It's difficult to find concrete numbers on women's pornography viewership. We shouldn't be surprised; adult entertainment has always been designated as the "man problem." But the little research on the topic, plus anecdotal evidence, reveals otherwise.
In 2007, Nielsen/NetRatings found that approximately 13 million American women click on pornographic sites each month. They make up an estimated one in three visitors to adult entertainment websites.
With the uptick in Internet use and the growth of online pornography, we can assume more men and women are viewing this content. Women also read erotica in huge numbers, with 50 Shades of Grey by E. L. James breaking records as the fastest-selling Kindle eBook and paperback novel in history, according to Business Insider.
Even as Christian groups work to combat our culture's porn addiction, their efforts continue to skew male. The Gospel Coalition editor Joe Carter published helpful findings on the effect of pornography on the brain, adding to the ongoing discussion over men and porn.
It's much harder to find similar articles tailored for women, leading many to deduce that pornography remains a struggle only for men. When we don't talk about women and porn, women everywhere hide in the shadows with this deep-rooted secret. Thousands, perhaps millions, of Christian women struggle with sexual sin, and we must speak openly about these temptations.
Many of these women start viewing pornography young—very young—and continue to struggle into their 20s. Three have volunteered to share from their stories.
Rachel: Googling Sex
It started when I was 9. A few days before, some friends were giggling about this thing called sex. I searched for it on Google, and up came countless links to pornographic websites. I clicked on many of them, and the screen was soon covered with explicit pop-ups. A flood of intense shame came over me, but I wanted to see more. I almost got caught, so I resolved to never do it again. I came too close to being exposed, and the shame was too much.
As a teenager, I became romantically involved with a guy who had just graduated from my school. Before long, we were discussing sexual fantasies. I went back to pornography, and I began to masturbate frequently. When things between us ended, I combated rejection and heartache with pornography and masturbation. It was an intimacy that I could control.
Every morning and evening—sometimes even in the afternoons—I would engage in those things. On the outside I was a straight-A student, a leader in my high school's chapel band, a core part of my youth group, a social butterfly, and a talented athlete. On the inside I was slowly wasting away, chained to my addictions and the woundedness that I was trying to avoid. For those four years I led a double life, and I was good at it.
Sally*: Chasing Endorphins
When I was 13, I would stay up late at night and watch scrambled porn on my TV in my room. I still remember, on my cable provider the Spice channel was 73, which happened to be the reverse of VH1, which was 37. I found it by accident one night, and it changed my life for several years. When my friends came over, we'd watch it together.
I eventually started experimenting while watching it. I was a virgin and I was curious, and at the time, I didn't think it was doing any harm. My addiction with porn and masturbation lasted until I was a senior in high school, when I entered into a relationship with a guy in my church. We were both Christians, but neither had any self-control or a strong conviction about premarital sex. We swore it off at first, but after a few months, I had experienced my first kiss, and then I was rounding second base and third base and was headed quickly for home plate. It was only by the grace of God that we never actually had sex.
After our relationship ended, I craved that feeling that I no longer was experiencing. I wanted those "feel good" endorphins. I knew it was wrong, but I still wanted to experience an orgasm. I remember watching a steamy scene from The Notebook (and if you've seen the movie, you know the one) on YouTube, and before I knew it I was viewing pornographic material. I was shocked at how fast it led there. The Lord had worked to get me out of that bad relationship, and I didn't intend to go down that path again. I closed the computer and wept. It was a changing point for me. I cried out to the Lord for help. I asked to be delivered from my sexual sin, and I was.
Sarah*: Satisfying Curiosity
As a kid, I was exposed to sex scenes in movies and sex chatter among other students at school, who repeated details of what they had heard of, seen, or done. I began to develop impure thoughts and daydreamed about sexual activity. I knew this was not right, but I continued to talk with others about sex, and imagine what it was like. Even at age 11, I heard a sermon about lust that ended with an altar call for congregants struggling with lust. I knew I had impure thoughts—I was yearning to see something that I had never seen before—but I could not stand because I was too ashamed.
A few years later, I realized I could gratify my desire to see what I was imaging in my head, so I would stay up and watch porn after-hours on premium cable channels such as HBO and Showtime. When I was about 15, someone prayed that lust would be removed from me. I felt much better, shared my issue with my mother, and did not have any desire to watch that stuff anymore.
