Yes. Yes.

Dr. Seuss is *so right*. Although, I’d be surprised if he actually had erotica in mind when he said it. Although I read that Walt Disney used to be into bestiality back in the day, so…you never know.

Anyway, I make it no secret that there was once a time when porn and I used to spend a significant amount of time together. And while my initial introduction to it was actually *on screen*, there was a brief season when I would also read it online. However, in an odd way, I kinda looked at it from the *totally unhealthy* angle as it relates to something that I once read (in Time magazine) that C.S. Lewis had said as it related to *not* wanting The Chronicles of Narnia series to be made into films. When you read, *you* decide what the characters look and sound like; *you* set the stage to the author’s words. When we watch a movie, we are submitting ourselves to someone else’s imagination.

Therefore, whenever I would go to a sex stories site on the internet, I knew *exactly* what I was signing up for. Some slutty—er, smutty…um, erotica that was as corny as the porn on videos are. The “storylines” weren’t really the point. It was all about getting to the “plot of nastiness” and letting your imagnination run wild. *Literally*. (We are told to *cast down our imaginations in 2 Corinthians 10:5, right*? Just checking.)

And so when some of my “friends” tried to get me into reading authors that were best-sellers as it relates to erotica (Zhane comes to mind), for some reason—maybe because I am an author and I write for a living—I expected more than the “dank, dank, dank” in print that I would read online.

As a matter of fact, to this day, aside from the fact that erotica *definitely* is not in the line of Philippians 4:8 (whatsoever things are noble, pure, virtuous and praiseworthy…*think on these things*), I must admit that I haven’t read *one erotica book* that was impressive from the “gift of writing” standpoint. To me, it’s mostly like lots of crass words with a couple of prepositional phrases thrown in between so that it’s somewhat coherent.

THAT SAID…

While I haven’t been one of the millions (literally) of women who have read 50 Shades of Grey, it’s been emailed to me enough that I’ve checked out enough excerpts to know that it hasn’t changed my opinion about the “art of erotica” that, to me, is the equivalent of finger painting on posterboard and putting it up in a museum. Honestly, I still don’t get the hype. But whatever, a lot of women do and my point in writing this is not to explore how to be a good erotica writer, but to prove a point that people continue to want to debate:

EROTICA. *IS*. PORN.

And not just that, but usually a gateway into other kinds of porn and sexual activity.

This point was *totally proven* when a girlfriend of mine (who read all of the book and confirmed that it’s pretty low on the impressive bar) sent me an article about the book driving spikes in online porn searchings. How do “they” know? Well, a particular porn site decided to share with us their recent spike in statistics that they are directly connecting to the book since the author was once cited as a research tool for the site.

BDSM-related searches went up 67.65% worldwide from April to June 2012. The Country that saw the biggest increase was United Kingdom where searches grew by 145%, followed by United States at 86.4%. The Term “bondage” showed the biggest increase in the US with a 397% spike. In the UK, “sex slave” jumped 287%. And in Germany, the favorite was “slave”, up 52.6%.

On a global scale, “” has released these findings:

Worldwide increase %

Domination : 82.06%

Sex slave: 78.96%

Master: 71.91%

Sadism: 71.81%

Slave: 61.56%

Wax: 54.07%

BDSM: 54.04%

OK, and you caught it, right? It didn’t go up in that soft “Cinemax-like” stuff. People, mostly women, are checking out bondage, domination and sex slave porn online. Hmph. It definitely makes me think of one of the verses that I used to read a lot when I was trying to get my own mind (and body and spirit) free: “You were bought with a price. Do not be slaves among men.” (I Corinthians 7:23-NKJV) But, it also reinforces the point that lust cannot be satisfied (I John 3:8). These women read some corny porn and now they are wanting to see it. Only it’s on a far grander scale with people being *abused* in order to bring about sexual *arousal*. Getting that into a wife’s psyche (Proverbs 23:7) is *definitely* not about owing “due affection” (*affection*) as the Word speaks of (I Corinthians 7:3) to their husband *or* encouraging the kind of sweet oneness (Genesis 2:24-25) that a single woman should look forward to while in the marriage bed (Hebrews 13:4) someday.

THE TRUTH ABOUT SEX IS THAT IT’S TO BE A * SPIRITUALLY FREEING* EXPERIENCE. NOT ONE THAT LEAVES YOU BOUND UP. *LITERALLY*.

Boy, that Satan is a slick one. There are so many ways to “steal, kill and destroy”. (John 10:10)

Either way, in processing all of this, the famous Bill Clinton quote about weed comes to mind and take it from me, even with reading, you don’t have to *inhale* to get a *contact high*.

Proceed in life with caution. Even when it comes to what you read. *Literally*.