Pornography is a 97 billion dollar industry worldwide with approximately 40 million people involved with the internet. 9.4 million women, both married and single, check out adult only websites every month. 17% of women admit to being addicted to porn, 28% of women admit to sexual addiction, and 70% of women who access porn keep it a secret.
The lures of porn and sexual addiction in women have consequences that can be seen and felt in all areas of their lives. Some of the major consequences of sexual addiction in women are STDs, abortions and childbirths outside of a marriage. STDs are one of the most critical health challenges facing the nation today. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that there are 19 million new infections every year in the United States. In the most recent CDC report, 825,564 legal induced abortions were reported from 49 reporting areas along with 1,693,658 live births to unmarried women.
In addition to STDs and unplanned pregnancies (whether aborted or birthed), one can’t leave out the trail of emotional brokenness and mental anguish sexual promiscuity leaves behind in many women. The sad reality is that most women don’t enter into sexual relationships weighing the risk of STDs, porn/sexual addition, or pregnancy. Most women think, “it could never happen to me.”
A large majority of people think sexual integrity is strictly a man’s issue, but times have changed and more and more women are finding themselves caught up in the web of this sexual revolution. Not just in the areas of visual porn, but emotional porn found in most romantic movies, novels, and TV shows that perpetuate the very lies that keep women from developing sexual integrity. For a woman, it is out of her emotional needs which cause her to crave for someone to satisfy her innermost desires to be loved, needed, valued, and cherished. These emotional needs are vital to women and can cause them to be lead into very compromising situations seeking to meet these needs. Women typically give sex to get love and acceptance. Describing her sexual addiction, one woman said,
“It’s not about the sex at all. Sex is just what I have to give to get the love, touch, nurture, and assurance that I’m okay.”
Even though men and women differ in their needs and cravings for sex, they both suffer detrimental consequences. Sexual integrity is a defense or protection against the devastating consequences mentioned before. Maintaining or rediscovering sexual integrity is hard work but worth the sacrifice. God wants to help us control our minds and our desires so we can discover His plan for relational satisfaction. We can begin this journey by opening our eyes to the compromises that rob us of ultimate sexual and emotional fulfillment.
Here are four popular compromises in which to guard against:
#1 – Not having a healthy sexual integrity in four key areas – mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Take one of those four pillars out and the house of sexual integrity comes crumpling down.
#2 – Not properly discerning your motives. Understanding deeply “why am I thinking and doing certain things”.
#3 – Not setting proper boundaries. Boundaries help protect you from getting hurt.
#4 – Not displaying wisdom and discretion. In our day and time we cannot listen solely to our desires at the expense of not listening to that inner voice of wisdom calling from within.
In our next “Journey Today” blog post, we will explore these four popular compromises more and try to find practical solutions.
Tondra Gregory – is a nationally certified therapist working in New York City.
