So you survived round one...

And the guy on the receiving end of this interrogation is still talking to you. What you didn’t tell him was… ooh baby, that was just the warmup. Hah.

Somewhere, though, I'm guessing someone is reading this series and thinking… 

“Isn’t she going overboard with all this? What’s the big deal? Why would you grill somebody over such a private topic as their personal sexuality before you’re even in a serious dating relationship?”

If you think that… odds are you’ve never been married to a porn or sex addict. And if you haven't, that's okay - because no one can predict just how much manipulation, deception, and emotional+psychological abuse is guaranteed when you're dealing with sex+porn addiction fallout.

Not unless you've been there.

If you have lived through it, then you already know that porn addiction erodes capacity for intimacy. It actually changes the brain, making the addict incapable of deep connection. 

Porn happens to be fantastic at forming new, long-lasting pathways in the brain. In fact, porn is such a ferocious competitor that hardly any other activity can compete with it, including actual sex with a real partner. [10] That’s right, porn can actually overpower the brain’s natural ability to have real sex! Why? As Dr. Norman Doidge, a researcher at Columbia University, explains, porn creates the perfect conditions and triggers the release of the right chemicals to make lasting changes in the brain. - Fight The New Drug

As an Abuse Recovery Coach, I have yet to see a domestic violence case where sexual acting out and pornography consumption was not also a factor in the abuse dynamics. 

Asking TOUGH QUESTIONS Sooner Is Better, Because…

Because the longer you wait, the more likely you are to not want honest answers. 

Because the more attached he is to you, the more likely he is to minimize his answers and skirt the issue if he thinks you might not like the truth. 

Because the more you fall for him, the more you’ll naturally be inclined to make it work, even if the truth makes it untenable. 

Because the more he falls for you, the more likely he is to make promises he doesn’t really intend to keep, just to keep you from leaving when good sense says you should run.

But porn isn't the only line of awkward questions you gotta be willing to discuss... there's also the topics of masturbation, sexual entitlement, misogyny, gender equality, and more.

"But I just want to have a good time and go on fun dates! Why are you ruining the mood with these uncomfortable topics? C'mon, really???"

Yes, really... Not because I'm a spoil-sport. But because I know just how brutal life will be if you let yourself get swept along into the fun time, and you decide to gloss over the difficult conversations. Looking back from the other side, let me tell you - there is no fun time that is worth side stepping the process of digging deeper into a guy's mind, and exploring how he really sees himself, and how he views women. 

Sex Is So Much More Than Just… The Sex

Our sexuality is a core aspect of our being. The attitudes and thoughts and beliefs we hold about our sexual identity, our rights to sexual fulfillment, and our vulnerability in sexual pleasure — play a far bigger role in both social and spiritual interactions with those around us than we typically give them credit for. 

In fact, a greater understanding of the way someone views their sexuality may possibly hold the keys to decoding their mindset about… almost everything else. If you’re even remotely considering a relationship with someone, these are things worth knowing. (Side note, they’re also worth figuring out about yourself along the way.)

If you’re already seriously dating, or engaged, or even married — go through them together anyway. You’ll learn a LOT about each other in the process.

And guys, if you’re reading this because it interests you, or because your girlfriend is making you, or for whatever other reason — I think it’s perfectly appropriate for a godly young man to ask these questions from the girl he’s interested in, too.

Porn is a rapidly growing addiction among young women, and if you want a sexually faithful marriage — it’s worth initiating these conversations along the way. I may write for my female audience, but that doesn’t mean these questions work only in one direction.

(Get my FREE PDF and save yourself the writer's cramp.)

Let’s Get Down To Business

Here’s your next conversation questions, complete with explanations just in case something seems bizarre and you’re trying to figure out why you're asking these. ;) 

• What about masturbation?
   Maybe he said he doesn’t watch porn, or he hasn’t watched porn in X amount of time. But does he masturbate anyway? Does he feel like masturbation is acceptable? Also, if he said he doesn’t watch porn, but now he says Yes, he masturbates… then… what’s up? The whole purpose of watching porn is to masturbate. Inconsistency between the two questions raises a red flag.

• Do you believe masturbation is acceptable as long as it’s without consuming porn?
   Find out what he believes about this. Because hey, some people have had a plethora of sexual experiences, or maybe they used to watch porn — either way, all the sexual image files are in their brain and they don’t need fresh pictures or movies to masturbate to. They can just recall what’s already there, and they’re okay with that. 

Porn and masturbation are linked, because that's why guys watch porn.

You knew that, right?

Men don't watch pornography just to watch. If you're watching porn, it's for the purpose of arousal, for visual stimulation, for the purpose of having sex with yourself while watching the sexualized bodies and movements of other men and women.

It's commercialized voyeurism.

It's visual exploitation of the people acting out sex scenes for your entertainment. It's "lusting in the heart", which Jesus says is adultery. What's more, it's an exploitation of your own sex drive, too. 
Here's why...

Are you ready to give back to other women?
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God’s Approach Is Sooooooo Sex-Positive

God created sex to be a beautiful, sacred, holy, ecstatic, shared experience within marriage.

As one married female mentor once told me back while I was a single mom just-divorced from an abusive porn user, “There is NOTHING better than great married sex." 

I didn’t say anything to her in the moment, because I was too busy trying to remember when I’d ever had particularly great married sex. I couldn’t think of any, because when a marriage is overshadowed by one partner’s compulsive sexual indiscretions and unfaithfulness, it chokes out intimacy in a big way. 

But there’s something powerfully bonding about great married sex — where you both have full and complete trust in each other...

• Where both individuals are offering a ministry of pleasure to the other, rather than taking what they can get, or just racing across the finish line for themselves. 

• Where emotional, mental, and spiritual harmony has already laid a shared foundation of safe vulnerability and whole-souled connection. 

• Where neither partner is secretly left wondering whether the other person is thinking of someone else, picturing a porn star or past lover when they look at you. 

• Where there is zero fear that this will end, that he will leave someday, or that you might not completely measure up.

THAT is the kind of earth-shattering sex God created you to experience. 

That’s why it’s worth asking these questions and paying attention to the answers. That’s also why sex conversations have to include masturbation too. 

Because at its essence, masturbation is taking what God created to be shared between two people, and reducing it to a physical release by having sex with yourself, serving yourself as the recipient of your own pleasure, instead of preserving that gift to be shared with the person you love as God created it to be experienced. 

Masturbation removes the mutual intimacy and spiritual sacredness of sex, and reduces it to mere self-gratification.

Whether the sexual thought-pictures during masturbation are memories from real-life promiscuity or actors on a screen, accessing them for self-directed sexual release is the same as watching porn. It’s mental voyeurism for the purpose of sexual arousal, rather than sexual unity with a cherished spouse.

Just because someone doesn’t need porn to masturbate, doesn’t mean they aren’t living in sexual addiction. It just means they’re not actively looking porn right now. Instead, they’re doing the other things related to porn, lusting after women (or men) that they’re not married to, in their minds.

Jesus said that “looking at a woman to lust after her” is adultery. (Matthew 5:28) It stands to reason that, at its simplest definition, masturbating even without porn is still adultery. 

It’s still turning something that God created for the express purpose of sharing, into something that pleases only yourself. Instead of waiting to share sex-positivity with a loving, committed spouse, masturbation turns our God-given gift of mutual sexuality into self-satisfaction. It’s effectively stealing intimacy from your future (or current) spouse.

Read the first post in the TOUGH DATING QUESTIONS series here.

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