This post addresses the use of visual materials by Christians in certain contexts. Whilst it is well understood that there is much ill-advised use of pornographic materials by Christians, the use of visual materials in particular contexts when properly managed is not in itself harmful. Pornographic addiction is a serious challenge to the Christian faith as it acts as a major cause of people turning away from and abandoning their faith (apostasy) due to the spiritual incompatibility caused by sexual idolatry, and affects both males and females, although the issue is much more prevalent among males. The issue then is both to have sources of visual material that is not pornographic, and to have the use of it managed to prevent sexual addiction or sexual idolatry occurring from its use.
In our discussions to date we have addressed in just one or two articles what we believe to be the possibility of the beneficial use of visual materials by adolescent singles for the purposes of sexual development. For either males or females, this would essentially be access to photos of the opposite gender as a basic form of sex education. This is especially relevant for males who have a strong primary visual arousal form of sex drive (whereas sex drive in females whilst it can be aroused by visual means can also depend on numerous other factors). Most adolescent males fairly quickly discover the onset of a strong physical interest in females resulting in the desire to use some form of visual imagery in private masturbation sessions; provided that no addiction or idolatry occurs as a result of such activities nor exposure to material that depicts activities that denigrate Christian beliefs on sexuality, such use is a healthy part of sexual development for adolescent or older singles, assuming the expectations for sexual development outlined in other Key Principles articles are achieved.
Part of the management of the use of visual imagery is that strenuous efforts are made to ensure that it meets reasonable expectations in terms of respecting the particular views of Christians of human sexuality. We consider that the most useful type of visual material for widespread universal use among single Christians would at a minimum require the subjects to be clothed in at least underwear, swimwear or nightwear. This would be the minimum standard in particular for those who have recently entered adolescence until such a time as they are able to demonstrate that they have mastered the necessary level of sexual discipline to be allowed access to less modest materials, including those that depict masturbation or full intercourse at complete nudity. Even then, such materials should still demonstrate sexuality that accords to Christian norms. For singles whether adolescent or adult, any visual materials used must not depict anyone that is personally known to the user. In other words any people portrayed in such materials must be complete strangers to the persons making use of such materials. The main problem for use of visual materials is finding suitable sources of materials that meet all the reasonable expectations given that there are as far as is known no such websites in the world which are producing materials specifically targeted at Christian sexual development / sex education. At the same time, parents must take all reasonable steps to protect children or adolescents from unrestricted access to pornographic materials; this means by the use of web filtering on Internet feeds such as with parental control systems.
The use of visual materials in any form by non-single Christians is much more limited. For husbands and wives in marriage, or for singles who are engaged to be married, any visual materials should be exclusively of each other. This is obviously different from the prohibition for singles on materials depicting anyone they personally know and reflects the very different nature of marital sexuality compared to that for singles. Whilst it is in theory possible for husbands or wives to follow the same principles as described for singles, to avoid sexual addiction / idolatry and use materials of people other than themselves, we can think of no useful context for this in any marital situation and therefore have concluded the likely negative impacts on the marriage from such practices do not make it desirable or worthwhile. Visual materials used by marital or engagement partners should respect each other’s personal dignity as well as upholding basic norms of healthy Christian sexuality, so it would not be unreasonable for example for either husband or wife to insist photos they share of each other either depict a reasonable minimum level of clothing, or if depicting any level of nudity are anonymised by cropping out or masking visually identifying features such as faces or eyes. Engaged singles should only share clothed pictures and leave nudity to be first revealed in the marital bed.
We have noted elsewhere that certain principles need to be followed with the use of visual materials, particularly by singles, to avoid sexual addiction to these materials from developing. Pornographic addiction, at its heart, is a sexual addiction to visual materials. All forms of addiction have the same core problem, that the excessive use of a substance of abuse, in this case sexually explicit visual materials, creates an uncontrollable desire for excessive usage resulting in various negative outcomes. This occurs because of overstimulation of pleasure receptors in the brain resulting in the need to use increasing amounts of the substance of abuse in order to reach the same levels of pleasure as previously. Pornographic addiction is a very serious problem for society as a whole that is largely being ignored or minimised by governments, authorities and the general populace in most secular countries, and even in New Zealand where a conservative political party attempted to introduce a policy in recent years addressing the harm caused by pornography they were rapidly pressured out of it by some of their supporters. The addiction factor is undoubtedly driving the constant increase in the production of pornographic materials worldwide accessible via the Internet and in particular the demand for the production of extremely abusive and harmful depictions of sexuality in such materials.
Key principles that should be followed by Christians in avoiding the perils of sexual addiction include:
- When using visual materials during masturbation, eye aversion is required at the onset of orgasm, this is due to the chemical reaction in the brain that causes visuals at that time to be remembered more strongly, rather similar in concept to a soul tie that occurs between two sexually intimate partners. Specifically the part of the body that is being viewed that requires eye aversion is the eyes of the person depicted.
- Staying strong in the 3-D principles throughout, as they are all important and must be practised daily to ensure the spiritual protection that these provide for Christians who are committed in their faith
- Practicing other standard principles for godly committed Christians such as active Bible reading, worship, prayer and attendance at a local church.
- Committing to avoiding the use of material that does not depict sexual activity that conforms to Christian norms or is dishonouring God.