Friday, December 2, 2011

Newsweek: The Sex Addiction Epidemic

When I saw this article, I thought, it's just another gimmick to sell magazines. As I looked at it more closely, and especially the new movie "Shame" that is coming soon, I realized this might actually be helpful.

There is nothing really new here. The culprit and common denominator in this malady is always porn. Illicit sexual experiences become addicting, and they fuel a drive for a bigger and better high. What we see again and again turns into what we do until it destroys us.

The ancients did not have digital porn. But they had something better... Religion devoted to sex addiction. I've always suspected that the Baal worshipers and the devotees of Aphrodite never had problems getting their teenagers to go to church.

One comment in the article surprised me (for a Newsweek article). A sex therapist said, "We see a lot of heterosexual men who are addicted to sex and, because culturally and biologically women aren't as readily available to have sex at all times of the day, these men will turn to gay men for gratification."

God's answer to all of this is still the same. When a person has become so ashamed of their sexual sins (or any other sin), God says, "Such were some of you (hetero- and homo- sexual sinners). But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6.11).

Jesus is the only one who promises to take the shame away. And He does.