This guy pulled up and asked if I was OK. He drove off and came back with a plastic cup of tea and a bar of chocolate. We sat in his car and talked for hours. He rolled a couple of joints and we got stoned. He gave me a lift back to the care home and as we were saying goodbye, he undid his trousers and pushed my head down.

When I resisted, he laughed and said it was because I’d smoked all his weed. I did it because he had been so nice to me. I felt like he had come to my rescue.

The man continued to pick me up and take me out. He brought me chocolates and perfume and said he loved me. At his flat one day there was a group of his friends there watching porn and smoking pot.

One of his friends started touching me and when I tried to stop him my ‘boyfriend’ said it was OK because they were all friends. They took it in turns to have sex with me. The porn film on the TV was showing a woman with all these men around her, she was smiling and looking like she was really enjoying herself.

I was crying but nobody noticed.

Being exposed to sex through abuse from an early age affected the way I saw it and felt about it. I have never seen sex as something that involves love, or something that people in a loving relationship would do.

Sex has always been about having something that someone else wants. It always seems to me that it was all anyone wanted from me – the only thing I had that was worth anything; the only thing that was interesting or appealing about me.

Each time I would hope that by giving my body the person would fall in love with the rest of me, but of course that never happened. It was always just about the sex.

I could like there and do things without being embarrassed. Men often think it’s confidence or enjoyment but it’s actually a complete separation from my body. I take my mind somewhere else. But once it’s over, the feelings are always the same – I feel exposed, vulnerable, dirty, disgusting, unloveable.

I’m that little girl again and I’m scrubbing my skin in the shower until I’m numb. Numb on the outside and numb on the inside.

When Naked Truth started we had no idea how deeply many of our friends had been impacted by porn.  It seems few lives are unaffected. I’m grateful to our friend, who has shared with such incredible honesty. I hope it will provoke you to pray for those who have been broken and battered by porn’s powerful punch and to pray for Naked Truth as we seek to open eyes and free lives.

I worked on chat lines, as did many single mums, because you could work from home and were paid by cheque so the social didn’t know.

No matter what line the man had dialled – asian babes, lesbians, busty blondes – all the calls went to the same centre. I could pretend to be whoever I wanted to be and at first it was fun, like an acting job.

The people at the call centre gave us tips on different props we could use to make sound effects so the caller thought you were really enjoying yourself when actually you were doing the ironing or washing the pots.

When you took the call, the operator was always listening in the background. They would cut the call off if you gave any personal information or spoke too quietly for them to hear.

Some men wanted you to call them ‘daddy’ or describe the changes in your body during puberty. I would hang up the phone but got into trouble. The aim was to keep the called on for as long as possible. Each minute meant more money.

Lots of the men would ask for your number or ask to meet up. They thought it was real.

Click here to download the report

This particular phone call from a young man was a powerful reminder of why we started naked truth Click here

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

As you poke around this website you will discover that our vision is to open eyes and free lives from the damaging impact of porn. We are currently plugging away on providing the kind of resources that will make a difference for people like the lad in this phone-in.  Of course, as with all projects, we need plenty of pounds, people and prayer. If you can help please get in touch at info@nakedtruthproject.com

Another simply thing you can do is get involved with a campaign we are supporting called safety net. The information is here

Over the last few years as I have helped train and support youth workers and leaders I have found all the stats about people in church being addicted to porn to be completely true.

Young people are more exposed to porn than ever. I was on a minibus a little while ago with a bunch of young people passing a phone around with indecent images on. Some of them were 11 years old. I was shocked and worried for their future.

But it’s the youth leaders too. As soon as anyone joins our organisation we have an open and frank conversation about porn and I strongly advise them to install accountability software. I currently have around five youth workers who I am supporting in their ongoing battle to beat porn.

The problem is that if youth leaders are so caught up in the issue themselves, they are not going to be willing to talk about it with young people. Even if they are, they are going to struggle to lead them through to a place of victory.

I am passionate about getting things out in the open and starting to put things in place to see change in people’s lives. Sometimes it has just been a habit that just needs breaking. But often an addiction comes from a deeper place of brokenness and they need some deeper prayer ministry as well as practical tools.

I have been challenged lately about removing the ‘high places’. In 1 Kings we hear a lot about kings who lived wholeheartedly for God such as Asa, king of Judah (1 Kings 15:14). But still, he did not remove the ‘high places’ of idolatry in their time.

