ones answering the question. To us as Christians the question was no different then discussions on the nature of the Trinity. Questions about shirk and Christ (how Muslims could think Christians could hold to that understanding of Christ is beyond me). This question appeared merely function, trivial, harmless But, this question was different. Really it was the culmination of a number of questions asking what we as Christians did.

But this is the important distinction. Christians didn't do. The reason the question was so benign to us was because our desire not to engage in excessive drinking, not to harm, not to spurn others was not a list of dos and don'ts. We did not do these things; because we had no desire to do them. The Muslim that saw us sharing our faith wondered how we had mustered the courage to do so. It was merely the result of who Christ made us.

The Muslim saw the list of does and don'ts as external. To the Muslim, prescriptions might be necessary, but they covered a heart that longed for other things. The desire was suppressed and the appearance was positive but the question remained "Why do you do this?" The Muslim externally did, but the multitude of questions related to morality illustrated that it was simply compliance that was at the core of Islam, not desire – not desire for God, not desire for right. To the Muslim the dismissal of Christ – in this case – had been a result of seeing an external list of necessary compliance and comparing it to their list of necessary deeds.

But we love what they must do. We loved to do what was culturally and necessarily acceptable (and I argue much more and often very different things). The young Muslim that looked at a self-prescribed list of to dos, seeing that we similarly held to some, missed the point. We didn't obtain God's favor through these actions. We didn't need to, Christ did everything on the Cross. The commands were not a burden. Christ had given us a new heart and only because of that could we proceed to willingly obey Christ. ("I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.")

I don't look at porn because I don't want to. Not because I can't or shouldn't. I genuinely do not want to. I saw a nude image while researching this book – it repulsed me, it did not entice me. Christ has not only redeemed my actions but my heart as well. A friend who used to work as a surgeon (and more interestingly as a paramedic on the autobahn) once told me the story of open heart surgery. It was a ten hour operation that left the surgeon and the patient exhausted. My new heart came and it was no minor affair. I will never go back.

Even at the beginning of my journey with Christ – when I really understood the grace of God – I noticed small wonders. The women around me became friends. I had a whole additional 50% of the earth's population to interact with. Women became mothers and wives and daughters and peers.

Today I have a wife. I never once thought of bringing pornography into our marriage and compounding that problem with another soul. When I met, befriended and to my surprise and her's asked her to marry me, porn was never an issue. We are now two months away from delivering our first child. If it is a girl, imagine that.

Would I trade my wife, my mother, my sister, the friends I have made, the lady that runs the cafe down the road, the college student that works at seven eleven, my kid sister, my niece, my cousin, my aunt for one minute of pleasure. Curse the thought!

My life is immeasurably better in Christ. Would I even contemplate offending the one person – God Himself – who cared for me, died for me and loves me to this day. The only one who truly deeply loves. No.

And that is John Boychuk. He was the pervert. Now he is the saint. I wrote this book for you. It was not some attempt at absolution. I see this book making my life more difficult not easier, by any imagination. However I wrote it for you: the person that may still live for and love this sin. I could not know the redemption and rescue that I have and not share it with you. I wrote this book, I wrote this book with the hope that you would know what I now know. That hope is only in Christ.

With much love - John
Selected Bibliography

"Biblical Foundations" (A.K.A The Purple Book) Rice Broocks & Steve Murrell (Not Free)

"God's Not Dead" Rice Broocks

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Jonathan Edwards

"NSFW" Documentary by Footnote

"Brittni's Story" Webisode for XXXChurch.com

"Stephanie Swift" Webisode for XXXChurch.com

"Diamond Dee Interview" Webisode for XXXChurch.com

"Effects of Prolonged Consumption of Pornography" Paper prepared for the Surgeon General's Workshop on Pornography and Public Health, Dolf Zillman

"Pornography, Sexual Callousness, and the Trivialization of Rape" Journal article for Journal of Communication, Dolf Zillmann & Jennings Bryant (Article Behind a Paywall)

"Porn-Again Christian" Free Ebook by Mark Driscoll available to Re:Lit

XXXChurch.com Website

SyRogers.com Website