In college, I was a virgin addicted to pornography. More of my friends were having sex and telling me about it, and I wanted to see it for myself without actually taking part. I ran into pornography on social networking sites. I would go to sexually explicit chat rooms and watch webcams. Though I was raised in the church, I did not realize my true identity in Christ and wanted to experience life on my own. I knew it was wrong, but I did not really care. I just wanted to satisfy my flesh. I went through periods where I felt completely stuck in my addiction to this stuff. I could not go to bed at night until I watched it.
Helping Women Fight Sexual Temptation
These few stories offer a small sampling of a widespread problem.
Women, you are not alone in this struggle with temptation to sexual sin. You aren't the only one ashamed of the sexually explicit material in your browser history or on your e-reader. For all who face these temptations, the power of the gospel enables you to say no to sin. Each of these women eventually confessed their sin to friends and received the grace available to them by the Holy Spirit to stop watching pornography.
While I have not struggled with pornography or erotic novels, I did fall into sexual sin prior to marriage. I write as one who has had to remember that as temptation came once I became a Christian, I was no longer a slave to sin but a slave to righteousness (Rom. 6:17). God's restraining power is greater than our sin and so is his grace.
If you are tempted to hide your sin and temptation because of shame, regret, and fear, know that in Christ, you are forgiven and pure—righteous, just has if you'd never sinned and always obeyed (1 Cor. 1:30).
You don't have to hide your sin and temptation to sin, even when it's a sexual sin, the kind we don't like to talk about. You are forgiven and loved. Let this knowledge of amazing grace motivate you to cry out "By no means! I will not continue to sin that grace may abound" (Rom 6:1). God can enable that in you.
Trillia is a wife, mom, and writer who loves Jesus. She is the author of United: Captured by God's Vision for Diversity (Moody Publishers, March 2014). She is the lead editor for Karis, the women's channel for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the consultant for women's initiatives at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention.
*Sally and Sarah's names have been changed for privacy.
No surprise that Eminem’s Recovery, the top-selling album of the year, received a whopping ten Grammy nominations on Wednesday night, including Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year.
But what most Grammy watchers won’t notice – either in the long list of nominees in every conceivable category, or on the Feb. 13 awards show on CBS – is that another album with a similar title is also up for rap album of the year. Well, Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album, that is, with Lecrae’s terrific Rehab While Eminem’s last two releases were titled Relapse and Recovery, Lecrae decided he was ready for some spiritual rehab, a theme that plays throughout his album.
Also nominated for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album are David Crowder Band’s Church Music, Fireflight’s For Those Who Wait, Gungor’s Beautiful Things, and Switchfoot’s Hello Hurricane.
Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album noms went to Steven Curtis Chapman’s Beauty Will Rise, Israel Houghton’s Love God, Love People, Sanctus Real’s Pieces of a Real Heart, Ricky Skaggs’ Mosaic, and TobyMac’s Tonight. (The Skaggs nomination is slightly puzzling, not because it’s undeserving, but because it’s mostly a country album – and there is a Best Southern, Country, or Bluegrass Gospel Album category, where it more logically belongs.)
Meanwhile, Amy Grant’s hit single “Better Than a Hallelujah” (written by Sarah Hart and Chapin Hartford) led the noms for Best Gospel Song. Others were Gungor’s “Beautiful Things,” Kirk Whalum & Leah Hathaway’s “It’s What I Do,” Chris Tomlin’s “Our God,” and Ricky Skaggs’ “Return to Sender.”
Mavis Staples’ astonishingly good You Are Not Alone was NOT nominated for Best Traditional Gospel Album, but WAS nominated for Best American Album – and interestingly, that’s a decent fit, though it could’ve gone into either category. Best Traditional Gospel nods went to Vanessa Bell Armstrong’s The Experience, Shirley Caesar’s A City Called Heaven, Patty Griffin’s Downtown Church, Marvin Sapp’s Here I Am, and Karen Clark Sheard’s All in One.
They say it's lonely at the top, and I certainly never planned to find myself there. However, after just a few years as an English professor at a community college, some unexpected circumstances led me to serving as its vice president.
Eager to grow into the effective, inspirational leader I believe God wanted me to be, I looked around for advice and inspiration from people in my situation. Like any good academic, I headed to the library, searched the Internet, and scoured Amazon for information about Christian women in secular leadership positions.
You'd think I was seeking the Holy Grail. I found pages and pages of Christian books by men on leadership, but the few by women focused on ministry. On the secular side, there were barely any more options, save Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In. To date, I have not identified one book that is specifically for Christian women leaders in the business world.
