Porn is a sensitive subject in the context of dating, but it’s something we can’t ignore. Sin retains its power when it stays a secret. It loses it in the light of the gospel.
That’s why I’m excited to share a conversation I had with Joy Skarka about pornography and dating.
Joy is the director of discipleship at Authentic Intimacy, a ministry that teaches God’s design for intimacy and sexuality. In the interview below, Joy shares her story about finding freedom from sexual brokenness, as well as:
- How Jesus offers hope and healing for women addicted to porn
- How to approach a porn struggle when you’re dating
- How to respond if your boyfriend confesses he’s addicted to porn
Joy shared that one of her favorite verses is Galatians 5:1, which says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
If you’re feeling the enslaving weight of sexual sin, I pray Joy’s advice gives you hope that you can find freedom in Christ.
Could you share your story of finding freedom from sexual brokenness, and how Jesus fits into that?
I grew up going to church, but I didn’t know God personally, so I was more of a perfectionist trying to be a good person. I lived this double life. During the weekdays, I would mess around with boyfriends to try and feel loved as a high schooler, but it really just left me empty. And then I would go to church on Sunday and try to be perfect, and that made me feel empty too.
So, I went to college in this emptiness, and on my third day of college, I was raped. It made me question everything. I questioned if God loved me, I questioned if it was my fault. I questioned a lot about sexuality because where I grew up in my family, we never really talked about it. It was pushed under the rug or not really talked about, so I had a lot of questions.
That moment is when I turned to Googling, and that led me to pornography. As a freshman in college going through this trauma, it started as my sex educaiton but it became what I turned to for comfort when I was lonely, when I was angry, all sorts of things. It just became this struggle.
It really took until another woman went first and shared her story of how she had struggled with pornography and habitual masturbation. Just hearing a woman say those words — I’d never heard a woman [confess], and it was a Christian woman. I didn’t even know Christian women could have these conversations. That’s when I was able to come forward and talk about my sexual brokenness and begin this journey of healing. It definitely took a while, and all of our recovery journeys are different, but that’s a little bit of a summary of my story.
How does Jesus offer hope and healing in the cycle of porn?
I think it’s important to lay a foundation that we’re all sexual beings. God created us as sexual beings and that’s a good thing. The problem is porn is fake. It is not portraying God’s design for sexuality for a variety of reasons.
It’s the fact that people are having sex with numerous partners, it’s very abusive most of the time, it’s actually linked to human trafficking with women, there’s a lot of drugs they’re forced to take just to get through the day.
People don’t realize that while they’re watching this or viewing it, but these men and women were made in the image of God. God just has such a bigger plan for us as his children and calls us to higher standards, really.
So, how he fits into all this is that he created us as sexual beings, so it’s a good thing, but our world has just twisted it. We’ve twisted it and we’ve messed it all up. But what’s really cool is that our God just doesn’t leave us there. He redeems us and He makes us new.
That’s what was so true in my life. For a while, I thought I was so dirty because this was my struggle, or I thought I was too far gone. But we are never too far gone for God to redeem and make us new.
Porn always leaves you empty. It’s not satisfying. It’s a fake reality of love, versus God and his love and intimacy with him. That is real and that is true.
I love helping women understand that you can actually experience that love that we all want. We all want to be fully known and fully loved, and we can experience that with Jesus.
If you’re a woman who’s struggling with porn and you’re in a dating relationship, how do you approach that with your boyfriend?
There’s this spectrum between struggling and being addicted. Struggling would be someone who maybe every once in a while, the thought crosses your mind or you stumble into it, but you’re actively pursuing freedom. Or, you’ve been addicted before, but now you’re actively working on it.
I think that is a safe place to be in a dating relationship. You’re working on it, you have your accountability person set up, you have systems set up in place, and you’re working on healing those root issues.
But for someone who is newly admitting the addiction or beginning the process, I might encourage them to pause dating or take a break. Sometimes walking through those addictive patterns, you have to talk through trauma that you’ve had or get to some of those wounds from childhood. Maybe you really need to go to counseling. That can often be hard to do in a dating relationship.
It also puts pressure on it because a lot of people think, “If I get married, that’s going to fix my porn problem.” When in reality, I love to talk about how that’s not true. I hate when people set themselves up for failure when they think that’s the case and then that doesn’t happen.
So, just realize it’s okay if you need to pause that relationship. But I also think it’s important to share with your boyfriend where you’re at — not keeping this a secret.
What I mean by that is not confessing to him every single time and going into details of the type of porn you watch, but having him know so that he can pray for you, support you and check in with you.
I think it’s okay if he checks in and asks how it’s going, but he’s not your accountability person who you confess to every time you mess up. That also puts a lot of pressure on the relationship — both ways, if it’s his porn struggle or if it’s the woman’s porn struggle. So, make sure you have those friends and mentors in your life to turn to instead of your partner.
If your boyfriend confesses he’s struggling with porn, how can you discern if he’s struggling or addicted? And, how can you respond in a loving way?
I just helped a couple process through this. What happened was that they had been dating for over a year and he just confessed that he has been addicted to pornography for years.
What I didn’t say is, “You have to break up right now because he confessed this.” It wasn’t a dealbreaker for a break up. But what I did share with her is you really want to make sure he’s making steps of progress.
If he confesses this to you but never does anything to work on it, that’s a red flag. What I shared with her is asking him, “You confessed this to me, but did you confess it to your small group or to the guy discipling you?” Asking him those questions, asking him if he got accountability software on his devices, if he would be willing to go to counseling — those kinds of practical things.
We can still give him time and grace to make these steps, but if it’s been a month or two and he’s still not willing to make any of those steps, that might be a red flag that you need to take a break or break up with him until he’s ready to work on those things.
One other thing to add is that it’s not our responsibility to fix his porn problem, and vice versa. It’s not a [girlfriend’s] responsibility to fix a porn problem.
We can encourage and we can support and we can pray and we can love on them. But ultimately, it’s going to have to be up to them to make that first step. We can’t force it on them.
What would you say to someone who’s feeling personally hurt when she finds out that her boyfriend has been watching porn? Maybe she thinks, “Am I inadequate? Am I not beautiful?”
That’s what happened with this couple. She said to me, “I just don’t trust him anymore and I just don’t feel beautiful.” She already struggled with body image, and now she’s like, “How can I compete with the fake, edited women on screen?”
So I told her, “Those are real fears. Feel them. Those are real emotions. Feel them. The worst thing would be to bury them and pretend they don’t exist.” Because she needs to work through them and process them.
She and I talked about [those emotions], so I would encourage this person to find someone — a discipler or a counselor — to talk through it with. That’s a common theme in this conversation: community and friendship and mentorship.
And also just telling him. I really encouraged her to say, “What you did made me feel like this.” Not to put blame on him, but so he feels the weight of his choices.
This sin does have a consequence, and it did break the trust. She said she couldn’t kiss him for a while, and I said that’s okay. He needs to be okay with that…
That trust will come back over time if he’s taking these steps, but allowing her to feel those things [is important] because it’s painful. It’s a real painful betrayal that she just learned about…
I also encouraged her that it doesn’t mean you’re going to have a bad marriage or a bad sex life. So much redemption can come out of this.
I especially tell married women who just find out about this. The beauty of what’s going to happen if you guys work through this and he finds healing and freedom, you’re going to have a powerful testimony to be able to minister to other couples in the future.
So, I like to give her some hope — especially when they’re married — hope that God can redeem anything and have purpose in it.
For more wisdom from Joy Skarka, read Before You Send that Photo: 5 Good Reasons Not to Sext.
