Porn: It Happened in Our Homes. It Can Happen in Yours

We live in a world where many kids are exposed to porn long before they experience their first kiss. If you feel overwhelmed when it comes to protecting your children, here’s a reminder: you’re not powerless in this fight. In this episode of Grounded, Dannah Gresh and Erin Davis share how porn infiltrated their own homes in a transparent conversation you won’t soon forget. 

Episode Notes

• “Why Doesn’t the Church Talk about Sex?, with Dr. Juli Slattery” episode of Grounded.
• Sexual Discipleship course by Dr. Juli Slattery.
• Lies series of books from Revive Our Hearts.

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Portia Collins: Eleven. That’s the average age most kids are the first time they see porn. I’m Portia Collins, and this is Grounded. You're about to hear one of the most transparent episodes of Grounded ever. My cohosts, Erin Davis and Dannah Gresh want to sound an alarm for you to talk to your kids about porn. I think the title of this episode really says it all: “Porn: It Happened in Our Homes. It Can Happen in Yours.” So, things are about to get real. 

We are still here to hand out two things that we love: hope and perspective, not shock. But the fact that many kids are being exposed to porn before they even experienced their first kiss is alarming. 

In fact, children under the age of ten now make up 10 percent of all visitors to porn sites. We must be prepared to talk with them. I could not think of better voices to tackle this topic than our own Erin and Dannah. Dannah, specifically, has spent the past twenty-five years teaching about sex and sexuality from a biblical grid. She'll share the top ten ways that purveyors of porn are targeting your children. 

So, I want you to listen up. Knowledge is power. She's got bucket loads of it to pay us out today. I know it's heavy. This is a heavy episode. Before I unleash Dannah and Erin to share how porn has infiltrated their own homes, I do want to give us some good news. 

While about a quarter of teens say they're thinking about sex has particularly been shaped by porn, double that number. 47 percent say that their thinking about sex has actually been most shaped by a parent or trusted adult. That is great news. There is some hope there that we are not powerless against porn. And today, we're going to get equipped. Here is Erin Davis and Dannah Gresh for a conversation I believe you won't soon forget.

8:01 - Grounded with God's People (Erin and Dannah)

Erin Davis: Thank you, Portia. I'm fired up already. We are not powerless against porn.

Dannah Gresh: Amen. 

Erin: So, Dannah, let's jump right into this conversation. How has porn infiltrated your home?

Dannah: Well, you know, last year Bob and I released a book that kind of tells our story about his battle with pornography, which became our battle with pornography when we got married. And one of the reasons, Erin, that we decided to tell the story that at one point in our lives, we both said, “We will never tell this story” . . . I mean, we were adamant. This is our private story. You knew about it. You were a friend. We weren't hiding it from our inner circle people that could help us, but we just really didn't want to be public about it. What it came down to actually . . .

Erin: Yeah I would actually say that Bob’s struggle with porn became my struggle with porn in a totally different way than yours. He's somebody that I love. It has been a battle. There have been many of us in that fight.

Dannah: Exactly, exactly. It does affect so many hearts and lives. But for Bob and I, one of the reasons we decided to tell the story was that he was a baby when the battle began. He was twelve years old when he remembers finding pornography in an attic in his family's barn. The memories are so vivid. He could tell you the dust particles in the air, he can still kind of see them and breathe them. He remembers the pictures. 

It's funny, because about that same age, I was twelve or thirteen when I saw pornography the first time. My little brother, probably eight or nine years old, came to me. I was babysitting. He said, “I found some bad pictures.” And he threw some muddy pornography in my hands. I mean, I didn't know what to do with them. So, I held on to them in my bedroom until my parents came home and immediately said, “Oh, look what my brother found.” I still remember those pictures that I saw. I didn't like leaf through it. 

Erin: Yeah.

Dannah: But the pictures I saw are in my head to this day. 

Erin: Yeah, seared.

Dannah: The difference is, I told my parents, and Bob didn't tell his. Parental conversation shut that thing down for me and my brother. No parental conversation began a lifelong battle for my husband. That is not uncommon. 

So, Bob and I have been called to sound an alarm for parents. We don't want any marriage to endure what ours has. We're talking decades of figuring it out and fighting it out until he can walk in sexual integrity. We've both been victims of something that started when he was just a little boy. And might I say, a lot has happened with pornography since we found magazines in the barn attic and my brother found them in a gutter in the neighborhood.

