Surprise, Surprise – Taliban Uses Porn

Many of you probably heard this week that some of the belongings that were confiscated in the raid on Bin Laden’s compound included a large quantity of pornography.  Surprise, surprise.

I find it incredibly ironic that the leader of the world’s most formidable terrorist organization, the man that the entire world (not including Pakistan – they knew he was there all along!) was looking for because of the dastardly and unconscionable deeds he had done or orchestrated, had the devil’s modern-day #1 source of evil in his midst.  DOES IT MAKE SENSE NOW?!  Porn doesn’t care who you are, what you do, what you believe in or don’t believe in, where you live, how many wives you have, how many children you have, how many people look up to you, how much destruction you can perform or any such thing!!!  PORN DOESN’T DISCRIMINATE!  It is no wonder that he had this garbage around him.

I find it ironic, too, that Islamic men require women to be covered up, yet there was porn.  And not just a little bit of porn, the news reports I saw said that he had an “extensive collection of pornographic materials.”  What a contradiction in terms.  Yet again, another display of what happens when the dignity of women is not upheld!  WHEN IS THE WORLD GOING TO UNDERSTAND?!?!

It really doesn’t surprise me that Bin Laden and his goons had porn.  Figures.

TrueMan up!

An Easy Way for EVERYONE to Fight Porn – TODAY!

Ok… I know most of your won’t come out to the sidewalks in front of sexually oriented businesses to help us protest pornography, but this is one way that EVERYONE can AND SHOULD help to be a part of this fight.  And, it is really simple – so no excuses!

Did you know that ALL hardcore pornography is ILLEGAL?!?!  ALL OF IT!  But, the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, hasn’t done anything about it – except for attempt to get President Obama to reverse the laws.  For the past several presidents, the war on pornography has gone back and forth, and likewise, the Attorney General does too.  (For more info, read up on the website “The War on Illegal Pornography” run by Patrick Trueman, Esq.  (Yes, you read that correctly – his name is Trueman!)

So, go to the site and sign the petition that will be attached to the letter going to President and Mrs. Obama.  (Click HERE for the full letter.)  It’s so easy – don’t let this opportunity go by!  Step up and start protecting women and children from the harms of pornography!  While doing that, you’ll be helping your fellow brother as well.  Do it!

TrueMan up!

From Her Perspective

The following is a poem written by a woman – a wife, a mother – that was devastated by her husbands addiction to pornography.  I don’t know the name of the poet, but I’ve spoken with many women who share her feelings.  Please take a few minutes and read this powerful poem.

“I Looked For Love in Your Eyes.”

I saved my best for you.
Other girls may have given themselves away,
But I believed in the dream.
A husband, a wife, united as one forever.

Nervous, first time, needing assurance of your love,
I looked for it in your eyes
Mere inches from mine.
But what I saw made my soul run and hide.

Gone was the tenderness I’d come to know
I saw a stranger, cold and hard
Distant, evil, revolting.
I looked for love in your eyes
And my soul wept.

Who am I that you cannot make intimate love to me?
Why do I feel as if I’m not even here?
I don’t matter.
I’m a sexual prop in a filthy play.
Not an object of tender devotion.

Where are you?

Years pass
But the hardness in your eyes does not.
You think I’m cold
But how can I warm to eyes that are making “mental sex” to someone else
Instead of making love to me?

I know where you are.
I’ve seen the pictures.
I know now what it takes to turn you on.
Women…someone’s young daughter like I once was

Women …. But artificially enhanced, acting, used and then discarded.
Images burned into your brain.
How could you think they would not show in your eyes?
Because souls don’t matter, only female bodies do
To men who consume them.

Did you ever imagine,
The first time you picked up a dirty picture
That you were dooming all intimacy between us
Shipwrecking your marriage
Breaking the heart of a wife you wouldn’t meet for many years?

If it stopped here, I could bear it.
But you brought the evil into our home
And our little boys found it.
Six and eight years old.
I heard them laughing, I found them ogling, their innocence now gone.

Little boys
My little boys
Laughing and ogling the sexual body
Of a woman, a woman like me.
Someone like me!

An image burned into their brains.

Will their wives’ souls have to run and hide like mine does?
When does it end?

I can tell you this. It has not ended in your soul.
It has eaten you up. It is cancer.
Do you think you can feed on a diet of distorted fantasies
And come out of your locked room to love?

You say the words, but love has no meaning in your mouth
When self-centeredness rules in your heart.
Your addiction has eaten up every vestige of the man
I thought I was marrying.
Did you ever dream it would so consume you
That your wife and children would live in fear of your hidden problem?

That is what you have become
Feeding your soul on poison.

I’ve never used porn.
But it has devastated my marriage, my family, my world.

Was it worth it?

If you are a woman dealing with your husband’s addiction to pornography, or any man’s addiction to pornography, you are not alone.  There are numerous resources available.  I’m an open door and welcome your emails or phone calls anytime.  Email me at Dave(at)TrueManhood(dot)com or call our offices at (412) 475-TRUE.

