50 Shades of soft-core porn
My husband's "God story" is pretty amazing -- the kind of story that will bring a tear to your eyes. But, it's the kind of story that when you dig under the surface you see what an awful life he was living before someone introduced him to Jesus. Drugs, bad relationships, skirting the law, and pornography fill his backstory and make his testimony what it is -- a miracle. When we were dating and getting close to engagement, we had many yucky conversations filled with confessions of past choices. Each new revelation of his past life was awful and painful to hear about. I was jumping into marriage to someone whose pre-Jesus self was a pretty awful person.
Perhaps it is that yucky past that makes me feel so strongly about things that seek to entice him back to the dark side. We are careful in our house not to watch or read anything that even remotely looks like pornography. No Victoria's Secret catalogs, no Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, no Cosmopolitan magazine. We definitely don't do any movies with overt sex scenes or gratuitous nudity.
If I found out that my husband was looking at porn on his computer or buying porn magazines to peruse in leisure moments, well I would be disgusted and angry. I wouldn't want him lingering on those images or imagining those women in the place in his mind where only I should exist.
But, if I am going to hold him to that standard, then surely I should live up to the same standard in my own choices. I don't let my eyes linger on scantily clad men. I don't read books that make me long for sexual experiences outside my marriage. And, I don't watch movies where sex is graphically depicted. Those images don't need to live in my brain. My husband doesn't need competition in my mind's eye. I honor my husband by letting him be the star of all my sexual memories and fantasies. And that's how it should be.
This is why I'm so surprised by how many of my Christian friends (including those who are married) have read and raved about the book "50 Shades of Grey" -- and have eagerly anticipated the movie version of the book. I would be devastated if the tables were turned and my husband were reading books and watching movies that were soft-core porn, especially if he were raving about it on social media. That's why I have such a hard time understanding the openness to which "50 Shades" has been welcomed.
I don't want to be judgmental and it is certainly up to the Holy Spirit to do the convicting. However, Don't invite me to your book club if that's the title you're reading and don't invite me to the movies if that's what you plan to see. I'll be keeping my eyes and my mind focused on my hot husband, thank you very much.
Perhaps it is that yucky past that makes me feel so strongly about things that seek to entice him back to the dark side. We are careful in our house not to watch or read anything that even remotely looks like pornography. No Victoria's Secret catalogs, no Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, no Cosmopolitan magazine. We definitely don't do any movies with overt sex scenes or gratuitous nudity.
If I found out that my husband was looking at porn on his computer or buying porn magazines to peruse in leisure moments, well I would be disgusted and angry. I wouldn't want him lingering on those images or imagining those women in the place in his mind where only I should exist.
But, if I am going to hold him to that standard, then surely I should live up to the same standard in my own choices. I don't let my eyes linger on scantily clad men. I don't read books that make me long for sexual experiences outside my marriage. And, I don't watch movies where sex is graphically depicted. Those images don't need to live in my brain. My husband doesn't need competition in my mind's eye. I honor my husband by letting him be the star of all my sexual memories and fantasies. And that's how it should be.
This is why I'm so surprised by how many of my Christian friends (including those who are married) have read and raved about the book "50 Shades of Grey" -- and have eagerly anticipated the movie version of the book. I would be devastated if the tables were turned and my husband were reading books and watching movies that were soft-core porn, especially if he were raving about it on social media. That's why I have such a hard time understanding the openness to which "50 Shades" has been welcomed.
I don't want to be judgmental and it is certainly up to the Holy Spirit to do the convicting. However, Don't invite me to your book club if that's the title you're reading and don't invite me to the movies if that's what you plan to see. I'll be keeping my eyes and my mind focused on my hot husband, thank you very much.
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