The Porn Problem
Discipling Our Kids in a World of Counterfeit Intimacy
Last week, we talked about sex positivity and how it promises freedom while delivering emptiness. This week, we need to address one of the most devastating outworkings of our hyper-sexualized world: pornography.
Porn isn’t a fringe issue out there. It is an epidemic that is shaping the hearts and minds of a generation, and it’s at our doorstep. The statistics are staggering. Studies suggest that the average age of first exposure to pornography is now between 11 and 12 years old, and by the time many teens graduate high school, the majority will have encountered it regularly.¹ For parents, this can feel overwhelming, but we cannot afford to be silent. If we want our children to see the beauty of God’s design for sex and marriage, we need to speak into the lies that pornography tells, now matter how awkward and uncomfortable these conversations might feel.
Why Porn Is So Dangerous
The problem with porn is that it forms and shapes our desires and imagination. As Carl Trueman reminds us, “The way we imagine the world is often more powerful than abstract arguments.”² Porn offers a vision of intimacy that is divorced from covenant love, responsibility, or sacrifice. It reshapes what people think of as “normal” and creates expectations that stand in direct opposition to God’s good design.
Neuroscience confirms what Scripture has always said: sin enslaves. Studies show that repeated porn use literally rewires the brain.³ Dopamine, the brain’s “pleasure chemical,” floods the system during porn use, creating an addictive cycle not unlike drugs. What once seemed thrilling quickly dulls, requiring more extreme content to achieve the same effect. This is why pornography use so often escalates over time.
At its root, pornography feeds on the same lie we have been tracing throughout this series: the lie of self-belonging. Alan Noble describes it this way:
“To be your own and belong to yourself means that the most fundamental truth about existence is that you are responsible for your existence and everything it entails.”⁴
Porn fits perfectly into this worldview. It offers a cheap and private escape where the self is king, where no one else matters, and where others exist only for consumption. What is promised as freedom, however, comes with chains.
I know the dangers of pornography, not just in theory but in practice. I grew up at a time when parents had no idea of the dangers of screens in the bedroom. I was first exposed to it in my early teens, and it quickly became a battle that lasted for many years. I know firsthand the way it ensnares, the way it produces shame, and how it isolates you in guilt. It is no joke. The enemy uses pornography to enslave, to whisper lies, and to keep young hearts bound in secrecy.
By God’s grace, I also know the freedom Christ brings. But that journey taught me just how devastating pornography can be when it gets a grip on a young life. Parents, our generation knows better, because we suffered the consequences of this endemic; this is why we cannot afford to ignore it. We must fight to protect our kids, not only by setting boundaries, but by helping them see the better story of God’s design for intimacy and love.
What Porn Teaches Our Kids
Even when kids aren’t actively seeking porn, they are being discipled by a pornified culture. And this by the way is not referring to boys only, nowadays an increasing number of girls are becoming addicted to porn. Rachel Gilson warns that one of the greatest threats to our children is silence: “If we don’t disciple our kids in their sexuality, the world will.”⁵ And porn is one of the loudest disciplers in our world today.
Here are some of the messages pornography communicates:
Sex is about consumption, not covenant. People are objects to be used, not image-bearers to be loved.
Pleasure is ultimate. The pursuit of sexual pleasure is framed as the highest good, even at the cost of others.
Bodies and souls are separate. Just as we discussed last week with personhood theory, porn tells us the body can be used without regard to the whole person.
Intimacy is easy. Porn divorces sex from faithfulness, forgiveness, and the messy but beautiful work of real relationships.
The Gospel Coalition put it well: “Porn doesn’t just distort sexuality—it distorts humanity. It tells us lies about what it means to be made in the image of God.”⁶
A Better Story
The good news is that Scripture offers a radically different vision. Paul tells the Corinthians:
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)
God designed sex as a covenantal gift, a fire that warms when kept in the hearth of marriage but burns destructively when loosed outside of it.⁷ Our task as parents is not only to warn our children about porn, but to give them a better imagination of sex as God intended it. Sex is meant to be sacred, joyful, and ordered toward love.
Rachel Gilson puts it beautifully: “We don’t combat the counterfeit by hiding from it, but by showing the real thing is far better.”⁸ That means we do not just tell our kids what not to do, but we help them see what true intimacy and covenant love look like in Christ.
Where Do We Go From Here?
So what does this mean for us as parents?
Start the conversation early. Do not wait until middle school to talk about pornography. I personally recommend erring on the side of having this conversation too early rather than too late. I want the first time my kids hear about sex to come from us as parents and not their friends at school. Additionally, age-appropriate honesty helps your children trust you.
Model repentance. If this has been a struggle in your own life, let your kids see how God’s grace restores and redeems. This type of conversation also needs to be age-appropriate.
Offer a better vision. Teach your kids that sex is not ultimate. Jesus is. Sexual intimacy, in its proper place, is meant to point us to Him.
Just as any other sin, porn overpromises and always underdelivers. It promises intimacy but delivers loneliness. It promises freedom but enslaves. Only the Gospel offers the real thing: true belonging, true identity, and true purpose in Christ.
This conversation may feel uncomfortable, but silence is not an option. Our children are being discipled by someone. Let’s make sure it’s us, with God’s Word in hand, showing them the way of life.
*This blog post is adapted from a class originally taught at Trinity Community Church as part of our series on parenting in a sexualized world. Some content has been edited for readability and format, but the core material reflects the teaching and discussion from that session.
References
Barna Group, The Porn Phenomenon (2016).
Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (Crossway, 2020).
William Struthers, Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain (IVP, 2010).
Alan Noble, You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World (IVP, 2021).
Rachel Gilson, Parenting Without Panic (forthcoming, 2024).
Joe Carter, “The Porn Problem,” The Gospel Coalition (2018).
Rachel Joy Welcher, Talking Back to Purity Culture (IVP, 2020).
Rachel Gilson, Born Again This Way (The Good Book Company, 2020).