Men – it is time to stop thinking that your pornography use doesn’t effect anyone else.  It effects every part of your life, every relationship and every future relationship.  If you need help with your addiction, please contact me for a list of resources.

If any women are reading this who are addicted (studies say that 1 out of every 5 women is addicted to pornography), there are great resources for you as well.

TrueMan up!

Not Classy

Yes, the title of this post is intended to be a pun.  

What was this guy thinking?

No virtue, especially no temperance.  Poor judgment.  Anything to get a little porn in the classroom.  And what about the black mail here?  $150 for extra credit?  What’s up with that?

For the record, LaSalle University is not on the Newman Guide for Catholic colleges that are faithful to a Catholic identity and faithful to the Magisterium.

TrueMan up!

Couldn’t Disagree More

In this video, Ted Haggard spouts off about forgiveness and restoration.  Haggard, an ex-evangelical preacher, you may recall, was caught up in a web of lies when his gay male prostitute “mistress”, also a meth addict, outed him and exposed him to not only his wife and children, but to his congregation (New Life Church in Colorado Springs – a non-denominational mega church) and the world.  Haggard was destroyed in the tabloids, the news, the reports, on the web and especially in Christian circles.  He was a fraud and led many astray because of his actions.

When Haggard speaks of restoration, he speaks as though he deserves it.  Although he can be forgiven, his attitude doesn’t seem (at least not to me) to be in the right place and it doesn’t seem that he wants to take any responsibility.  I’ve seen him in other videos and have always felt the same about those interviews.  He seems to place a lot of blame and like he doesn’t want to accept his consequences.  Not very manly, if you ask me.  “…Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

I couldn’t disagree more with what he says in this video.  He speaks of “the church”, as most Protestants do, as the group of people who believe in Christ.  As Catholics, we speak of “The Church” in a different way and I think that, as She always has, The Church does a great job of restoring people.  It’s frustrating to see a video like this because this ex-pastor, who still has influence on people and can give them reasons not to believe, feels like he can say whatever he wants with complete disregard for who hears it or who he affects.

Watch it and see what you think.  Leave me comments.

TrueMan up!

Archbishop Promotes Fight Against Porn

Great work, Archbishop Naumann!  This is my favorite quote, from a great Shepherd!  “We fail our people if we’re not courageous in preaching about chastity, as well as offering opportunities to help those seeking to live chastely.” – Archbishop Joseph Naumann.  Read below.

Kansas City archbishop promotes fight against porn

By T. Baklinski.  KANSAS CITY, January 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City has developed a website (http://www.loveisfaithful.com/) that promotes the archdiocese’s My House Initiative, a program devoted to protecting families and healing couples from pornography.

The website invites people to become aware of the teachings of the Catholic Church about love and sexual intimacy through John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

The site contains information including internet accountability software,  testimonies, Theology of the Body small groups contact info, counseling resources, support groups, men’s and women’s ministries, and other resources to help families and couples.

“When I was a child, there were social barriers that protected the young from pornography,” Archbishop Naumann told the Catholic World Report (CWR). “But in this age of personal computers and cable television, we have an entirely different environment.”

“People say that pornography is a victimless sin. But that’s not true,” continued Archbishop Naumann. “Many are exploited in the porn industry and we know it causes devastation in marriages.”

The website refers readers to an article by former porn actress April Garris, who, speaking from personal experience in the porn industry, now works to unmask “the deception of pornography, exposing the lie, and bringing all of these myths crashing to the ground.”

Titled “10 Myths Exposed,” Garris’ article brings to light the horrific realities of the pornography industry.

“If you have held to one or more of these myths,” Garris writes, “then you have been sucked into the deception of porn. I hope that laying out these myths has opened your eyes to the reality of porn … a reality that is dark, disgusting, and destructive.”

A video presentation of the My House Initiative has been shown in nearly all of the 110 churches in northeast Kansas, according to the diocesan office. The video and the My House Manual were sent to every U.S. diocese in 2007. This resulted in six dioceses adopting the program, with 36 others expressing interest.

The website calls attention to other aspects of Archbishop Naumann’s fight against porn, including a billboard on the 18th Street Expressway near Kansas Ave, sponsored by donations and viewed over 18,000 times per day; a prayer service to be held near a porn store (Cirilla’s, located at 7528 State Ave.) on February 3, 2011, 4:00 – 5:00 pm; a downloadable handout called 7 Steps to Protect your Family from Pornography; and many other resources.

“We pray that the information on this site will continue to spread to other families, churches, and individuals,” the My House Initiative website states. “We also pray that the thousands of people who are waiting to be rescued from the pornography industry will find hope and healing.”

Archbishop Naumann told CWR that he believes priests have an obligation to promote the virtue of chastity, particularly among the young, while being sensitive to the ages and individual circumstances of their congregations.

“We fail our people if we’re not courageous in preaching about chastity, as well as offering opportunities to help those seeking to live chastely,” Archbishop Naumann said. “When we live chaste lives, we are witnesses of our faith in the world. Chastity also frees us from those things that can enslave us and leave us feeling isolated and sad.”

