Feminine Christian Sexuality: Recovery From Porn Addiction

This is a new area for us to talk about on this blog. We have some experience in pornography addiction recovery, but in a different way from what most resources we have seen elsewhere describe. If you’ve read the other materials on this blog you’ll be familiar with our focus on the physical aspects of sexuality, and questioning traditional teachings in this respect. We aren’t theologians. but we believe that most of what we have comes from conservative church theology, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, and over time was adapted into a distinct branch of Protestant theology called complementarianism. This essentially denies that women are entitled to be called to ministries in the church or leadership in everyday life, and most of all, its views on physical sexuality, which can be summarised into “women are not sexual beings like men are” and “women are sexual slaves for men”. This has been taken to even greater extremes with the purity movement by legalistic conservative churches like the Southern Baptist Convention who brought these views together in the 1990s as “True Love Waits”. The way it is taught by very conservative churches (legalistic churches and cults) is that women are responsible for men’s sexual behaviour and must not do anything to attract sexual attention for a man, and that they must avoid everyday behaviours which will compromise their sexual purity (and once it’s gone you can never get it back, so they say). If a man attacks a woman in one of these churches, the leadership will blame her for “seducing” him, even if she is a child. At the moment there is a big sexual abuse scandal blowing up in the Southern Baptists in Texas in which the leadership of the SBC is doing their best to hide behind their teachings and deny the obvious conclusion that their teachings basically legalised the abuse, and it’s very ugly.

So then, what kind of teachings should be taught about human sexuality for Christians? We believe it can be summarised as follows (this is not exhaustive and may be subject to future revision):

  • Men and women have different bodies but they are able to carry out equally the  same roles in life and in the church, with the exception of pregnancy,  childbirth and breastfeeding that women are uniquely, solely and wonderfully equipped for.
  • Male and female sexuality are different from each other because of the physical and psychological differences in male and female bodies, not because either women or men are inferior to the other. Men and women are to respect each other’s physical bodies and privacy and avoid sexual objectification or harassment.
  • Men and women have similarities in terms of physical sexual desires and drives.
  • Sexual purity is a gift from God that cannot be earned. It can only be temporarily lost by voluntary choice or involuntary force of a sexual nature, and can be restored with healing prayer and where necessary, repentance. Everyday non-sexual acts such as medical examinations, hygiene and use of sanitary products do not compromise sexual purity.
  • Each person owns their bodies, including genitals and other sexual parts, and is not compelled to share them with others. The sharing that usually takes place in marriage is by mutual consent and must not be forced upon anyone.
  • As the owner of their sexual parts, each person also owns the pleasure that these parts produce, and is entitled to receive that pleasure whether they have consented to sharing their body with their husband or wife, or are by their self. As we have stated elsewhere we do not believe excretory parts are intended to be used for sexual pleasure.
  • The pleasure that a person receives in their body from touching of their sexual parts is no different from the pleasure of touching any other part of their body and is therefore designed to be enjoyed by a single person by his or her self, as well as by a husband and wife mutually together, or individually by mutual consent when they are unable to be together for a period of time.
  • Pubic hair is a feature of adult sexual bodies that serves to enhance what are amazingly beautiful genital parts in both men and women. The common practice of removing pubic hair in the pornography industry is, we believe, for sexually perverse purposes. However an individual may be compelled to do so for health or hygiene reasons but we do not condone the removal of pubic hair because of a perception that it enhances sexuality.
  • Big is Beautiful. We will have more to say about this in a future post, but we believe in general that sexual beauty (especially the spiritual beauty that is not constrained or limited by the size or shape of a man’s or woman’s body. Neither should feel ugly or unworthy because of a struggle with their weight. (However, we do denounce “feeding” as a sexual perversion and do not in any way endorse or condone the practices of deliberate weight gain in the feeding movement)
  • A man and a woman may mutually consent to enter the holy sacrament of marriage for reasons of intimacy, building family life, etc. It is a personal choice of each Christian believer whether they wish to marry or remain single. There shall be no stigmatisation of any person who chooses to remain single, nor shall there be any moral or spiritual superiority attached to those who have chosen to marry. A single person can be sexually fulfilled by practising sexual devotion in God’s presence.

So we believe applying these beliefs can help people who are recovering from a pornography addiction. We believe this because most, if not all, people who are addicted to pornography are seeking sexual gratification and/or pleasure through the activity. This is usually fulfilled by using pornography for sexual arousal and as a fantasy substitute for real life relationships. By changing their understanding of contexts of sexual pleasure, as listed in the statements above, they can receive sexual pleasure and fulfilment without the heavy spiritual penalties exacted by perversion, idolatry, impurity and lust (these are the four key sins anyone who has used pornography needs to repent of in order to be set free). It is neither sinful to masturbate or to become sexually aroused, as long as there is no lust or pornography involved. Masturbation is not taught to be sinful anywhere in the Bible. Furthermore, any action which is not sinful is an act of worship. We believe, therefore, that masturbation can be used as an act of worship in a time of sexual devotion and this can completely supplant the use of pornography. Furthermore it can be sexually fulfilling for a single person and replace the need for sexual fulfilment through fantasy as is the case when pornography is used.

Sexual fulfilment is also possible for those of us who are in the ministry of healing sexually broken people (which is what this blog is about). The work of the ministry itself can be sexually fulfilling, and part of it can be carried out as part of sexual devotion in an intercessory ministry capacity. This in fact is exactly how our ministry works at present. We are currently anonymous because our ministry is not under the covering of a church, and therefore it is not appropriate for it to be conducted in public at the moment. Anyone who is reading this blog will receive healing prayer as part of our ministry work which is constantly carried out through intercession and in part through writing our received knowledge and insight into human sexuality on this blog.

In general we believe that the sexual fulfilment to be achieved by married and single people in the specific context of their Christian faith, falls into what we call the 3-Ds. That is, sexual devotion, sexual development and sexual discipline. Single people begin this process at the onset of adolescence and until they choose to marry, or for life if they choose not to marry. In the early stages of adolescence, development will predominate, as a person who is just at the very beginning of the adult sexual phase will not have the ability to have much insight into what is happening in their body. As time goes on and they become more experienced, they will appreciate discipline and devotion. All of these are essential components for a Christian believer to reach sexual maturity and be ready to use their sexuality as an adult making their way in the world, either continuing in singleness or entering a marriage and perhaps starting a family of their own.

These views are well articulated elsewhere on this blog which has many other posts about the sexuality of Christian womanhood and a small but growing number of messages concerning the sexuality of Christian manhood.


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