Erin: Yeah, in a weird way as a parent raising four sons right now (our baby is five, our oldest is about to turn sixteen) part of me wishes I was raising boys in the day where he had to go actually purchase the magazine or rifle through the rafters and find it because a lot has changed. There probably is still porn tucked in old barn attics, but that's not the primary way it's getting into the eyeballs of our kids. It comes into our homes willingly or unwillingly through our devices. 

And so, thanks for sharing your story. Dannah, I wanted to share a little bit of mine. I mean, Jason and I try to parent with eyes wide open, though there are some things we shelter our kids from developmentally. That's not our primary tool as parents. We try to be on the offensive, not the defensive. So it wasn't like I had never talked to my kids about porn. I'd heard that statistic that Portia gave us many times—before eleven was the first age of exposure. 

I’ve gotta say, I had a lot of pride about it, because I thought it won't happen to my family. I'm making the right decision. My kids don't have cell phones. My kids are going to be much older. I hoped and prayed it wouldn't happen at all in my house with my kids. But then it did. And one of my boys was eleven. I'm not going to tell you which boy; it doesn't matter. It's his story to tell when he gets older, but he was eleven. He invited a friend over for the night. We want to be that house where kids want to come. We're intentional about that. 

But at age eleven, so that would have put to put them in fourth or fifth grade, I didn't even think to ask that boy, “Did he bring his cell phone?” Which was naive, terribly naive on my part, my sons didn't have a cell phone. And we have since instituted a policy where no cell phones go upstairs. We ask kids when they come over to put their cell phone on a certain counter we have designated for that. We've got chargers there, so they want to put their phones there. 

But what I remember is I went upstairs the next morning after that sleepover, and that boy’s cell phone was sitting on the bed. 

As I said, it hadn't even occurred to me that he had a phone. My son didn’t have a phone yet. That phone was just playing music. There was nothing on the phone in that moment that made me think, Oh no, my kid's been up here looking at porn, except for the Holy Spirit. I mean, I knew instantly in that moment that something was terribly wrong. My heart sunk, my stomach turned. My mouth get a little dry just thinking about it, because I knew an evil had been unleashed inside the mind and heart of my eleven-year-old boy. I mean, we hadn't even started puberty. We were not thinking that we needed to address sexuality in those terms yet. 

And so, I waited until the other boy went home. And I just said, “Buddy, I noticed there was a phone upstairs. Can you tell me what you guys were looking at?” And that boy clearly was: a) afraid he was gonna get found out, but b) was also deeply conflicted and a bit traumatized. 

He began to wail, I mean, wail and cry and sob and talk about what a bad kid he was. It was heartbreaking. I don't think I'll ever forget that moment. The enemy won some ground that night. I didn't want him to win in my kid's life.

Dannah: And what did that feel like for you, Erin?

Erin: I felt really sad. I know that God is the creator of sex. I hope that my boys have healthy sex lives when they grow up and are married. I hope they enjoy their wives’ bodies as God designed. I did not want my eleven-year-old boy to see those. And what you described with Bob is what was our experience.

The years have gone by, and we bring it up often because it's now become a teaching moment for the rest of us. He will say every time I can close my eyes and see those images immediately right there in vivid detail. And so, I felt sad, I felt this heavy weight. I feel sorry that they’re there. I pray that the Lord will erase those images from his mind. He hasn't yet. But I also felt like this porn problem is too big for me just to contain. I need a different strategy. So, we pivoted at that moment. 

Dannah: His response was, I think, indicative of a first exposure to pornography response, which is appropriate. He was emotional. He was distraught. I was reading The Guardian recently. A seven-year-old boy had been exposed to pornography. He wasn't looking for it. Let me read to you what he said to the adult. “There's a naked picture. She's trying to run away. It's not her fault. She doesn't want it.” His Spirit knew how horrific this was. Your son's Spirit knew how horrific this was. And with more and more exposure, we become more complacent. We're not horrified by it. 

Today, we kind of want you to be horrified by it. We want you to be worried about it to the point where you say, “Listen, this is when they have that first experience that first exposure, it really is a crossroads to where they are going to enter into a conversation to be discipled by you as a parent in their sexuality or they're going to enter into a secret world that can take their spirits and their hearts out away from people and away from God. So, we're not messing around. We're not playing today. 