A Strong Link

As I stated in yesterday’s post, “Why Fight Porn”, I’m going to draw the correlation between pornography and many other social justice issues today.  I stated: “Tomorrow, I will dive into the reality of the effects of pornography, as well as the link pornography has to Life issues and social justice issues (such as divorce, rape, incest, abuse of women, domestic violence, etc.) and will attempt to create for you a strong correlation between these links.  The link between pornography (sexual hedonism and sexual utilitarianism) and many other serious issues is strong!”

Here goes:

People often believe that the sexual revolution of the 60’s is responsible for the state of where our culture is in regards to sexuality.  Although it played (and continues to play) a significant role, it had to start somewhere, right?  Let’s take a look at it.  In the 1930’s, a scientist by the name of Alfred Kinsey performed some “experiments” based on some absolutely atrocious and despicable sexual “experiments”, as he called them.  [I have written a small amount about Kinsey before, and may write more in the future.]  The important piece here is the scope of influence that Kinsey, and his works, had on individuals.  Many people, even Catholics, were influenced by his writings, coming to believe that sex was created for nothing more than the primal urge.  Kinsey believed that we all were born with a natural inclination to sex and that to suppress our natural inclinations and primal desires was to suppress nature and therefore not act in accordance with nature and science.  Why is this important?  Simply, Hugh Hefner.

While a student in college, Hugh Hefner, the infamous creator of the pornography industry, read Kinsey’s famous book, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”, printed in 1948.  This book led Hefner to write his thesis on the topic and later, he realized the influence of Kinsey on his decision, in 1953, to create Playboy.  Playboy was the start of the acceptance of soft-core pornography in our culture.  Up to this point in history, sexual hedonism and pornography was a black market type industry.  It was a very, very small industry (to use the word lightly) and a person had to work hard to search it out.  A socially respectable woman would never use pornography.  No socially respectable man would use pornography.  It was disgraceful.  With Playboy, and subsequent “publications” however, pornography became more mainstream and more acceptable.  Since the advent of Playboy, the rise of pornographic materials has spread like wild fire.  As we all know, with the invention of the internet, pornography has spread even more, and into almost every home in the US.  (This doesn’t even take into consideration the magazines/print porn, radio porn, tv porn, cell phone porn, hand-held gaming unit porn and so on.)

From the time of Kinsey, there is a spike in the following categories: divorce, rape, incest, child abuse, drug use, suicide (teen suicide, specifically), domestic violence, physical abuse, child abduction, use in and production of contraceptives, and most notably abortion.  Now, how can this be?  Follow me, I hope it makes perfect sense to you so that you can begin to fight for the truth.

With the “new” mindset, in the 50’s, that sex is utilitarian (merely for use) and hedonistic (pleasure for self), society began to let their guard down morally.  What was once morally reprehensible was now becoming accepted in certain circles, communities and cities.  As people began to explore sexually, marriages and families specifically began to suffer dramatically.  Now, because people are more “open” when it comes to sex, they allow more.  They experiment with more.  They accept more.  (The use of drugs becomes more prevalent during this time, too.)  So a man wouldn’t necessarily have to care about a relationship or responsibility with a woman, he could merely get his sexual pleasure taken care of and move on.  With this lack of responsibility sexually came the desire for contraception.  “If I’m going to sleep with anyone I want, I shouldn’t have to worry about the consequences of a pregnancy.  After all, I’m not in this for a child, or for love, or for life, I’m merely in it for sexual pleasure.”

So, as the desire for contraceptions increased, so too did the desire for abortions.  “Why should I have to keep this baby?  I wasn’t having sex to get pregnant, only for the pleasure.”  Now, as people are more open sexually, less responsible sexually, open to pornography use in the home and in their bedrooms, more willing to kill their unwanted children, and so forth, the family unit suffers big time.  Married couples then lost the responsibility towards one another and divorce increased.

Because of the use of pornography, which experts will tell you, becomes more and more perverted over time, men and women desire different things sexually.  When a man gets turned down by a woman, why shouldn’t he resort to beating her, raping her or other?  Why shouldn’t he go after “easy prey” and abuse children?  Why shouldn’t a number of other things just “naturally” (as Kinsey suggested) just happen and be “normal”?  Obviously, as you read this, if you’re a reasonable and logical human being, you can see the problems here.  It started with sexual disintegration and continues today with more problems than ever.

In review:

• sex was reduced to a primal urge
• pornography came on the scene
• morally reprehensible sexual activity and behavior became accepted
• sex became a recreation
• lack of sexual responsibility entered in
• because people didn’t want responsibility, contraceptives became mainstream
• contraceptives don’t work 100% so abortion was legalized and increased dramatically
• couples are struggling for purpose and divorce increased
• anger becomes mainstream and leads to abuse of all kinds
• people struggle in life when they don’t know their purpose, so they commit suicide
• on and on and on

As you can probably imagine, I could continue on with this list for a long time.  This doesn’t even begin to speak to the emotional or psychological effects on people, nor their relationship with God, nor the effect this entire topic has on the Church.  It’s really despicable what came about from the advent of pornography.  It’s not to say that these things may not have come about without pornography, but we’ll never know that.  Bottom line – we must eradicate pornography!

TrueMan up!

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