Catholic Sex Blog

Colossians 2:6-15

You must live your whole life according to the Christ you have received - Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted in him and built on him and held firm by the faith you have been taught, and full of thanksgiving.

Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ.

In his body lives the fullness of divinity, and in him you too find your own fulfilment, in the one who is head of every Sovereignty and Power.

In him you have been circumcised, with circumcision not performed by the human hand, but by the complete stripping of your body of flesh. This is circumcision according to Christ. You have been buried with him, when you were baptised; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead. You were dead, because you were sinners and had not been circumcised; he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us all our sins.

He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross; and so he got rid of the Sovereignties and the Powers, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession.
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Luke 6:12-19

Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them “apostles”: Simon whom he called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor.

He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and from Jerusalem and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured, and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.
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Imagine you have a child, and throughout his developmental years, you never said ‘no’ to him. From somewhere you read or heard that if a child hears the word ‘no’ when he makes a request from you, he will grow up with a fear of rejection. So in order to prevent that, you say ‘yes’ to every request. After twenty years of having said ‘yes’, your child asks something of you which you cannot give. Can you say ‘no’? Chances are, you can’t. And your child, whom you’ve never said ‘no’ to, is not your child, but your master; you are his slave.

What does this have to do with today’s readings? In the first reading, St. Paul tells the Colossians: Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ.

What is the philosophy that today’s generation is taught? I think it would be Nike’s tagline “Just do it.” I wrote to an American about sexual freedom recently. Our generation is taught today that sexual freedom means being able to “just do it” without fear of constraints from previous generations or religious beliefs. Today’s generation tends to believe that if they can “just do it”, if they can say ‘yes’ to sex whenever, wherever and however they want to, only then are they sexually free.

However, a generation of people who won’t say ‘no’ to sex, quickly becomes a generation of people who can’t say ‘no’ to sex. A person who can’t say ‘no’ to sex is not sexually free. He or she is a slave to sex. This means that the philosophy that today’s generation is taught is a “secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world” and it is one that traps them and deprives them of their sexual freedom.

If today’s generation (and I’m not referring just to the youth) is quickly becoming a generation of sex slaves, what then can be done for us? How can we find true freedom if the philosophy of the world only serves to make us slaves? In the gospel reading, we see Jesus and his apostles setting people free of their diseases, their demons, and all that chains them down. Today, we can find freedom from sexual slavery in the Church’s teaching of abstinence.

Abstinence is applicable not only to single persons, but persons who are married as well. The Church teaches abstinence is also healthy for married people. There are times when married people have to abstain from sex, such as when due to illness, pregnancy, travel or other reasons. What would a person who cannot say ‘no’ to sex do in cases when abstinence seems to be the only answer? If you think about it for a moment, you will understand why the media has been glorifying those answers.

Abstinence is the true test of whether one has sexual freedom or not, because abstinence shows that a person can say ‘no’ to sex, even at times when he can say ‘yes’. Freedom means having a choice and being able to make either choice. In Christ we find freedom, not just sexual freedom, but freedom in the best sense of the word.

Today is September 11, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America. We also remember that one person that is more dangerous than all the terrorists put together is Alfred Kinsey, the grandfather of the sexual revolution which took place all over the world. The impact of his work on sexual morality has truly devastated the world, and America, much more than any terrorist will ever do.
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Prayer:
Dear Lord, help us to desire true sexual freedom in the way that you offer it to us. Grant us the courage to turn our backs on the secondhand philosophy of the world that we are surrounded with, and turn our eyes to the redemption that you offer us through your cross. Amen.

Give Thanks to the Lord for: Showing us what true sexual freedom is.

There’s one thing about masturbation that I’ve been on the lookout for, but have never found, is something on masturbation addiction, and how it works. I know how pornography addiction works, but I’m interested in how the act of masturbation affects the human body. What does it do to the person?

I am aware of some emotional changes through the process, both before and after, so clearly there are some hormonal changes in the body. What are they? Are they really healthy, as many people seem to claim without any medical proof? Or could they actually be harmful? Because I have found no long-term benefit of masturbating regularly, but in fact a lot of negative effects, one of which would be an addiction to masturbation.

