An 18-year-old girl shared how she chanced upon pornography when she was just nine. A married man talked about the guilt and shame he felt when he relapsed after successfully staying away from pornography for a year.

On Tuesday night (September 15), Salt&Light Family Night pulled back the curtain of silence and got real about the problem of addiction to pornography, an issue many struggle with in secret.

Over 360 people joined guests Pastor Randy Khoo who heads The People’s Bible Church’s Pastoral Counselling & Family Life ministry and Quek Shiwei, Director of Kallos, a Christian magazine for young women.

For 66% of the participants who joined the live chat, it was their first time attending a session about addiction to pornography. More than half (62%) said they did so because they were concerned about the issue for themselves. 

These numbers are not surprising. Porn addiction is real and it is rampant.

Porn is all around

The church has not been spared. According to numbers revealed in Whole Life Inventory, a survey tool for churches, 69% of Christians have viewed pornography. Up to 48% were first exposed to it in their teens – between 13 and 19.

The church is not spared the exposure and addiction to pornography. Photo courtesy of Whole Life Survey.

Addiction to pornography was a problem with 34% of Christian men as was masturbation (39%). Christian women struggled, too.

In fact, in a Kallos’ 2019 survey with girls shared by Quek, 40 per cent struggled with pornography addiction. Half told no one but most (80 per cent) wanted help.

Girls are as vulnerable to pornography as boys. Photo courtesy of Kallos.

For Quek, what was heartbreaking was the cry for community and authenticity.

“Some of them said, ‘I want a friend to pray with me, to talk to me. I wish that my leaders and pastors would tell me real stories of them overcoming this struggle.’”

Exposed at a young age

Many who get hooked on pornography first came across it at a young age, when they did not even understand what they were viewing. In a Kallos survey (above), 46% of respondents said they were exposed to it when they were in Primary School.

This was exactly the experience of 18-year-old Nicole Soh when she was nine.

Soh courageously came on Salt&Light Family Night to share about her experience with porn. 

“I was in a Barbie doll phase and was just searching up Barbie videos online. When I was watching the YouTube video, there was a next video that automatically came up showing this person just walking down the sidewalk and going into a building. And the video cut off there.”

Curious, she clicked on the video that followed which turned out to be a Japanese animated video that was “quite graphic and sexual in nature”.

“In that sitting, I just kept asking myself, ‘What next?’ And I kept watching the videos and they kept getting more graphic and more sexual in nature.”

That single encounter became repeated viewings over nearly six years till she graduated from Secondary School.

“The more I watched, the more I would crave something that was just a little bit more intense.”

There would be guilt and promises to God to “definitely stop this”. “But then three days later, I would just go back and the whole cycle would repeat itself.”

Soh’s story has a happy ending. After her ‘O’ levels, she “made a decision to stop”, convicted that her parents were right and that the pornographic videos were wrong and “not good for me”.

“There will be urges and I had to find myself stopping right before I clicked on that next video or that Instagram story or post. It’s a tough journey.

Nicole Soh (bottom left box), with her mum, Carol Loi, shared how she was accidentally exposed to pornography at the age of nine. Seen here are the guests and hosts of Salt&Light Family Night.

“There are still temptations, and it really did help to know my triggers and to avoid the sources as much as possible.”

Soh’s mother is co-host of Salt&Light Family Night Carol Loi. She is a digital literacy educator who had been “filtering, monitoring, talking to (my daughter) about sexuality throughout her growing years”.

Loi encouraged her daughter to share her story to offer hope to others that, even if children manage to find loopholes in their parents’ protective measures, open conversation and prayers can help.

Not by God’s design

Quek maintains that children naturally know that pornography is not quite right.

She recounted an incident where her oldest child, a six-year-old boy, once saw an LED advertisement at a clothing store and told her that he was “very disturbed after looking at the images”. When Quek next walked by the same advertisement, she realised that most of the models were scantily dressed and embracing each other.

“Children themselves know when something is not of God’s design,” said Quek Shiwei, whose six-year-old son instinctively felt uncomfortable at the sight of an advertisement that was too sexually explicit. Photo courtesy of Quek Shiwei.

“Children themselves know when something is not of God’s design,” said Quek. “It genuinely troubled (my son) because he knew that that was not a healthy expression of our identity.”

Said Pastor Khoo: “Anything that stirs up sexual excitement is pornography.”

Citing the story of King David spying on Bathsheba bathing (2 Samuel 11) as an example of pornography in the Bible, he emphasised that the definition is based on Jesus’ teachings about lust (Matthew 5:28) where “if a person looks at a woman with lust, we have already committed adultery”.

Is masturbation wrong?

Among the most popular questions asked by the participants was one about whether masturbation was considered sin.

To this, Quek replied: “I like to ask instead, ‘What is sex designed for?’ When we start from there, it becomes a much fuller, richer understanding.”

She went on to elaborate that sex was created in the context of marriage “to give, to love, to serve someone else”.

“Masturbation is a sexual act. We call masturbation solo sex and solo sex is so far from the original design of sex.

“So, I would answer this question with more questions: Are you becoming more like Christ? Are you indulging your flesh or your spirit? Are you serving your wife, your future wife, your husband? Are you stirring up sexual fantasies?”  

Pastor Randy Khoo journeys with boys and men who want to be free from addiction to pornography. Photo courtesy of Pastor Randy Khoo.

Added Pastor Khoo, who counsels those struggling with pornography: “Those who are addicted to pornography are often also compulsive masturbators. They have to watch it daily and masturbate daily.

“In that context, masturbation is wrong because to feel the physical arousal, they are filling their minds with something that is not designed by God.”

Porn hurts everyone

Apart from excessive masturbation, the effects of porn addiction are far-reaching.

