Soft Porn Is Still Porn

 I had a dream last night that I was on Instagram, scrolling down my news feed, then all of a sudden, the pictures started getting sexually explicit and pornographic. So I kept scrolling down my feed, as to not lust after the pictures, but the more I scrolled, and the faster I scrolled, the more porn I would see. These were pictures of fully naked people having sexual intercourse. When I noticed myself getting aroused by what I saw, I woke myself up from my dream. I refused to allow perversion to get into my spirit. I refused to have a sex dream or nocturnal emission–I haven’t had one in a long time.

When I woke up, I was confused but also furious. I was confused because I haven’t viewed porn in almost THREE years; so why am I dreaming about sex? And I was upset because by me having this dream, I felt as if I had backslidden or had compromised my testimony of being delivered from porn. So I went to God in prayer and asked God what was that dream all about.

Instantly, He reminded me of the definition of porn:

“PORNOGRAPHY: The representation in books, magazines, photographs, films, and other media of scenes of sexual behavior that are erotic or lewd and are designed to arouse sexual interest.”

This definition convicted me because it reminded me that porn is not only found in the form of a motion film (e.g. a VHS tape, DVD, or a XXX video on the web)–all of which I have managed to avoid–but porn can also be found in the form of photography. (And Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram are three of the most popular forms of media that people use to post erotic, lewd and sexually suggestive aka  pornographic pictures on.)

Furthermore, this definition reminded me that it’s not only classified as porn when you lust after pictures of naked people or watch videos of people having sex, porn is simply anything that you look at that causes you to get aroused.

Thinking back on the dream, there have definitely been some pictures and profiles that I’ve viewed on Instagram that have caused sexual arousal in me. I tried to convince myself that as long as I wasn’t looking at naked people or watching a flick, that I wasn’t watching porn. I tried to convince myself that I was only admiring certain individuals’ beauty or just showing my appreciation for modeling. But by me skimming through all these attractive pictures of fully or half clothed people on Instagram and getting aroused by it, that was indeed porn for me–soft porn.

I thank God for allowing me to have that dream to show me that there were some areas of compromise rising up in me,  and that if I don’t guard myself, I could easily end up falling right back into the trap of hardcore porn.

My prayer is that  we will  continue to guard our hearts with all diligence from all forms of perversion, even the ones that are subtle and seemingly innocent.  #TransparentForChrist #GodOverPorn