I wonder what the ‘high places’ are for our culture and in our time, as we leaders seek to guide the next generation. Could it be porn?

We need to remove the high place of porn from our youth leaders if we want to see change in the rising generation. If we don’t, how can we expect this next generation to go beyond us?

As a young Christian couple we lived separately throughout our dating period and engagement and so it was easy for him to hide the fact that he used pornography from me at first… until he broke down in a prayer meeting and confessed all. By this point I knew that he was the man I was going to marry and so did everything possible to support him and help him overcome what had become a habit.

But subconsciously he was smart. He chose someone to be accountable to, as I requested, but chose someone he could easily go a few weeks or even months without catching up with just because of the busyness of life. He confided in friends – but they were friends with the same bad habits who were very sympathetic (some might say, too sympathetic) if he fell off the wagon, and he attended a group set up at church, bur only twice.

Naively I thought the problem had been addressed and we got married, me thinking everything would be rosy and we would live happily ever after – every girl’s fairytale ending!

Fast forward a few years to January 2011 and I was about to come down to earth with a crash! We had been away for a weekend and had a great time, followed by a great drive home (late at night so our little boy would sleep all the way) when we had talked about everything and nothing, including what we thought God would do with us that year. When we got home I took our son to bed and said I would meet my husband upstairs once he had emptied the car. An hour later, I woke to find him not in bed and went to find him and caught him in the act.

The feelings that followed over the next few months are so difficult to put into words and do them justice because it was like the worst roller-coaster you have ever experienced. There was a lot of blame – I felt it was all his fault. There was anger – how dare he in my house? There was disappointment – where have I gone wrong? There was self-doubt – why am I not enough for him? There was fear – does he think about the things he watches when he is with me? And shame – if anybody finds out will they think it’s my fault and that I am not doing a good job as a wife?

Fortunately, we are in a fantastic church and received some incredible support over the coming weeks and months, which started with me being told I was not allowed to make him move out (which had been my initial reaction). I was clear that I did not want our little boy growing up in a house where he could witness this and see it as okay, but I also knew this was something we had to work through. We also received protection from our church, so that key people in our lives knew and created a support network around us, but so that it was still a very private matter. This was really important for us both because in our own ways we both felt ashamed.

The first step in that was time alone with God when he spoke to me out of Ezekiel 37 and the valley of dry bones. I knew these dry bones were our marriage and that God was telling me to speak life into them. But in my hurt, anger and disappointment my response was, ‘You have got to be kidding me!!! Why is that my job? He should be doing the work to change and make amends!’ But God brought me back to the same passage time and time again, until I could ignore it no more. I confided in a great friend who told me that I had to do as I was told and (here’s the kicker) maybe I was partly responsible for what had happened.

After that and on advice (well, instruction) from church we started marriage counselling. It was tough. I very soon realised that I was partly responsible. My husband used pornography when he felt stressed, rejected (ouch) and unloved by me (bigger ouch). It became apparent during our counselling sessions that my focus had been so taken up by our son and our lives had changed so much that at times he felts all these things and I didn’t make enough time for him and our relationship.

We stayed in counselling for six months, and they were a long, hard, but very productive six months. I have no doubt that without the counselling, support and protection from our church, our little boy would be from a broken home.

It took me a long time to trust my husband again, and is something that on occasions I still struggle with. But that is my issue not his, because I know that at times when he is struggling he now tells me.

The hardest lesson in all of this was that I had to forgive and keep no record of wrongs that I could go back to and throw at him in an argument. Harder than that is the recognition that there will probably be more occasions in the future when I have to forgive again, and again, and again. (The same way he forgives my bad habits.) But there was also the acknowledgement that in a small way I was also responsible through my actions, and for that, I had to forgive myself.

And now? We are a happily married young couple and are expecting our second child. Don’t get me wrong it has been a long, hard, uphill journey and we still have challenges on a weekly basis. But we also have firm boundaries. The computer is in our lounge, has the software from Triple X Church on it and (on the advice of a good friend) it is me and our associate pastor who receive the fortnightly reports and who my husband is accountable to. It  doesn’t go on when nobody else is around (apart from for football games which I am assured are an essential part of his relaxation on days off!) The TV has codes on it and my husband doesn’t stay up late watching the TV. On the rare occasions we make it to the movies we rarely see anything rated over a 12 and never over a 15. We make time for each other. We don’t sit on separate sofa’s anymore, instead we sit and cuddle (far nicer!). We are open and honest with each other… always.

