Question:
To understand where I am coming from, I am a teenager. I was saved when I was 5 years old and have become stronger, I think, in the faith ever since. I have had one main concern, however. Is looking at pornography wrong? I have struggled with it for years, and I have become so addicted to it that I feel selfish to ask God for forgiveness.
The other question is whether or not masturbation is wrong from a biblical point of view.
I think pornography is wrong simply because the whole point of it is to create lust. I don’t know the reference but David sinned with Bathsheba because he saw Bathsheba bathing on the roof and the thoughts of lust clouded out his moral judgment. So, I believe it is bad to view porn simply and solely because it produces lust. If I am wrong in this, is there another reason for viewing porn? Please let me know. I need to know how to break this addiction. It has grown since I was eight, and I still remember the first video I watched.
Answer:
Your questions are common ones.
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God” (I Thessalonians 4:3-5).
Let’s pull this apart to understand it better. God wants you to be set apart for a special purpose (sanctified). You cannot be engaged in sex outside of marriage (fornication or sexual immorality) because that is using your body to commit sin and you are no longer special. Therefore you need to know how to control (possess) your body (vessel) so it can be used for honorable purposes. However, you won’t be able to keep your body under control if you stoke the fires of sexual desire with lustful images. I’m sure you have noticed that when you are aroused, you don’t think all that clearly. You impulsively do things that you know you should, but you can’t seem to control yourself at the moment. Worldly people really don’t care that this happens, but Christians are to be different from the world. God wants us to be holy and set apart for His purposes. For more details, see
Many men connect masturbation and pornography because they masturbate while watching pornography. However, masturbation is actually a separate issue. See Is masturbation sinful or not?
At this point, I assume you have read the three linked articles, so now we can address the real question: How do you stop looking at pornography? You can’t stop ejaculating. Your body will fight you since it needs to release semen. Because of your long habit, when you can’t take it anymore, you will find yourself gravitating to pornography and the next thing you know, your pants are off and you are ejaculating. I’m a bit pragmatic. Since masturbation is not wrong in and of itself, I tell guys to allow themselves to masturbate whenever the urge is strong. Once you ejaculate, you’ll temporarily lose interest in sexual things, so you will be able to retain control over your body.
It is true that initially, memories of the porn you watched will be going through your head when you masturbate. While I would like you to fight against them, understand that this will take a while to conquer. The biggest first step is to break your habit of looking at porn every time you are stressed or when you are sexually wound up. Once you can conquer that, then you can start working on distracting yourself from thinking of pornography while you are masturbating.