This is going to be one of those posts where I'm not sure where it's going to end up, I just want to share my thoughts.
Background:
1- Once in awhile I start to doubt whether what is happening in my life is a big deal. Is pornography really bad, or just bad because I've been raised to believe that? Is it really a big deal if Pete looks at pornography "once in awhile?" I've been reading Josh Weed's blog, which is great and everything, but I've also been reading the comments, and they are destroying me! There are so many lies out there, but when someone says a lie with confidence, or eloquence, I start to believe it.
2- Pete is in the midst of another hard time. A slip here and there. This morning he called me, it was a bad night. Hours of white-knuckling, anguish, compulsion, remorse, frustration, discouragement, lonliness. He is currently out of town, and as an interesting side note: he always locks the tv remote in the hotel room safe. So when he got up in the middle of the night, desperate for a fix, all he could access by flipping channels manually on the tv was boxing on HBO. As we all know, the addict will find a way when the addict's irrrational brain takes over. But it likely would have been worse if he hadn't taken those precuations.
Anyway-
I got to thinking after my conversation with him. I stripped it down to the following idea.
Pete's body wants him to do something his brain doesn't want to do. Take away the reasons his brain doesn't want to do it (he doesn't want to hurt me, his church tells him it's wrong, he feels guilty afterward). Just take away all those reasons and simply say "He doesn't want to do it." But his body wants it, his neurons are firing a thousand times a second and those impulses are manifested for him in nausea, shakiness, insomnia. It's a physiological craving he has no control over.
Who wants to live that way? That is addiction at it's finest, right? Who wants to have a behavior that despite every intellectual effort to ignore, feels unstoppable. It is truly a loss of control. And in my mind, with regard to my body, I want control.
It's not okay, because of all the reasons I mentioned above, that it hurts me, it IS wrong, and it is harmful to the souls of those who participate on both sides of the screen.
But even when I have my doubts, I can fundamentally know, that there is nothing I want in my life, and I'll speak for Pete here, there is nothing he wants in HIS life, that keeps us from living the way we want to live. I guess that's what they mean when they say our lives become unmanagable. Our compulsive behaviors keep us from living a fulfilling and meaningful life, as manifested by Pete's total lack of sleep last night, and the exhausting day he faces today.
I think anything that we wish to stop doing, and find ourselves physically unable to do so, is contrary to God's plan for us.
But that's just Jane ruminating.
I get there too. When I get so tired of "dealing with this" I'll dabble in the "maybe it isn't a big deal" logic for awhile. But it's a no brainer, those people telling that some porn now and then is normal and well and dandy are lying. It sounds so new age and modern to openly embrace our sexuality, etc. But I really wonder, what if it was their spouse? Would they still be accepting? Walk in my shoes for awhile and then we'll talk.
ReplyDeleteI love the ruminating. I ask my husband every other month if pornography is REALLY something he doesn't want in his life. Sometimes I wonder if we've just been taught to not want it, but that he really does deep down. But he says he doesn't. He swears he doesn't. Addiction is so ugly.
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I have had this discussion about porn -- I said that basically, if there wasn't a God, no predetermined morals or values, it'd still be wrong -- 'cause it warps intimacy and damages anyone who comes in contact with it. It's just nasty stuff, whether it be morally wrong or not. The women who do it are treated horribly, it adds to sex trafficking, and it teaches the youngest among us degrading ways to view one another. It's just bad, all the way around. There's other ways to get turned on, I don't buy that it's worth anything.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Jane!