Let Go, My Soul

*I want to give a couple of quick disclaimers before I jump into this one, because it’s a sensitive and very personal subject matter.  It was really hard to write and I spent a lot of time praying about whether I should post it at all.  There are so many opportunities for you to mishear my heart, so I pray that you don’t.

The first is that this blog is not intended to bash any single person, or men on the whole.  I love the men in my life so much, and it has broken my heart to watch them in this struggle.  I have plenty of my own sins and issues, believe me, but I wrote about this specifically because it is so rampant and so many men and women I know have been affected by it.  The second disclaimer is that these are my own observations, feelings, and experiences and those of the men and women who’ve graciously shared their stories with me.  I don’t speak for every woman, and I certainly can’t speak for the men.  It may seem like I think that every man in the world is drowning in sexual sin, but I know that’s not the case.  The observations I make here are more about how this issue has affected us on a larger scale and crept into so many of our interactions.

I also know that I don’t have time to touch on everything I’d like to here (like the many women who also struggle with pornography and sexual addictions or how there are lots of other identity/daddy/mental health issues that cause men and women to behave a certain way in relationships).  I am not minimizing those things at all with this blog or trying to say that every problem in my personal life is because of a man’s sexual sin (trust me, like 98% of it is alllllll on me), but this is what’s on my heart today.  Okay, with all that said, here goes…

I’m sure I’ve read this chapter before.  I’ve definitely done the “Proverb a day” reading plan about a bazillion times, but this morning Proverbs 7 took my heart and shattered it into pieces.

The proverbs are so full of personification.  They often speak of wisdom as a woman crying out in the street, begging the people to stop being foolish and come to her.  Proverbs 7 speaks of another woman, a “forbidden woman.”  Verses 4-5 do a good job of showing the contrast between her and the earlier descriptions of wisdom:

Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”

and call insight your intimate friend,

to keep you from the forbidden woman,

from the adulteress with her smooth words.

Proverbs 7:4-5

The chapter goes on to describe the man’s desire for the forbidden woman.  It starts innocently enough, he just changes his route home, passing by her house late at night, probably just hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

But she was lying in wait for him.  She knew he would pass by and she was ready. She invited him in and seduced him with her smooth words.  And here’s what happens from there:

All at once he follows her,

as an ox goes to the slaughter,

or as a stag is caught fast

till an arrow pierces its liver;

as a bird rushes into a snare;

he does not know that it will cost him his life.

Proverbs 7:22-23

He does not know that it will cost him his life.

It’s no secret that pornography and sexual addiction is running rampant in our society, among Christians and non-Christians alike.  I’ve watched them destroy relationships, marriages, families, and so many lives.  Today, as I read verse 23, I wept as I thought about all it has taken from us.  It’s replaced sacrificial love with something disgusting and fake and unrecognizable.

It’s not just the men it’s destroying.   As a single woman dating and forming friendships with men in the pornography era, I am affected by it in a million different ways.

Sometimes it’s subtle enough that I’ve tried not to connect the dots, to pretend there must be another explanation.  It’s the men who shove you out of the way to get that seat on the subway.  The leering stares at the beach no matter how covered up you are.  The man who won’t open your car door or offer you his jacket when you’re cold.  It’s the guys who shower you with attention and affection in the beginning, but suddenly go cold.  The ones who are always looking over your shoulder for something better.  Who treat you like you’re expendable, because they know there are plenty of hotter girls just waiting to take your place when they get bored with you.  It’s knowing that the guy you are talking to is really only interested in your attention and not in knowing about you at all.  And the shame you feel when that doesn’t even bother you because, you know, at least he’s attractive and funny and not completely awful.

And it’s not just the passive implications. Sometimes it’s blatant.  It’s the disgusting comments on the street or in messages on dating apps.  It’s the fact that some men feel it’s okay to speak however they want to a woman because she must like it somewhere deep down.  It’s feeling physically unsafe a lot because yes, as much as no one wants to talk about it, most women are frequently threatened physically when they ignore a man’s advances, or God forbid, actually respond and refuse them.  It happens at least once a week to me, and I am not the exception.  I guess they just forget that real-life women are not quite as eager to jump in bed with them as the women on Pornhub.

But those guys aren’t the point.  They aren’t the ones I thought of when I read Proverbs 7 today.  No, I thought of the good men I know, who love Jesus and want to love a woman sacrificially but can’t because they’ve been so destroyed by their sexual sin and addiction.  I am so blessed to have a lot of great men in my life who’ve been really candid with me about this.  Many of them who are married have told me stories of the pain and shame they felt as they confessed to their wives about their past and current struggles.  Many who are still single are terrified of commitment because they no longer believe they can be a faithful husband and father.  They date woman after woman, but as soon as things move past the fun of the first few dates, they can’t move forward.  They genuinely believe they are protecting the women they start to care about by pushing them away so this sin can’t destroy them as well.   They’re weary.  They’re broken.  They didn’t know that this was going to cost them their lives.

One of the things a lot of men don’t realize is that when you continue to indulge pornography and sexual sin, you begin to actually hate women.  You’d never put it that way, but we feel it.  When you see us only as objects for your own pleasure, then when we are no longer bringing you pleasure, hatred and bitterness start to grow.  And it tends to be directed at the women who care about you the most.  I have felt the weight of a man’s hatred toward women directed at me and it’s one of the most awful things I’ve ever experienced. It’s hatred that was born and fed through years of pornography and sexual sin, but it manifested itself in total degradation, humiliation, rejection, and words that can never be taken back. If that man could weigh in on this blog, I know he would say that he wishes he had never taken a single step down that road.  He didn’t know it would cost him his life.

I’ve noticed how even my “girl talk” with my friends has changed over time.  First dates and new relationships are not as exciting as they used to be, because they are tainted with so much fear.  We feel emotionally unsafe pretty much every second we are with a man, even a wonderful man, and most of us feel like even if we do get married one day, we’ll most likely be cheated on, or at the least be dealing with a husband who is constantly struggling with a porn addiction.  Men, this is costing you your lives and it’s costing ours as well.  It’s costing the women who love you or who never have the chance to love you.

I don’t know how to wrap this up.  If I’m being honest, it all feels overwhelming.  I don’t know how we heal from this, as individuals or as a society.  All I know is that Jesus is the answer.  It’s always, only, ever been him and he is the only place we find freedom from any sin or struggle.  I pray and hope for the men who are reading this, those of you I love so dearly and those of you I’ve never even met, that you count the cost the next time you want to look at that video or image, or indulge whatever it is that is keeping you from being the man that the Lord created you to be.  It will cost you your life.