Pastor Khoo shared research from the Family Research Council based in Washington, USA, that found that pornography:

• made married men feel less interested in sex with and less emotional attached to their wives who noticed the change
• was a pathway to infidelity and divorce
• was considered infidelity by both spouses
• led to a loss of interest in good family relations

Said Quek: “Porn affects us by dehumanising people. In one girl’s testimony, she said, ‘I was not recognising the image of God in people. When I walk along the streets, I would see them as sexual objects and I would compare my body to their bodies to see if I’m sexier or they’re sexier.’”

Pornography, she added, fuels sex trafficking. Sharing an account she had read, Quek said: “When the camera is off, the girl was being forced with her head to the gun to perform the sexual act.”

Knowing this “changes the way you view porn”. Quek called it a “light bulb moment” for many girls and one of the factors that has made them put a stop to their addiction to pornography.

Steps to freedom

For those who want to break free of the addiction, Pastor Khoo holds firm to the understanding that, beyond being biological, the problem is spiritual in nature as well. So, a spiritual solution is important.

“In John 10:10, our Lord says, ‘I have come so that they can have life and have it to the fullest.’

“Because the King has come, life to the fullest is possible. And when He comes, He gives the power for us to break free from pornography,” he said.

On that point Quek shared how one woman discovered spiritual weapons to overcome this spiritual problem.

“One time she felt that the Lord impressed upon her, ‘I just want you to raise up your hands to pray and worship me now’.

“And she said, ‘What? I am in my most dirty, darkest pit and I am super unworthy, how can I worship and praise you?’.”

But as she obeyed, she realised that “if sin is a spiritual struggle, then worship, praise and prayer are the spiritual weapons” she could use to fight it. She was able to experience God’s mercy and eventual used prayer and praise to overcome her addiction to masturbation.

Pastor Khoo reminded that relational support is also very important because “healing comes from a community”.

Bringing up Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:4-26), Pastor Khoo added: “The way He saw her was full of acceptance, full of love, full of grace.

“That’s why this lady, after the conversation, was transformed totally. If we, the community, can see like Jesus Christ, seek people out like Jesus Chris, and speak with compassion, then we can journey together.”

One resource to equip the church to be such a community is Celebrate Recovery, a Christian 12-step programme that helps people overcome their hurts, hang-ups and habits.

Other practical steps include:

• Professional counselling
• Cutting off the sources of pornography including Instagram and YouTube
• Recognising triggers such as hunger, anger, loneliness, tiredness, boredom and sinful attitudes (HALT BS)
• Installing filters and software to block harmful sites
• Being accountable to someone else, including installing Covenant Eyes or handing over control of devices
• Personal reflection and journalling

Don’t give up

The road to freedom is a long-term one, Quek cautioned, because the brain takes three to five years to rewire the neurological pathways created by the addiction.

“So, every day for three to five years, cling to God’s mercies that are new every morning. Have encounters with God,” she encouraged.

Richard Porter who attended Celebrate Recovery, and now runs the programme for churches in Singapore, knows the importance of this daily walk. After experiencing freedom from addiction to pornography for a year, he relapsed.

“Looking back, I saw what led me to relapse. Relapse doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process. When you don’t do the things that God asks us to do every moment of the day (that’s when it happens),” he said.

Because he thought he “had it beat”, he stopped all the measures that had helped him, like being accountable to his wife and other godly men, spending daily time with God and avoiding electronic devices.

Porter said with emotion: “I had to tell my wife, I had to tell my sponsor. It was incredibly difficult. I have never come so close to wanting to end it all as at that point in my life.”

But with the support and forgiveness of his wife and sponsor, Porter was able to forgive himself and move on.

“You have to be so humble in the experience.”  

To those who are struggling, Quek had this to say: “Porn is not the biggest sin. It feels like it is, but all of us are sinful and broken, all of us are on our way to being sanctified in steps.

“I would like to encourage you that your story is not finished yet. It’s written chapter by chapter. Even though it might feel like it’s been 10, 20 years, God is still the author of our life stories and, as we yield ourselves to Him, He can definitely write the next chapter more beautifully than you can hope.”

Added Pastor Khoo: “Many of us who are in pornography have shame and perhaps when we look at how God is looking at us, we say God doesn’t like us.

“But how he sees the Samaritan woman is how He sees us if we struggle with porn. We are like the prodigal son and we are to return to the Father. We must return to the Father so we can receive His embrace and we can receive His grace.”

SALT&LIGHT FAMILY NIGHT: HOW CAN WE DEAL WITH DEPRESSION IN OUR KIDS?  

Depression can hit even the very young. The Child Guidance Clinics at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), which sees patients from six to 18 years old, saw an average of 190 new patients with depression every year from 2013 to 2016.

Youths at a 2018 National Youth Council Youth Conversation also said that depression and anxiety are the top mental health issues they faced.

Depression is, in fact, the most common mental disorder in Singapore. Those who are 18 to 34 years old are most likely to suffer from a series of mental health problems, including depression.

Why is depression such an issue? Why are our kids so vulnerable? 

Let’s talk about the root causes, what it means to struggle with depression and how we can journey with someone suffering from it. 

Hosts and family champions Carol Loi and Alex Tee will be joined by guests:

• Ps Chua Seng Lee
  Deputy Senior Pastor, Bethesda
  (Bedok-Tampines) Church (BBTC)

• Dr Daniel Fung
  Chairman Medical Board, Institute of Mental Health
  President, International Association for Children and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions 

• Abigail Lee
  Executive Director, Healing Hearts Centre
  President, Association for Play Therapy (Singapore)

Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Time: 8.30pm-10pm
Cost: Free
Pre-registration is required. You can register here.