Sex vs Intimacy
Porn is a very different addiction than any other addiction. If someone quits alcohol, tobacco or drugs they are trying to quit for a life time. But when a Christian quits a porn addiction it is to shift the sexual thoughts to only their spouse. But when a Christian single quits a porn addiction they are to have no sexual release until they are married.
Recognizing this it is very easy for a Christian councilor to try to get the single to focus on all the sex they can have when they are married. This is stupid for so many reasons.
First of all when you talk about sex, or how much your single will have sex when they are married, their mind is going to go back to porn. How can it not? If you read my story you will find that I was constantly struggling with my thought life as my mind tried to process all the filth I had put there over the years. This mental struggle peaked at week 7, but even at 294 days I still struggle with it.
Second, you don’t know if your single will ever get married. This loss of sexual release may last their entire life time. If you continually point out how much sex they will have some day, how does that make their life easier?
Third and this is huge, you are selling something you have no idea about. You have no idea who your single will marry, nor the circumstances they will be in when they get married. Distance, disease and depression can easily keep your single from having lots of sex once married. How many young married couples don’t have a lot of sex because one of them is deployed, or their jobs keep them apart? If you go to https://unveiledwife.com/ (I highly recommend married counselors to visit the site, but would discouraged any single from doing so) you will find the story of a young couple who couldn’t consummate their marriage for 3 and a half years because the wife did not know she was allergic to her face cream. 1 in 5 women have been sexually abused as children, and that effects how much sex that couple will have. To tell young men to not look at porn and God will give them lots of sex in their marriage, or so they can have lots of sex in their marriage is wrong.
Whether its intentional or not the Christian community tells the young men they will have lots of sex in their marriage but the truth is the Christian community has no idea of the circumstances these young men and women are going to in their marriage and they should not be suggesting that.
Recently my pastor told me an amazing story. He told me about the day after his marriage, the first day of his honeymoon he woke up and realized what he had done. He had gotten married, and now if his wife wrecked his car he would have to pay for it because it was now their car. He began to realize the amazing responsibility he just took on by saying “I do”. He all of a sudden wanted to take everything back, but he couldn’t. He told me his wife could tell something was wrong the entire honey moon, and eventually he told her what it was.
Let me tell you what is so amazing about that story, it is the first time in my life I have heard anybody, saved, lost, man, woman, married, unmarried, anybody talk about the honeymoon without talking about sex. This is the first time I have ever heard someone talk about the honeymoon where they said what they felt. This story told me about his intellectual, emotional, and spiritual side. No porn can show intimacy, so for the first time in my life when someone told me about the honeymoon I did not imagine sex, I imagined intimacy.
When you talk about great sex or lots of sex with me, my mind goes back to porn because that’s all I know about sex. If God blesses me with a wife until I consummate my marriage my imagination on sex will be porn. That is what all the virgins and a ton of the singles who are addicted to porn have to deal with. So any discussion on intimacy is a treasure to me because during those moments I can not imagine porn.
One of the things I have had to come to terms with is that I may never get married. But I am not quitting porn so that I can get married, or have sex, or have great sex, or have lots of sex. I am quitting porn because I have recognized for years and years that it is the worst thing in my life by far. It is depressing, it is desperate, it is shameful, and I hate it. Any single who comes to you for counseling on this issue is going to feel the same hate for this addiction. They are not going to be looking for lots of sex, or great sex, but the death of this monster in their life.
One of the things I have had to come to terms with is that if I get married I may be in a situation where I do not get as much sex as I think I need, or distance keeps me from having sex for long periods of time, or my wife may get sick which stops the physical intimacy, or she may come into marriage with so much baggage there is a wall when it comes to sex. I may marry a woman who is like the woman from https://unveiledwife.com/ and I will not get a chance to consummate my marriage for a long period of time or ever. Any of these things may be reality. But yet God has still called me to love my wife like Christ loved the church despite anything to do with sex. And that is no excuse to go back to porn once married.
Honestly this thought scares me, but God in this thought is teaching me what intimacy is.
At this point I have tried to talk to my councilor about this subject but he has trouble talking about this subject without going into what I would consider details about sex which brings my mind back to porn.
I bring this up because it is easy to imply to the unmarried that in marriage we are going to have so much sex. I bring this up because I have heard different men say that if you get married as a virgin you will have great sex. I bring this up because in all my years of listening to men talk to the unmarried about purity and marriage I have never heard a single one of them ask if I would still love my wife if immediately after marriage I found out we could not have sex.
You are a Christian young man, you save yourself for marriage, you get married and for whatever reason you cannot have sex with her. How do you love her through that disappointment?
The world asks this question. It asks how do you know if you are sexually compatible if you do not have sex before you are married? The worlds answer is to have sex before marriage, the worlds answer is to look at porn. The world delights in asking this question.
You know what my fear is. My fear is that I will go back to this monster called porn. Maybe I will mess up as a single as I wait for marriage. Maybe I will get married and due to lack of sex be drawn to porn. Maybe I will get married and sex itself will draw me back to porn. But I suspect that sex is only 1/8 of intimacy at most. And I think if my focus is on intimacy, and understanding how to be intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually intimate, all those things will make porn disgusting in my eyes.
See if you ask the question you save yourself for marriage and get married and find out for whatever reason (physical, emotional whatever) you cannot consummate the marriage how would you love your wife? Intimacy can be the only answer.