Erin: Well, because that's the enemy's tactic: a) let me isolate them enough that I can get them to fall into the sin trap. And with porn so readily available, that is a much easier step to accomplish. My kids go to a school where much of their work is on iPads. There's a lot of controls on that. But technology native kids can navigate around those pretty easily. 

So, step one is isolate enough that they fall into the trap. Then step two is isolate them by telling them they can never own up to this because they are bad, as my son said, or they've done something bad, or no one will understand. And so, as you've said, and as what happened with Bob at age twelve, that can put them on such a long and hard path of isolation, destruction, addiction. We don't want to see our kids on that panel.

Dannah: Erin, you did the right thing. I really want to underscore this, you opened the conversation. That's important, because one study shows that I think it's something like 71 percent of teens will either conceal their online activities from their parents. They might delete a browser history. They might lie about their behavior, what they've done. They might even have a secret social media account, something that leads them to that doorway. Those are potential breeding grounds for shame and shame often leads to anxiety and depression. It always leads to addiction. It is one of the greatest feeders of addiction. 

Erin Davis, you stopped the shame in his tracks when you asked. I think a lot of parents are afraid to do that. They're afraid of what they'll hear. They're afraid they could create more curiosity and actually create a problem. 

Erin: Yes.

Dannah: They're afraid they won't know what to say. They're afraid that they'll create shame. Let me tell you something, you don't create it. You just bring it into the light. 

Let me give you a Bible verse to combat that kind of parenting. I'm thinking of 2 Timothy 1:7. “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love, and a sound mind.” You said a moment ago, “In my heart I knew something wasn't right.” You said that was the Holy Spirit. Erin, talk about that.

Erin: Yeah, I'll take you back to a prayer Mary Kassian taught me to pray. She also raised five, four, sorry, Mary, I'm giving you extra sons, three sons, I have four. She began to pray when they were young that if there were sin in their lives that the Lord would expose it. She didn't always have to be on a witch hunt, you know, sneaking through their stuff. She trusted that the Lord would expose it, and He did over and over again. 

I've seen Him do that with my boys. I had no physical evidence to believe that my kid had been looking at porn. I had no physical evidence to believe, other than knowing that it's a curiosity factor. I didn't even know if that kid’s phone had internet connection. But I knew as well as I knew my own name, that they had looked at something they weren't supposed to look at. That was the Holy Spirit. I've seen the Spirit do that many times with my kids. Just ask, press, ask again. Ask the question this way. I didn't say, “Did you and your friend look at porn?” I said, “Did you and your friend look at some pictures of women?” 

That was all it took. We do have to follow the promptings of the Spirit. Otherwise, we could drive ourselves crazy. And shutting down all technology, in which case, I don't know how our kids are going to know how to function in the world. They're not going to develop a discernment muscle. And when they pass a billboard that's pornographic, what are they going to do? So, we do have to abide in this and in all things. So, it was as the Spirit always is, it was a whisper. It wasn't a yell. But it was wiser than I am at new things. I didn't know He knew it. He knew things I didn't know. He dropped them into my heart, and I tried to just listen to His voice.

Dannah: Yeah, we've got to listen to the Spirit's voice on this one. You know, Erin, your son was introduced to porn; it’s one of the top ten ways most kids are introduced to porn. I pulled a list together for us today. I want people to know, so that they can check these cracks. These might be cracks in your home. Because listen, like when we were kids, you had to seek porn out. But now, porn is hunting you down. It's a $13 billion sex entertainment industry. That's what they call themselves. I call it porn. It's succeeding in their efforts to convert a whole generation into lifelong, what they would consider, customers.

Erin: I think we thought historically of porn as a man problem. And what you need to know if you're listening is, porn is hunting your daughter down. 

Dannah: Yeah.

Erin: Porn sending your son down. Porn is hunting your babies. We're talking about babies eleven and twelve. Not yet pubescent and learning about sexuality through these images. So, we should be on high alert. 

Dannah: We often get letters at True Girl, the ministry I run for tweens and their moms. Girls have been exposed at ages five, six, seven. So, you’ve got to close up these cracks. Here they are. 