Are we perfect? No. Do we have hiccups? Yes. Has my husband slipped up? Yes (once). Will he slip up in the future? Probably. Will I forgive him? Always.

My advice…

Men: Get help. Acknowledge the problem and get accountability from someone you can’t avoid. Deal with what is at the core of the behaviour – is it a habit or an addiction? Be honest with your partner – it’s hard but so worth it in the end. Make sure that the people you confide in will protect you and your partner so that it stays private. Forgive yourself.

Ladies: Forgive – even though it’s the last thing you feel like doing. Choose carefully the friends you confide in because you need to protect your man (and yourself). Get time with God and ask him to speak over your relationship. Be honest with your partner – make sure he knows how it makes you feel. Take an honest look – are your actions in any way a contributing factor to the issue?

If you seek to define it, you can find yourself in quite a knot.

You can pull out a dictionary for a simple definition of course, but most people would say freedom is ‘being able to do what you want to do.’

This definition is fine until the way you choose to be free stamps on someone else’s right to be free.

For example, imagine for a second that you are a radical Muslim cleric. In your role as cleric and your stance as radical you want to speak out your views and your interpretation of the Quran. You are free to do so, unless your use of your freedom inhibits someone else. Like me, for example.

In this instance your increased freedom could be seen to decrease mine.

So how does this view of freedom look in terms of pornography?

Well, a person might argue that they’re not doing anyone any harm by using porn. The internet sites he uses are not using ‘real’ people. The porn is ‘set up’ using consenting adults, some of them very well paid. So what’s the problem?

Shelley Lubben is an ex-porn actress who has now become a Christian. Her life is spent reaching out to those trapped in the porn industry.

Her stories, and those of the people she has seen rescued, show that being involved in adult porn is far from glamorous. Behind every film, there is violence, greed, brutal working conditions and the constant threat of STDs, not least HIV and AIDS.

One woman on Shelley’s website, www.shelleylubben.com, describes how part of her soul died as she performed acts of porn and that she grew to become disgusted with herself and others, sore and devoid of normal emotions.

Does that sound like freedom to you? Me neither.

We have an enemy. The original Hebrew word satan is a noun from a verb meaning primarily ‘to obstruct, oppose and accuse’. And our enemy, Satan, is far more than a pantomime baddie with red horns and a comedy plastic trident. He is very real and he is very powerful. His purpose is to obstruct you, condemn you and accuse you, every time you try to make progress with God. (That’s every time.

The good news is, that in every good story the baddie gets defeated. The wolf is killed, the wicked witch ends up ousted and the merchant banker gets fired! While Satan is powerful, he is chained and limited in how he can wage war against us. Satan knows our position, and he hopes we don’t know his! He knows he has lost the war, but he will keep trying to win the battles.

Deception is Satan’s first weapon of choice. His aim is that we give him control, even though we have ultimate victory. This is the con! Our enemy tries to condemn us, knowing that he has no power to. He knows that we are conquerors taking territory, not warriors fighting for victory, but he will keep sowing thoughts into our minds that are contrary to this truth. Romans 8:1 says, ‘So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.’ NO condemnation! Not even a LITTLE BIT!

The truth is that ‘[We] can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens [us]’ (Phil. 4:13). Therefore, the only power Satan will ever have over our lives is power WE choose to give him. Romans 8:37 says  ‘In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.’

Resolve today not to be conned by the ultimate conman.

It’s called Seven Surprising (and Negative) Effects of Porn and it’s a brief but fascinating look at some of the ways porn affects us in ways we might not expect.

He quotes from several key studies and articles to expose some of the destructive effects of porn which, he says, has become completely embedded in our culture.

Well worth a read: check it out.

hi,
i’m writing just to share a small victory.
i work at at petrol station and after hearing about the naked truth at prayer storm i mentioned the whole thing of modesty covers for “nuts” and  “zoo” to my manager who sent off an email. today i had the pleasure of sticking huge opaque plastic covers in front of all the issues of “nuts”, “zoo”, “fhm” and “loaded”. all this was off the back of one email… just think what changes we can bring through prayer and action, however small.
Thanks for the inspiration.

That’s amazing. What simple things can you do to stand up against the tide of porn in our culture?

One idea: sign this petition today. It needs 100,000 signatures to be eligible for debate in the House of Commons. As I write this, it is up to 1,082. Surely together we can double this within the next week, and do our best to make it go viral?

Sign the petition now and please post this on Facebook, Twitter etc.