Porn is never private.
Last night I was driving in a van with a group of 10 Jr High boys, late at night from a skate session. It had been a really good evening. We were waiting at a stop light, when a young lady walked by our van in a bathing suit, and immediately, a few of the boys began to whistle, hoot, and yell out a variety of comments I pray I never hear from my sons. Now to some, if you heard the comments sitting around a table with friends, you might not think much about them. But if you were a young lady, crossing a street, alone late at night, hearing these come from a van of men you can’t see, I imagine it could be terrifying. You could feel like a victim. Trust me, our van immediately had a strong conversation.
My blood has cooled down over the last 12 hours since we had our moment, which has allowed my mind to function more effectively, and I have to say, what happened last night still bothers me…and has created a number of questions. Let me run them by you…
- Why do our boys think it is OK to objectify woman in this way?
- Where do they learn to objectify others like this?
- If this is how Jr High boys react in a faith-based environment, how do they act when they are simply with their peers, and how will they act 5 years from now?
- What would happen if alcohol was added to the mix?
- How would they feel if they were the young lady?
- Who is going to teach them 1 Thessalonians 4:4, about what it means to act with honour and holiness when it comes to sexual desires?
- Porn is never private.
It always results in the victimization of both the user and others…like creating a culture where young boys feel it’s OK to objectify young women, and young women are conditioned to think their victimization is just “boys being boys”. I’m not suggesting that the young men in our van were heavily engaged in pornography (though stats tell us that probably all of them had already been exposed), but I am saying that when culture’s sexual ethic is primarily informed by porn, it creates many more victims than we are normally aware of.
My prayer, is that we become people who have a high regard for the holiness of God, and a passion for the honour of others when it comes to our sexual desires.
Because the truth is, porn is never private.
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Sid Koop is Director and Founder of Truth Matters Ministries and is actively involved in youth ministry across Canada.