Erin: Okay, let's break it down. They're learning the alphabet. They're learning the alphabet at age five, and they're looking at pornographic images like that. That should make us so angry as parents, grandparents, people in the Church because that's intentional. It's war. I’m sorry I got fired up. 

Dannah: We need to be women that say, “Not on my watch. Not on my watch!” 

Erin: Absolutely. 

Dannah: Okay, here are the top ten ways creators of porn target children. Now, some of these aren't necessarily the ways that purveyors are targeting them. But this is how they're getting to your kids.

One is a friend's device. Case in point, Erin just shared with you a story, right? 

Two is a friend's house. So there again, you're not there to see the phone playing music or a screen that's been opened. You've got to have these open conversations.

Erin: Dannah, by the way, was my first exposure to porn. I was probably fifteen, staying the night at a friend's house. Yeah, we ate, we went over to another friend of a friend's house. There were magazines in the cabinet. That was my first exposure at a friend's house. 

Dannah: Yep. The number three way that they're seeing their pornography for the first time is your devices. Now listen, if you have a laptop or a phone, without something like covenant eyes on it to screen or block, or, I mean, there are a myriad of options out there. But if you're not using screening tools on your home system or on your private systems, your kids are vulnerable to that. 

So, you don't necessarily have to have your device locked down to where they can't get to things, but you need to have it at least locked down to where there's accountability software that tells you when somebody has used that device to get to things. And then you know, to open up the conversation. So be careful with those.

Number four school laptops or tablets. What many parents don't know is that your school often has a safety feature that is on the WiFi of the school system. As soon as you remove that laptop or that tablet from the school WiFi and you get on the WiFi at the cafe or at home, that security is gone.

Erin: Yeah, and let's not make this about what it's not. This is not about what type of school your child is in. Almost no matter what type of school your child is in, there is a technology element to their schooling, because there'll be a technology element to their vocation eventually. So, we can't make this about what kind of school your kid goes to. Because as long as they're connecting, there's a risk. 

Dannah: Yep. So what are we on here? Number five social media. We're talking of course, TikTok, of course, Instagram, of course, YouTube. But did you know Pinterest is one of the top places the teenagers and tweens are first seeing pornography? Your social media apps are very dangerous. I want to say this, before the age of twelve, it's not even legal for your child to be on social media. It's not. 

So, when they have an account, if they have an account before that age, the government has an act that defines the fact that you have to give your email address private information out to get on social media. You are not legally allowed to do that before the age of twelve. And so, if you're doing it, that means the government has said your brain is probably not ready for whatever this doorway you're about to walk through.

Erin: So, delay, delay, delay, delay.

Dannah: Gaming, live streaming and apps. Gaming. Many parents would never even imagine. I remember one of the chilling things that happened for me when my son was younger. Of course, he's thirty now. But he was Googling for codes that he could use to get further along in the gaming. I happened to be standing right behind him and an ad popped up that I knew had sensual language on it. He wouldn't have known that language. But it's right there for my little eleven-year-old son. Watch out for the gaming.

Google Images. Cute kid hashtags. This is where the purveyors are not playing fair because they study the hashtags. They find out what the kids are following. They make porn trails for the kids using those hashtags. Library computers again, not always locked down.

Then, fanfiction pages. If you don't know what that is, the most popular would be 50 Shades of Gray. Fanfiction is when people get online, and they write stories for one another. I have counseled a myriad of high school and college age girls through where they're reading fanfiction and writing fanfiction of a horrific pornographic nature. 

Under the age of twelve, fanfiction is called “Lemon Stories.” They give it a nice, cute name so that it sounds innocent. But that's pornography for kids under the age of twelve, being written by other kids under the age of twelve. These are the top ten windows that kids are first getting their first exposure to pornography. Shut them down in your home. 

Erin: I've only recently been made aware of pornographic cartoons, to which people will say, “Oh, they're not people, so it's not porn.” But they're very pornographic. And so, Scripture warns us our enemy is crafty. So, it shouldn't surprise us that he comes up with these methods, but we should fight back. So, I like her, as you describe those as cracks in your home, your family, Dannah, what should parents do to protect their children? They have the information, what next? 

Dannah: I think there's three things. One is pay attention. Pay attention to what's happening. Read about this, learn about it, and be informed. Learn about filters, and accountability software that will block this all together. 

