A few months ago, teenage boys up and down the UK mourned the loss of one of the most popular weekly lads mags in the country, Nuts.
Meanwhile, some celebrated the demise of a publication that had introduced many a young man to semi-naked models and bad jokes.
Many in the Church also welcomed the closure of Nuts but what does this really say about us as Jesus followers? How does the way we react to people losing their jobs say about the feeling we have for those who work in the porn industry? And crucially, how does this determine how we deal with porn addiction?
Growing up, when I wanted porn, I had to physically walk into a shop and pretend to look at the Spurs magazine (embarrassing enough as it is) before I finally made sure no one I knew was around and swiftly grabbed a copy of FHM to march head down to the cashier. Getting porn took guts and a lot of sneakiness.
There was a world out there of hot naked women that I could only get a peak at. Now though, everyone owns all the porn ever made and it lives inside our pocket.
So is the closure of Nuts a signal of a dwindling popularity in porn or that it’s just a lot less hassle to open up your laptop in your room?
Campaigns like No More Page 3 and calls for the government to force providers to limit the amount of porn kids can see online, are really important in our desire as Christians to see freedom for a life that is full of purpose and hope.
But it is also why their purpose can only go so far.
Christians are not exempt from porn addiction and it’s the shame that we often place on the issue of sex or porn that is mostly at the core of addiction. Our continual campaigning to close the porn industry reflects who we really see as the enemy. But porn is not the enemy and until we drastically reframe our thoughts on this, true freedom will evade many in our pews.
Maybe the question is not who is the enemy, but what? And maybe we even need to abandon such divisive language altogether.
What the Church really needs is to help those who are addicted to porn to see that they are not alone. When 50 per cent of pastors admit to having looked at porn and yet never talk about it openly, it’s little wonder we are afraid to seek help. It’s little wonder that a deep shame underlies porn addiction in the Church.
We preach freedom from shame and guilt, shouting ‘Amen!’, yet our silence about our addictions reflects what we really believe.
It’s time we as the Church faced the pain that each of us who is addicted to porn holds buried deep underground, to line up what we believe about Jesus setting us free and our ability to face those pains that we have been using porn to medicate (for more on this idea check out the brilliant PornPilgrim.com). It’s not about porn you see, but what we are using porn to unsuccessfully medicate.
This is ultimately why the closure of Nuts is not the point. It’s like plastering over a deep wound that is bleeding out profusely. We don’t want to see the blood (the pain we all carry) so we try to cover it up, leaving us with a messy blood soaked garment.
But this goes further than ourselves. For when we start to see that the porn industry is not the enemy and that those inside of it are simply like us; that is using sex to deal with pain that we don’t want or know how to address, we can truly show them the love that will set us all free.
Because Nuts is not the enemy. Page 3 is not the enemy. The porn Industry is not the enemy.
All addicts are searching for ways to heal that porn can never fix. Which is the very reason it’s not enough to fight against the porn industry. It cuts them off from freedom because they are seen as the problem and it cuts an addict off because it’s not addressing the real cause.
Which is why when the Church gets this right; we’ll start getting porn right also.