Protecting Yourself Against Porn 

Want to know the secret to resisting the ever-present temptation of pornography? 

Here it is: be a man. 

I don’t mean this as glibly as it sounds. I mean it with all sincerity and it’s one of the best means I know of for protecting yourself against the temptation of pornography. Why? Because, as Peter the Apostle put it: "People are slaves to whatever has mastered them" (2 Peter 2:19). And a true man is not a slave to sin.

What I’m getting at is that you’ve got to work hard to establish your male-ness in a healthy way – without the cultural distortions of sexual promiscuity. Why? Because ultimately, pornography lures you into it’s clutches with enticements of women who are ready to be used in your fantasy. But pornography inevitably cheats you from being with your fantasy women and inexorably causes you to feel unmanly as a result. It’s a psychological reality. So don’t take the bait. 

Instead, stand strong and continually ask God to help you set your sights on being a man who walks tall, a man of character and confidence. 

Focus on qualities like bravery, strength of purpose, honesty, integrity, kindness, loyalty. Pray earnestly to be a man who embodies these attributes. Ask God to help you exercise manly control over your sexual impulses, not relying on the temporary fix of ejaculating over an image on a computer screen or magazine. Only men who lack these qualities do so in order to exert their feeble masculinity. 

A real man’s expression of his sexuality is to be respectful of himself and of his wife. “Mature sexuality is relational,” says psychiatrist, Louis McBurney, “not regressively self-focused. Men who feel good about their strength don't have to escape from reality.”

I’m not knocking practical things you can do like put an Internet filter on your computer that prevents easy access to porn. You should do that if needed. And I’m certainly not neglecting a support group of other men who can help keep you on the straight and narrow. I strongly encourage it and I participate in one myself. But I simply want to drive home the point that the most powerful stance you can take against being hooked by porn is to ask God to help you be man enough to resist it.