Number two, talk about it. That's what is so powerful about your story, Erin. You entered into the conversation. You weren't afraid. You should really start this conversation when children are about five or six years old. And you say, “Well, how do I have that conversation with the five or six-year-old. That sounds really mature? There's a book called Good Pictures, Bad Pictures. It's not a Christian book, but it's a great book. And it basically has entered us into a conversation kind of like stranger danger, right? You don't want to tell your five-year-old about what bad people do when they steal a child, but you can teach them about stranger danger. 

You can also tell them, there are good pictures on the internet; there are bad pictures on the internet. “If you see one you think is bad or makes you feel bad, you need to tell me because that's something I need to help you with.” What a great tool, right?

And then number three, use technology to your advantage. Find out how to use the technology so that you can keep your kids safe, rather than just saying, “Hey, here's a computer, use it.” You’ve got to get educated on how to use internet filtering and internet accountability.

Erin: Yeah, I actually want to walk back something I said earlier in this episode, I was a little bit dismissive of the filters, and the filters can play a big role. My point is that just using filters isn't going to disciple your child's heart and mind about this. I do know that my kids who have never known a world without internet, I can't rely on what I can figure out to be bulletproof because they’re so much better at it. So, Dannah, tell us the difference between internet filtering and internet accountability. In your opinion, which one works better? 

Dannah: Well, I think this depends on age. Internet filtering is when you can actually block things. You could block anything you wanted. You can say I don't want my children ever to watch anything about fat. I don't want them to look up clothing. So, you could block clothing. You could block anything you want with a filtering software. 

Internet accountability doesn't block those things, but it provides a report to you as a parent that says your child looked up fashion and clothing today. And so, you know what they're seeing, and it provides prompts for you to have conversations. 

The question is the age and stage of your child. When your child is under the age of twelve or thirteen, I would say go for the filter. They don't need to see that stuff. A lot of their homework isn't requiring them to look up things that would bump into problems for their homework, you know, so filter it, keep it away from them. 

Erin: Well, you’re so right, like, just looking at clothes. Right now, a lot of the girls in middle school age are aware of workout clothes. And just looking at clothes, you can very quickly stumble onto pornographic images. So that's a filter I might not have thought of that.

Dannah: Or music videos. Music videos today are really very often not just sexual but transgressive or violent in nature. They're just not good. So, there's a lot of things that you want to just filter out. When they're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, all the way into high school at some point, you need to help them build a muscle of their own discernment and their own self-control.

And so, I think you switch over to an internet accountability software so that they can have the accountability of you checking in on them, but they're able to build the muscle of saying no. When they go off to college or into their own life, they're not going to have you filtering their stuff. They have to learn that skill. I think if you teach them that skill at an appropriate stage and age. that's gonna have the best long-term mental, spiritual, and emotional health for them.

Erin: That's really good. I really love that idea of having something that helps you ask informed questions. One of my kids was just at church camp this weekend. The children's pastor texted all the parents, “Ask your kid about this, this, and this.” It was so helpful because I had some questions. So, if you have those reports coming back to you, you can say, “Hey, I noticed you've been searching a lot for yoga pants. What sites have you been too? Have you seen anything that you think counts as porn?” You know, it's good to be informed?

Dannah: Yeah. Or why are you looking for yoga pants? Start with that, why? 

Erin: Right. 

Dannah: Erin, I love how you checked in with your son. That was awesome. How does a parent do regular check-ins effectively? What does that look like? What rhythm? Advice on that?

Erin: Well, I want to say humbly that I am not an expert parent. But I can certainly tell you what we do. I told you we've decided when it comes to porn, we're going to go on the offensive, not the defense. The world is trying very, very hard to control the narrative for my sons. And so, I'm not going to be passive about it. So, we talk about it fairly often. Now, as I said, my sons are five to fifteen, so there is a range. 

We have the same conversation every time our kids go to a friend's house. I will say, we do limit which friends they can stay the night with for this specific issue. There are friends that they can go play basketball with for a little bit after school. We always say we'd rather have them here. But when they do go to a friend's house, we ask a set of questions every time, and they know the answers to them. 