Last month's issue of Harvard Business Review spotlighted women in leadership, and I believe Christian women face unique challenges in these positions, ones the Christian community should be exploring as well. While only 4.2 percent of Fortune 1000 companies boast a female CEO, slightly more than half of all management and professional positions are held by women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It stands to reason that some of these women must be Christians.
Certain professions, such as those in the health and education sectors, seem more open to women in leadership—as evidenced by the number of female principals, superintendents, vice presidents, and administrators. Among these, we see Christian women who take their faith seriously, who view their job as a calling, and who want to lead in a way that honors God. I know they're out there because I am one of them.
Of course, depending on our views of gender roles, some argue that women should not be in secular leadership positions, particularly where they lead men and women. If that's true, though, where do we draw the line? To echo Abraham's conversation with God regarding Lot (Gen. 18:22-32), if you supervise 50 people, does that make you a leader? What about 25? What about 10? What about 1? While many evangelicals maintain that men should remain leaders of their household, Pew Research found that they show strong support women working outside the home. Unless we relegate women to holding only entry-level, non-supervisory positions, it's inevitable that some will take on leadership roles.
As a member of an Assemblies of God church, women in leadership positions—both inside and outside of the church—is not foreign to me. Many of my friends don't hold an egalitarian view inside the church, but are still quite comfortable with women in secular leadership, at least to a point.
Since Christian women can and do hold leadership positions in secular organizations, the church should work to equip these women with biblical guidance on godly leadership principles. That doesn't seem to be happening. Certainly, general Christian leadership books and classes are helpful, and I'm indebted to a handful of authors and teachers (all male) who have helped me navigate the leadership maze. But where are the women teaching women?
If the church doesn't provide this insight for Christian women in secular leadership, they may decide to rely on secular resources such as Barsh and Cranton's bestseller, How Remarkable Women Lead. There's definitely some good material there, but should we trust a message that tells us: "Our power comes from developing and deploying our talents, from reframing challenge into opportunity, from connecting to forge strength, from facing our fears. Power is an energy force—neither good nor evil…" (p. xxv). This view of power is definitely different from Andy Crouch's recent article positing that power is a gift from God that should be used to ensure "the flourishing of others." Should we try to increase our power through Barsh and Cranton's methods to create an "energy force" or should we be relying on our relationship with God to help us develop this gift in order to serve others? Are we as Christian women willing to settle for the world's take on what female leaders should do, or should we be carving our own course, one grounded on biblical principles and God's definition of success?
My usual resources having failed me, I turned to my pastor, who suggested creating a growth group for professional Christian women. He helped identify a handful of women in law, health, education, banking, and other professions who might be interested in participating.
We're currently hammering out what we want this group to do and how it will function, but we're all in agreement that we need both insight and accountability to discuss tough issues like, Who can I talk to at work when there are no other females on my leadership level? How do I lead decisively without looking like a witch? When and how should I share my faith so it doesn't look like I'm force feeding Christianity to my employees? How do I interact with male leaders in a way that's both effective for my organization and pleasing to God?
I doubt there'll be many pat answers, and I suspect there won't be universal agreement. But it's the start of a conversation that's been too long in the making, and one that the church in America needs to join.
Donna Hill is vice president of student affairs at College of the Ouachitas. She and her husband have five children and live in Benton, Arkansas. She writes on parenting and women's issues and particularly enjoys writing humor.
Finally, former CCM darling-turned-pop star Katy Perry, nominated for Album of the Year for Teenage Dream, apologized for using a mild form of blasphemy after learning of her nomination on Wednesday night’s live show. “Are you feeling some Grammy love tonight?” LL Cool J asked Perry, who was seated in the audience. “Hell yes!” she blurted out, before adding, “Excuse me, sorry CBS.”
NY Daily News writer opined on Perry’s behavior: “She then held her hands up in a prayer motion and thanked her peers for the nomination. During the concert, the 25-year-old pop star didn’t shy away from impious behavior, engaging in some graphic choreography while performing ‘California Gurls.’ While singing the line ‘so hot/will melt your Popsicle,’ she gesticulated wildly towards her groin area. Pulling an about-face after the ceremony, Perry ended her post-Grammy tweet fest with the simple hashtag ‘#GOD.’ Perry’s behavior comes as a surprise after she tweeted over the summer that ‘using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling a fart joke.’ Perry, who was raised by Christian pastors and first started singing in church, said she took issue with blasphemous behavior regardless of the perpetrator.”
(Perry photo: Beck/Getty)
