4 minute read
By: Allie Joy Hudson
Self-Porn
(In this article we’re going to reference an incident of a celebrity who had images leaked. You’ll likely feel a desire to go discover who it was and find the images, as though it’s a fun game. Let me tell you it isn’t a game. This situation has devastated this celebrity and she’s in need of Jesus’ kindness as much as you are. Make a decision to stay here and put your heart into reading through this article so that you can be changed by that kindness. If you feel a compulsion toward her then pray for her rather than prey on her.)
A few years ago, a young celebrity’s phone was hacked, and intimate pictures of her were placed online. In an interview about the incident, she stated that she took those pictures for her boyfriend.
Here was her reason: “I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you.”
She gave him those pictures in hopes that he would be satisfied enough with her that he wouldn’t have to look at porn. Is that really a loving, healthy relationship? To put it another way, is nakedness that is shared out of a competitive fear truly good for a relationship?
Let’s look at what Scripture has to say about nakedness.
Naked and Unashamed
“And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:24). This verse concludes the account of God’s creation of humanity. Since this is the final verse in the chapter, and since this is a very well-known Bible story, it’s easy to gloss over it and keep reading on to Genesis 3.
But this verse is significant. It provides the very last description of Adam and Eve together, delighting in perfect relationship before they sinned, and humanity fell. What does this verse tell us?
A Context for Sex
In his essay “Garden of Delights and Dilemmas: The Old Testament on Sex,” Lawson G. Stone claims that “Genesis 2 is, from beginning to end, about the origins and meaning of human sexual desire and bonding.” This chapter in Genesis is our source for the way that God designed sex and marriage.
Stone particularly focuses on Adam and Eve as husband and wife, as a unit, and says that the shared quality between them is their nakedness.
Adam and Eve’s nakedness is what characterizes the way that they interact, view each other, and view themselves.
Related: Humans are Made for Pleasure
What is Nakedness??
Though the word “nakedness” can be defined in the typical sense of being undressed, of being uncovered or without clothes, Stone remarks that this word in the original Hebrew is sometimes even translated as “‘clever, shrewd’ . . . not a naive or virginally innocent thing, but full of shrewdness and cunning, aware of precisely how to act and what to do.”
In Eden, husband and wife were open, vulnerable, and transparent with one another; they had no idea what the weight or guilt of shame felt like. They knew how to be together and please each other, and this was a good, God-honoring thing. It still is today.
But with the Fall of humanity, indecency replaced intimacy. Today, we see the shrewdness of humans used to exploit the nakedness of others. The world uses naked bodies as things to parade, objectify, and exploit.
But originally, sex was designed to be used differently. Sex was meant to be intelligibly explored and enjoyed in the safety of two people trusting each other.
God still longs for us to relish the joys of being consistently loved and pursued by our spouse as a way to worship and honor Him.
The nakedness between husband and wife is an active knowing that is intimate, real, and pleasurable. This active knowing requires a conscious choice to get to know your life-partner, to be observant and self-sacrificing both inside and outside of the bedroom.
From Eden to a New Creation
What does defining nakedness as an “active knowing” mean for us as Christians, whether married or unmarried? Nakedness in this sense is not only something to be shared between man and wife. It should also, in a difference sense, be shared firstly with Christ. He created us and knows us better than even we know ourselves. This intimacy with the Lord then cascades into and gives life to our human relationships.
Related: Pornography and Resurrection
We must choose to clothe ourselves in the sexual integrity of Jesus’ righteousness. Let’s stop lusting after the flesh of those around us.
No person, celebrity or otherwise, should have to fear that they’re competing with porn. Let’s look at Jesus and allow Him to clothe us in His safe love and selfless affection. Receive the Lord’s grace, and trust in His faithfulness to you.
No person, man or woman, should fear infidelity so much that they need to compete with pornography.
Our Lord is calling us daily into a deeper, more active, and more beautiful daily experience with Himself. The One who is “making all things new” (Revelation 21:5) will one day give us new, pure, resurrected bodies. We will be with Him, in perfect intimacy, for the rest of eternity. The earthly union of knowing nakedness that we share with our spouses is a glimpse of this forever union that we will share with the One who made us, loves us, and gave Himself for us.
Let Him actively know you so that He can actively clothe you.
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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.