One of those questions is, “What do you do if you see a picture of naked people?” And they know the answer is. We tell them, “You can make up an excuse. You can say you don't feel good, if you're embarrassed.” And we will say, “He's afraid he's gonna throw up. We'll be right there.”

Then we follow up with, “What if they tell you you will get in trouble if you tell that you saw those images?” Because we know that if kids are being groomed, that often they can make the child feel like they've done something wrong. Even my little guy will say, “I won't be in trouble; they will be in trouble.” And that's right. We want them to know that you're not gonna be in trouble because a big person showed you something you weren't supposed to look at. That big person will be in trouble, but that's okay. 

Dannah: I just heard of a mom yesterday who said, “We have a secret word and a secret emoji that my kids can text to me.” They call me and say a secret word or they text me the secret emoji. And she said, “I go Mom mad on my kids when that happens.” We know that the scenario is that my kid is going to pretend they don't want to leave. I'm going to be the crazy mom who's overreacting and says, “You get yourself home now.” Or if they use the second code word, “I'm coming to get you right now.” 

And so, it puts the kid in a place where it's not really going to look like their fault or they're telling, but they've already told they've already told with a code word that they don't feel safe, that there's pornography or something in the area that they want to get rescued from.

Erin: Love it love the secret emoji. Gosh, emojis are another, I mean, emojis have been sexualized. We don't have to overcompensate, either. I mean, my kids don't think I'm going to sic the police on people every time they're exposed to something, but they do know I'm going to engage. I'm not going to wait. I'm not going to ask questions. 

My mom did that with me. I didn't have to use it very often. But I knew that if I called my mom and said I need you to come get me, she would make up a story. She would say either some things that family needed Erin, or Erin called me, she's not feeling well. She took all the pressure off of me. I'm so grateful. 

So, why is this important? Because some parents aren't that worried about porn. That can fall into a growing number of people who don't think it's a sin. In fact, a growing number of people think that porn is normal and even healthy sexual expression. So, you can't know just because I go to church with these people or just because I sit by him at the basketball game, that their house is going to be a safe haven. 

So, it really does have to be a conversation between you and your kid and an ongoing conversation. It's not a one and done. That's been a cultural joke, “the talk,” that parents sit down and have a single talk with their kids about sex. No, you need to be having the talks. Deuteronomy 6 gives us this model. You talk about it when you're on the way. It's talking about truth on the way and then on the road and you put it on the doorposts of your home. You got to be talking ongoing. You don't just check that box as a parent. 

So, Dannah, as you get us grounded in God's Word today, what do you think about those people who would say, “What's the big deal? Porn is normal. It’s not even a sin.”

Dannah: I would love to dive into God's Word on that. I think I can also give you some guidance about what to do if you find your child is using porn, some next steps. But let me do that in about two minutes. Let's call our girl Portia back into here to take a little pause in this conversation.

Hi Portia. 

Portia: You know what I found astounding here. The ABC’s and you know potential exposure to pornography.

Erin: The enemy can't have Emmi in this area. They cannot have Eli, Noble, Judah, or Ezra. The enemy cannot, Dannah Nanna. The enemy can't have those children. We're praying for that just before this episode. So, I'm with you. Portia, it's too alarming, and we gotta fight back.

Portia: We've got to fight back. Thank you. Thank you both for such a rich conversation. Whew, if you are not talking about porn in your family, it might be because you're not talking about it in church. And even after this conversation with Erin and Dannah, if you are still hesitant to talk to your kids about porn, you need to watch this short clip of a conversation between Dannah and Erin and Dr. Juli Slattery. Dr. Slattery says there should be no question we're afraid to ask. Let's watch.

Erin: You took us right where I wanted to go. The title of your book is God, Sex, and Your Marriage. I think those who do not believe in God or are not followers of Jesus, they're talking about sex a lot. They're having braids to celebrate their sexuality. They have apps that the sole purpose is some sort of sexual need that they're trying to meet. And in the church, I feel like we swing in the total opposite direction. We feel very, very uncomfortable talking about this topic. 

I want to know the why in here in a second. But also, I'd love for you to just help us anytime. Scripture talks about sex. I feel like sex is all over our Bibles—Old Testament, New Testament in lots of different contexts. But that isn't modeled in our conversation. So how do we get here as the Church with our extreme uncomfortableness with sex? 

