Has watching less porn made me less of a human?
I've noticed an interesting phrase that's popped up on the Internet which goes something to the effect of: "as any red-blooded American male would" usually referring to the acceptability of viewing porn. Also, I've noticed that after the increase in popularity of the Internet in the 90's, the commonly accepted age when a young boy discovers the freely accessable images of porn is about 12. Of course I fall right into this category, finding a wealth of interesting, fascinating, sometimes obscure pornography all through the magical Windows 95 machine. And of course I got caught; not much gets past two sharp Korean parents.
Because of porn's rise in popularity and widespread access, the topic became a regularly addressed issue at church and in youth groups. I can basically sum up most of these porn sermons as close to Baptist-esque fire and brimstone sermons, but with less death and more awkwardness. Coming from a Korean protestant family background, sex was never really discussed, despite my parents being relatively laid back Koreans. My lukewarm faith and teenage rebellion naturally shut my ears closed. But since I'm a guy who always takes things literally and at face value, eventually these words got to me. Is viewing unattainable sexual images really worth it? When it comes down to it, am I just having sex with myself? After quite a bit of self debate, and the deletion and re-downloading of many video files, I finally decided to stop this childish nonsense. And relative to how much I know normal guys view porn and to how much I used to, I'd say I'm doing damn good.
But something just doesn't feel right. I've noticed that standard in the Christian faith are hidden vices that everyone has; well I suppose this is true for practically all of us, but you'd think that Christians wouldn't have to put up any facade, right? It's like seeing a roomful of Christian paraphernalia only to find the computer's history filled with sex websites. It feels like there's something missing from my activities; hitting balls at the driving range, hanging out with friends, playing GBA, whatever, it just feels, well, almost lifeless.
I mean, I'm still an 18 year old, ripe in my sexual prime, so why should I deny myself of something that feels so natural? Maybe I'm just too young to make a mature decision on myself (versus 24-28), but what can I do? Just deny my prior enlightenment and make mistakes? Purposefully? Lots of youth pastors would bring special guest speakers from very different places and very different backgrounds. But I always found that the most intriguing, powerful, and influential testimonies came from people who had gone far down the wrong road, but ended up realizing their errors and changing themselves. It's easy to say that they are being foolishly hypocritical, but it's also easy to say that their turn around from sin gives you an excuse to sin yourself. Out of the 100 sheep, only one gets lost, and the Shepard will leave the 99 who are fine to search for the lost sheep. And once the sheep is found, all will celebrate. (Thanks to OldMiner for that scripture identification & location.) Maybe it's just not my place to be a lost sheep. Or maybe I'm just too stupidly young to make any real decisions.
Can the blind lead the blind? Am I less of a human and is that such a bad thing?