Dear Jeffrey,

Thanks for coming to Ichthus Festival again. Man, I love hearing you speak. I want to thank you for letting me come clean with you about my past. I still feel guilty a lot about all the stuff I’ve done. Like I said then, I’m the last person anyone would have guessed would be so deep into that junk [porn]. And you’re right. I can still remember so many of those pictures, even though it’s been months since I looked at porn. I’m gonna keep doing everything you told me to do. Thanks for letting me talk about it all and for just listening.
– Name withheld

I get notes like this all the time. What’s encouraging is that the Generation Z teens and millennials who write them are taking some strides in the right direction. What’s sad is that many are caught in the deadly snare of pornography and haven’t taken the first step toward freedom.

Pornography is everywhere. Statistics leave our heads spinning about how many pornographic sites are on the Web today, how many new porn sites go live every day, and how huge, powerful, and pervasive the pornographic video industry is. The revenue of the pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix, and EarthLink.¹ And porn is only a click away. If you want it, you can find it quicker than quick. Even when you are not looking for it, porn can still find you. And once you’ve downloaded it into your mind’s hard drive, the harmful images can keep replaying over and over again.

Based on the widespread availability of pornography today, one might conclude that we as a society are increasingly accepting its presence as normal. And as a matter of fact, for some people, porn seems to be no big deal.

29 percent of all professing Christian adults in the United States believe it is morally acceptable to view movies depicting explicit sexual behavior.²

I’d say these people are not facing the fact that porn is dangerous to the core. It sucks every bit of truth, contentment, honesty, character, loyalty, and reality out of the mind and soul of the one plugging into it. Porn leaves people feeling hopeless, guilty, and ashamed. I know what I’m talking about. I communicate on a regular basis with people of all ages and both sexes who struggle with addiction to porn. And these are not oddball, sadistic, perverted people but everyday, honor-roll, churchgoing, love-their-parents and love-their-spouses, striving-to-live-for-Jesus people.

Who is hurt by pornography? While we often think of the porn industry as targeting only males, a recent study showed that the industry is targeting females as well. About one in three visitors to adult Web sites is female.³That means your daughter is at risk just as your son is.

No teen today is immune to the possibility of falling into the trap of porn. It can happen quickly. It can happen unintentionally. It can happen to yourteen. One study showed that a whopping 90 percent of all eight- to sixteen-year-olds had viewed pornography online—most inadvertently while doing homework.⁴

I often meet adults who can’t fathom how someone could get caught up in such filth as pornography. Even when some parents realize their son or daughter is addicted to porn, the Enemy has often won the fight by convincing them that they are helpless and ill equipped to help their teen.

But the struggle with pornography isn’t different from the struggle with any other sin: Satan presents us with a dangerous, cleverly packaged lie that looks inviting. We are tempted. And temptation gives birth to sin. Sin affects us all (see Romans 3:23).

What sins are evident in your life?

Specifically, if your son or daughter struggles with porn, let them know they are not alone and that you understand the struggle, because you struggle with your own sins. Maybe you have even struggled with the specific sin of porn viewing, and therefore you can share in a very personal way what that struggle has been like and how you have achieved victory.

Certainly we cannot be passive about the problem of pornography.

Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.
Hebrews 12:1

How Porn Finds Your Teen

This is a problem: if your teen is online, porn will find him or her. For instance, a sophomore in college whom I met on the road last year told me that he had gotten hooked on Internet porn while in high school. During his senior year, he was required to write a term paper on human anatomy for an advanced-placement biology class. One afternoon he was routinely surfing the Web, reading about the study of the human body. Innocently clicking on a link in search of images of the female anatomy, he suddenly saw a porn site appear. He quickly left the site. But the more he sat in front of his computer, the more he thought about those images. Several minutes later, he found himself going back to check them out again…and again. Thus began a dark journey that lasted most of his senior year of high school.

One click. That’s all it takes.

I’ve had countless teens tell me that they have received inappropriate spam mail—unsolicited, commercial e-mail that often leads to a Web site, usually pornographic. Sometimes the initial spam messages appear innocuous, such as an invitation to check out a magazine subscription or some cartoons or jokes. Sometimes the advertisements are a bit racier. You know this!

I got one of these just yesterday on my cell phone. It said, “Hey, sexy, I saw your profile online and want to send you a few pics of me. Click this link below and let’s get to know each other.”

Whoever sent this spam got my e-mail address from somewhere. It may have been from a program that crawls the Web, searching for e-mail addresses.Or my address may have been sold to a company. Or it may have been from a program that searches for names on the Internet and randomly creates plausible e-mail addresses from the original name, hoping that one in a thousand will hit the mark.

Pornography is aggressive. Pornography seeks and destroys. It’s im-perative that you know about the fight you are in against pornography.

The Trouble with Porn

What’s so harmful about looking at pornography? Isn’t it just a phase that all teens go through, particularly boys?

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As your teen begins to look at porn consistently, their view of the opposite sex will change. Eventually they will stop seeing people as God sees them and begin seeing them merely as a means by which desires can be fulfilled. Pornography turns other people into objects of lust.

If your teen dates, typically it will only be a matter of time before they become more physical with the dating partner. The fantasy world being downloaded into their mind will fight to turn itself into reality by encouraging them to use people to fulfill personal lusts. And as they begin to to act out the sexual behaviors seen online, the perceived need for self-gratification will damage not only your teen’s relationships during the dating years but also his or her relationship with a future mate.

Furthermore, as they dive deeper into the world of porn, their character will begin to be eroded, even destroyed.

A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction.
Galatians 6:7-8

Teens are being greatly fooled if they believe they can casually check out porn and still live the lives God would have them live. If your son or daughter sows to please lust, destruction is soon to follow.

Read my blogpost UnPlugging Pornography: What You Can Do for eight vital steps to help your teen find freedom from the darkness.

1. “Pornography Statistics,” Family Safe Media, www.familysafemedia.com/
pornography_statistics.html (accessed June 17, 2008).

2. “Statistics on Pornography, Sexual Addiction and Online Perpetrators,” Safe Families, www.safefamilies.org/sfStats.php (accessed June 17, 2008).

3. Jerry Ropelato, “Internet Pornography Statistics,” Top Ten Reviews, http://internet-
filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html (accessed June 17, 2008).

4. David C. Bissette, “Internet Pornography Statistics: 2003,” HealthyMind.com, http://healthymind.com/s-porn-stats.html (accessed June 17, 2008).