38:27 - “No Question We Are Afraid to Ask” (with Dr.Juli Slattery)

Dr. Juli Slattery: That's a great question. I think there's been a long history of not talking about sex within the Protestant church. We can go through all kinds of historical reasons, including philosophies like the dualism of the body and the soul. Dannah, you already mentioned Augustine, like your church history and philosophical history and kind of see the roots of it. But I think what's important to realize is that in this day and age, we have inherited a tradition that we just don't talk about sex in church. And if we do talk about it, it's kind of this awkward conversation that we're apologizing for, or making corny jokes about, or we just feel like we're walking on eggshells. 

But as you said, Erin, just because something's traditional doesn't mean it's biblical. And when we look at the Scriptures, we see that God is not shy in talking about sexuality. And as you mentioned, it's throughout the whole Scripture. It's not just a few passages that address our sexuality. So, it's really a sad thing. 

Unfortunately, in our day and age, the problem, that confusion, the pain, is sort of forcing us to enter into these conversations, but we're not prepared. And so, it's key that we go back to what the Scripture says, and we really grab on to God's example in Scripture. We need to talk boldly about this topic. There should be no question that we're afraid to ask.

40:45 - Grounded in God's Word (with Dannah)

Dannah: No question that we are afraid of. Right now, I want to answer this question, “Is pornography sin?” Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5. Let's begin with a definition of sin. The Hebrew language uses an archer’s term for sin. So, picture in your mind, a bow and arrow, maybe a bullseye. The word, chatta, is a Hebrew word, is used throughout the Old Testament. To talk about sin means “to miss the mark.” In other words, sin is missing God's intended purpose for our lives. His bullseye, if you will, the dead center of His plan. 

Now, we know God's intention for sex and sexual desire is one man and one woman in the confines of marriage. If I could, I want to take a step beyond the mechanics of intercourse. Yes, I just said intercourse on Grounded, because sex is so much more than the mechanics of bodies. 

There are two words in the Old Testament for the act of intercourse. One is yada. It means “to know, to be known, to be deeply respected.” There is not one inkling of the physical act of sex. It transcends the physical and it goes to perhaps the emotional and even the spiritual. Knowing that one man and one woman can have in a deeply respectful, mutual sexual relationship within the confines of marriage. 

The word yada is not used in any other context but the confines of marriage when it comes to sex between one man and one woman. It's used in some other instances for us to know the intimacy we can have with God. 

The second word in the Old Testament for the act of intercourse is shaqab. It was a euphemism for sex. And it basically meant to exchange body fluids. It was limited to the physical. Not all sex is the same. There's something God has created that so high and so holy that it transcends our physical world. And there's something that is really the counterfeit of sex, the sin of sex. Shaqabis only used in those terms. It's just merely an exchange of body fluids. I would argue, sexually speaking, our bullseye or our mark is for God's design for sex is yada. Our goal is to know to be known and to be deeply respected. 

So just going from the biblical definitions of both sin and sex, I would say, “Yes, you're missing the mark when you use pornography.” But wait, some say, “Porn isn't actually having sex with someone, that the internal sexual thoughts we have for a man who is not our husband is okay.” 

Let's look at Matthew 5, we're going to read verses 27 and 28. These are very familiar, I think: 

You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

If it's a sin for a man to look at a woman, the same would be true for us as women, looking at a person less fully clothed or not, is sinful if the heart has embraced it. 

Now, we'll come back to that passage in a moment. Keep your finger there. I want to look at something. The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:12:

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. 

Some versions say, “I will not be mastered by anything.” The church of Corinth had been misinterpreting a teaching about everything being permissible. They had excused certain sins by saying that Christ had taken away all sin, and so they had freedom to live as they pleased. Well, that's not true. 

Paul said that though some actions are not specifically sinful in themselves, they're not appropriate because they can lead us away from God and His appropriate intentions for our sexuality. 

Now, I want to say this porn is deeply addictive. There's great evidence that it's as addictive as heroin, and it has a similar impact on the brain—damaging it and making it look functionally like Swiss cheese. Yes, pornography is sinful, because it can dominate and master you. 

So, what do you do, if that's happening in your house? I'm not talking about your kid came to you and said, “Hey, I found something today I shouldn't have seen,” or you caught them and they seemed to be repentant. I'm talking more about somebody who really is looking for it, willfully walking in the wrong direction. What do you do if that happens in your house? You get radical. 

