Non-Degrading PornFairly recently, I found myself having an interesting conversation with a young man in his 20’s. Initially he was trying to “holla at me” but again…he’s a young man in his 20’s. I’ll be 40 in June. Um, no thanks (LOL). Yet as I diverted his attention away from asking me for a date to simply getting to know one another, it came up what I did for a living.

When I got to the part about writing and speaking for X3 Church, he immediately was fascinated. It wasn’t long before he shared with me the fact that he engaged in porn, on occasion. But he made sure to let me know that it wasn’t the “degrading kind”.

Initially, I rolled my eyes. On purpose. To see how he’d react.

“So what?” he asked. “Are you actually saying to me that you don’t believe that some porn is worse than others?”

I paused for a moment. To some of you, that question might seem black-and-white but I wanted to make sure that I gave as accurate of a response as possible. “I definitely think that some porn is more disturbing than others but all of it is degrading.”

“Really? Why would you say that? I mean, I certainly don’t watch the kind that is disrespectful.”

*Pause*. You know, it’s always fascinating to me that people can justify watching porn but boy, let their mama, sister, girlfriend or wife be the one on the camera and I’ll be curious to see now “non-disrespectful” it is then.

“What kind of porn is respectful?” I asked. “At the end of the day, you’re having sex on camera for money. And people are using some of the most intimate parts of you for their own sexual release. To me, that is degrading.”

He pushed. “I mean, I don’t watch the kind where people are spitting on each other or calling each other names. I don’t watch the kind that has multiple people in it. I would never do that.”

And on some levels, I get his point. I believe it was some time last year that I penned a blog on the fact that some of the things people could get arrested (or at least a beat down) for “in real life” seems to “get a pass” in porn. I don’t know about you but let someone spit on me at the mall and “turning the other cheek” is going to take some doing. Yet in porn, it’s sexy? No. It’s not.

But even when it’s just a man and a woman and it’s a faux “love” scene I always remember that when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, and before sin, they were naked and not ashamed. Yet it was after sin that they noticed they were even naked in the first place.

My point? The minute that sex loses intimacy and discretion IS the moment it becomes degrading. Sex between a husband and wife is nothing for them to be ashamed of. It’s a gift. However, the details of what goes on between them is no one’s business but theirs. It’s certainly nothing for us to gawk at or masturbate to. It’s beautiful. It’s not for our amusement. Or release.

And that is one of the main reasons why porn, any kind of porn, is degrading. It makes a mockery of something that, in God’s design and intention, was supposed to be sacred and special and private.

Telling yourself anything other than that doesn’t make it true.

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. It’s also in the minds of many who watch porn, and attempt to justify it, every single day.