4 minute read
By: Allie Joy Hudson
Parks and Rec
The other day I was watching Parks and Rec, and one of the characters comments, “I’ve seen a LOT of porn.” Another character shoots him a brief, disgusted look, but that is the only reaction he is given, as if what he said was not in the least surprising or abnormal.
I share this not to comment on the show or anything like that. Rather, what this instance highlights is that pornography has become so “normal” that it is brought up, even boasted about, on popular television. To use the Parks and Rec scenario as an example, our society has made porn so commonplace that both the characters on this TV show, and likely the people watching it, view these pornographic references as comical.
Technosexuality
According to Fight the New Drug, “more than 5,517,748,800 hours of porn was watched on [Pornhub] in just 2018. That’s equal to 629,880 years of content consumed in 1 year, on one porn site” (emphasis added).
Although, on paper, this number seems unbelievable, it doesn’t surprise me much when I look around at our overly-sexualized, consumeristic society. We, as a culture, are becoming more and more defined by “technosexuality,” a term coined by John M. Wolf in his dissertation, “Technosexuality: Technology, sexuality, and convergence.”
Wolf writes, “it’s already well established that technosexual behaviors are increasingly routine, especially as convergent technologies are made cheaper and, by extension, more available.”
Technology has become the new backbone of modern society, and in a fallen world where pleasure and personal preference are accepted and even championed, computers and smartphones can become vehicles to an insatiable lust.
Sin thrives in the dark, but this darkness is spreading as the ease of access to sexual immorality increases.
NEw Morality
Porn is getting to the point it is no longer considered taboo, a far cry from the “sneaking peaks at the Playboy under the mattress era” from a few decades ago. As the rise of technosexuality makes porn more available, we are also seeing a shift in our culture’s perception of and attitude towards it.
People are viewing pornography more and more. But rather than retreating and nudging people to continue their addictions in the dark, Western society has instead latched onto the growing porn problem, using it as leverage for their economy and, even more frighteningly, for a postmodern, anything goes, individualized morality. This is the fallen world we live in.
Trust
Looking at this topic in more detail is bleak. As I write this, I feel drained. But in times like this, I remind myself, as I remind you now, that there is hope. Because of Jesus, there is meaning and true life in the midst of this pornographic confusion.
It starts with a decision, today, to trust Jesus: to trust Him to forgive your sin and to show you His new mercies every morning. To trust Him to cleanse you in His blood and to remember your wrongs no more. To trust Him with your thoughts and desires. Your sex life. Your body. Even your use of technology.
Technology is a gift that allows us to acquire information and build relationships unlike any other generation before us. Instead of using technology to exploit people, use it to develop character, even if that means learning to leave your phone downstairs at night and your computer at the office.
A better boast
Jesus wants to give us abundant life. He knows that pornography is an unrelenting slave driver, and what He wants for us is so much better. What He wants is to set us free and bring us back into a union with Him. Joseph Dongell expresses this beautifully: “when I hear the comprehensive ‘yes’ he [God] speaks over my whole life and for my whole thriving, then (and only then) will I be able to embrace his ‘noes’ for what they actually are: his deeper way of saying, ‘I love you!’”
In a culture that hardly raises an eyebrow at the announcement, “I’ve seen a LOT of porn,” imagine being able to say, “It has been three months since I’ve watched porn.” Be courageous enough to trust Jesus and to choose to fight to embrace the purity, life, and love that He gives.
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Allie Joy Hudson is first and foremost a daughter of the King. She graduated from Liberty University with a Bachelor of Arts in English and minors in Spanish and Psychology. Allie completed her Senior Honors Thesis on the presentation of postmodern sexuality in short fiction and has also been published in two of Liberty University’s other online journals, The Kabod and Aidenn. She enjoys reading, writing, playing the viola, singing, musical theatre, photography, and Zumba. She is passionate about her ever-growing C.S. Lewis collection, cultivating relationships, and proclaiming truth in the twisted arena of postmodern sexuality. Allie was raised in Maryland and is overjoyed to be married to the love of her life.