Let's go back to Matthew 5 again. Let's read starting in verse 29. 

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members then that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

So, Jesus is still talking about lust, right? He's still talking about that man looking at a woman and feeling lustful thoughts, thinking lustful thoughts in his heart. Okay, I don't think God wants us to pluck out our own eyes. He certainly doesn’t want us to pluck our kids’ eyes out. This is a little bit hyperbolic. But the point is, do whatever it takes, get radical, do not let this sin be in your lives. 

Erin’s son didn't have a phone, didn't bring the porn into the house. But I bet she didn't have that boy in the house with the phone again. You heard her say, “No phones upstairs.” 

If it's your child's phone, or they've been hiding an account on TikTok, or is the fifth time you found them looking at porn, pluck that out, get rid of that. Not the child, not the child's body, but the opportunity, the door. Don't be passive or soft here, Mom. This is literally a pathway that throws some hearts and bodies into hell. It's better that your kid lives without a phone or the internet or social media than their body go to hell. 

Now, let's remember this: our goal is not to induce shame. Be very careful. You have to do this with a humble and gentle spirit. If you or your husband, for example, have been in the boat of temptation when it comes to pornography, tell them. Let them know you're not the only one who's known this temptation. Don't let them suffer embarrassment and shame alone. But don't fall for the lie that your child cannot survive without internet access, their smartphone, or their favorite social media apps. They will survive that. What they might not survive is the grip of sin and addiction. 

Portia: Solid, solid, solid. That is some good, practical . . . It may be hard to hear for some of us, especially this millennial mom who has been exposed to technology and can be a little lax sometimes about my child's access to it. Yeah, this is needed, so thank you, Dannah.

Dannah: You're welcome, Friend.

Portia: Earlier, we shared a conversation with Dannah and Erin and Dr. Juli Slattery. Well, we want to recommend an online course that Dr. Slattery offers through her ministry, Authentic Intimacy. It's called “Sexual Discipleship.” The course teaches leaders to navigate sexual issues with gospel truth. So, we commend it to parents because actually, what are you? You are leaders in your home, of your home? So, we're going to drop a link to that in the episode notes and in the chat. 

We also want you to know that the best defense for lies is a good offense. And to do that, our Revive Our Hearts ministry founder, fearless leader Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has spearheaded a whole line of books, starting with Lies Women Believe. That book has an entire chapter written by Dannah on lies about sexuality. 

And in recent years, Dannah and Erin both have written in the series. Dannah has written Lies Girls Believe. Erin has recently written Lies Boys Believe. Both of these books teach your tween the importance of exposing sin to a trusted, older, wiser person in their lives. And so, we're going to drop a link to that Lies collection of books. I really hope that you check it out.

Erin: Yeah, thanks for mentioning that Portia. Lies Boys Believe have the ten lies. It doesn't matter what I watch, read, or listen was a bonus lie. And, no one needs to know about my son. In the parents’ guide we talk about the importance of building a no secrets family. Know the same things are addressed in Lies Girls Believe. So, if you're feeling like, “I need something to help me start this conversation.” Those tools might help you.

As you were talking, Dannah, Romans 12:5 came to mind. And of course, that was written by Paul. He wrote so we though many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. So, I hope nobody listens to this episode and thinks, That's not my problem. My kids are kids are grown. Let me tell you that's a dangerous line of thinking right there. My kids would never, or my kids have never.

What Scripture teaches us is that we belong to one another. And when one part of the body of Christ is being attacked, and our children are, we've laid out that case pretty clearly here. At a minimum, pray. I don't want to say at a minimum, because prayer is a huge response to this kind of attack. So, I hope you've been diligently reading, invigorated to engage in the battle. 

Dannah: Yeah. Such an important topic. But let me ask this: what if it's not your kids you need to talk to about porn? What if you suspect your husband is struggling? Well, you're gonna need a lot of wisdom and a lot of prayer before you have a conversation with them. And next week, Rosie McKinney and Crystal Renaurd will be our guests. They're going to help you get ready to fight for your marriage

Portia: Well let's wake up with hope together next week on Grounded.

Erin: Grounded audio is powered by Skype. Grounded is a production of Revive Our Hearts, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. 

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