In the church there are a lot of young people struggling with porn who are virgins and singles living in abstinence who can better understand the not having sex thing than you (assuming your married). Whose focus needs to be on intimacy. Please make intimacy the focus of your counseling.
Recognizing this it is very easy for a Christian councilor to try to get the single to focus on all the sex they can have when they are married. This is stupid for so many reasons.
First of all when you talk about sex, or how much your single will have sex when they are married, their mind is going to go back to porn. How can it not? If you read my story you will find that I was constantly struggling with my thought life as my mind tried to process all the filth I had put there over the years. This mental struggle peaked at week 7, but even at 294 days I still struggle with it.
Second, you don’t know if your single will ever get married. This loss of sexual release may last their entire life time. If you continually point out how much sex they will have some day, how does that make their life easier?
Third and this is huge, you are selling something you have no idea about. You have no idea who your single will marry, nor the circumstances they will be in when they get married. Distance, disease and depression can easily keep your single from having lots of sex once married. How many young married couples don’t have a lot of sex because one of them is deployed, or their jobs keep them apart? If you go to https://unveiledwife.com/ (I highly recommend married counselors to visit the site, but would discouraged any single from doing so) you will find the story of a young couple who couldn’t consummate their marriage for 3 and a half years because the wife did not know she was allergic to her face cream. 1 in 5 women have been sexually abused as children, and that effects how much sex that couple will have. To tell young men to not look at porn and God will give them lots of sex in their marriage, or so they can have lots of sex in their marriage is wrong.
Whether its intentional or not the Christian community tells the young men they will have lots of sex in their marriage but the truth is the Christian community has no idea of the circumstances these young men and women are going to in their marriage and they should not be suggesting that.
Recently my pastor told me an amazing story. He told me about the day after his marriage, the first day of his honeymoon he woke up and realized what he had done. He had gotten married, and now if his wife wrecked his car he would have to pay for it because it was now their car. He began to realize the amazing responsibility he just took on by saying “I do”. He all of a sudden wanted to take everything back, but he couldn’t. He told me his wife could tell something was wrong the entire honey moon, and eventually he told her what it was.
Let me tell you what is so amazing about that story, it is the first time in my life I have heard anybody, saved, lost, man, woman, married, unmarried, anybody talk about the honeymoon without talking about sex. This is the first time I have ever heard someone talk about the honeymoon where they said what they felt. This story told me about his intellectual, emotional, and spiritual side. No porn can show intimacy, so for the first time in my life when someone told me about the honeymoon I did not imagine sex, I imagined intimacy.
When you talk about great sex or lots of sex with me, my mind goes back to porn because that’s all I know about sex. If God blesses me with a wife until I consummate my marriage my imagination on sex will be porn. That is what all the virgins and a ton of the singles who are addicted to porn have to deal with. So any discussion on intimacy is a treasure to me because during those moments I can not imagine porn.
One of the things I have had to come to terms with is that I may never get married. But I am not quitting porn so that I can get married, or have sex, or have great sex, or have lots of sex. I am quitting porn because I have recognized for years and years that it is the worst thing in my life by far. It is depressing, it is desperate, it is shameful, and I hate it. Any single who comes to you for counseling on this issue is going to feel the same hate for this addiction. They are not going to be looking for lots of sex, or great sex, but the death of this monster in their life.
One of the things I have had to come to terms with is that if I get married I may be in a situation where I do not get as much sex as I think I need, or distance keeps me from having sex for long periods of time, or my wife may get sick which stops the physical intimacy, or she may come into marriage with so much baggage there is a wall when it comes to sex. I may marry a woman who is like the woman from https://unveiledwife.com/ and I will not get a chance to consummate my marriage for a long period of time or ever. Any of these things may be reality. But yet God has still called me to love my wife like Christ loved the church despite anything to do with sex. And that is no excuse to go back to porn once married.
Honestly this thought scares me, but God in this thought is teaching me what intimacy is.
At this point I have tried to talk to my councilor about this subject but he has trouble talking about this subject without going into what I would consider details about sex which brings my mind back to porn.
I bring this up because it is easy to imply to the unmarried that in marriage we are going to have so much sex. I bring this up because I have heard different men say that if you get married as a virgin you will have great sex. I bring this up because in all my years of listening to men talk to the unmarried about purity and marriage I have never heard a single one of them ask if I would still love my wife if immediately after marriage I found out we could not have sex.
You are a Christian young man, you save yourself for marriage, you get married and for whatever reason you cannot have sex with her. How do you love her through that disappointment?
The world asks this question. It asks how do you know if you are sexually compatible if you do not have sex before you are married? The worlds answer is to have sex before marriage, the worlds answer is to look at porn. The world delights in asking this question.
You know what my fear is. My fear is that I will go back to this monster called porn. Maybe I will mess up as a single as I wait for marriage. Maybe I will get married and due to lack of sex be drawn to porn. Maybe I will get married and sex itself will draw me back to porn. But I suspect that sex is only 1/8 of intimacy at most. And I think if my focus is on intimacy, and understanding how to be intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually intimate, all those things will make porn disgusting in my eyes.
See if you ask the question you save yourself for marriage and get married and find out for whatever reason (physical, emotional whatever) you cannot consummate the marriage how would you love your wife? Intimacy can be the only answer.
In the church there are a lot of young people struggling with porn who are virgins and singles living in abstinence who can better understand the not having sex thing than you (assuming your married). Whose focus needs to be on intimacy. Please make intimacy the focus of your counseling.