There are other substances that cause similar hormonal changes in a person’s body such as nicotine, heroin, cocaine, marijuana… and all of these are harmful. Could masturbation actually be harmful as well? Could masturbation be, perhaps, the nicotine of addiction to pornography?

I came across this website (www.newlifehabits.com) the other day. On one particular post “Masturbation Addiction Explained“. It speaks of the harmful mental and physical benefits of masturbation:

On mental effects, it says:

When a person masturbates, the ability to create and maintain relationships is hindered. Masturbation makes us more reserved and turns us inward to be concerned mostly with pleasing ourselves. Relationships are about caring for others and this is hard to do when we are being so selfish in private. Masturbation can cause us to be less outgoing and we may isolate ourselves from others in shame. We may feel uncomfortable in crowds because we lack the confidence to conduct ourselves in a healthy social way. It can effect our dating relationships and put too much weight on the physical part of the relationship and ignore the friendship that should be developing.

Sounds like the story of my life, if you ask me…

As for physical effects, it says, in a summarized form:

There are different chemical reactions happened when you masturbate as opposed to having healthy sex in a marriage. A lot of what is going on during and after these acts originates in the pituitary gland. Two main hormones are interacting and regulating each other. These are the dopamine and prolactin hormones.

Dopamine makes us feel excited and prolactin makes us feel relaxed. When a person reaches climax after arousal, the body knows how to release prolactin to suppress the dopamine so we will feel relaxed and satisfied. In marriage this is accompanied with many emotions of love and so the satisfied feeling is multiplied and you become bonded to your spouse physically and emotionally.

Over 400% more prolactin is released at climax when engaged in healthy sex with a loved one than when one masturbates. So what does that mean? It means that the person who masturbates is no where near as satisfied and definitely not bonded in love as they would be in a healthy normal marriage. In fact, the person who masturbates has no idea what they are missing out on but instead have sort of a pseudo miserable bond with fantasies that are ever changing and progressing in order to keep the person somewhat satisfied.

The person who masturbates will continue to be excited by the unregulated levels of dopamine. They may feel a little relaxed but the arousal returns quickly and they must masturbate again in order to feel relaxed again. So with a shorter period of relaxation the person must masturbate more frequently to try to reach the equivalent level of relaxation they would have in a healthy marriage. They will never reach this level of satisfaction.

In this uncontrolled and unhappy state the person is definitely not even ready to experience a marriage since they have no self-control and would bring their warped sense of love into the marriage. Remember, true love involves self-control.

In conclusion, no good comes from masturbation. Those who promote it either have never dealt with the problem or have just created an opinion with little knowledge of the negative effects.

Today, I learnt something new about what the Church teaches about pornography.

First, the secular definition of pornography:

“Pornography is the presentation or production of sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.”

Now the Church’s definition of pornography:

“Pornography consists of removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties.”

See the difference? I didn’t at first, until it was explained to me. The difference is that the Church only considers sexual acts shown to third parties as pornographic. That means that a lot of the secular pornography out there is not really what the Church considers pornography. Images like porn stars displaying their private parts (which are called ‘private’ for a reason), or acting seductively - these are not considered pornography by the Church, although the secular world does consider it pornography. These are considered obscene, a sin against modesty and chastity, but not pornography.

All this while, I have been using the secular definition of pornography without thinking to check what the Church defines it.

What’s the big deal, you ask? I asked that too.

The first big deal is that if we label something that isn’t pornography with the word pornography, we are in danger of not recognising the real pornography for what it is. I don’t agree with this explanation yet, but I pray that with the grace of God, I can come to accept the truth as taught by the Church, the bride of Christ and guardian of the truth.

The second big deal is that we have to ask - who labels these things as pornography when they are not really pornography? The answer? The porn industry. The porn industry labels certain things which are not pornography as pornography. Ask yourself this, do you want to listen to what the Church says, or what the porn industry says? This one I can accept. I don’t want to call things as the porn industry labels them. I would rather listen to what the Church says on this.

I attended a talk today on “Theology of the Body” given by Family Life Society’s Andrew Kong once. It was held in a function room in the National University of Singapore for about 50+ university students from the Catholic Students Society there.

Although I had heard Andrew speak on the subject before, it is always interesting to learn more about the huge topic. Realising that I gain something every time I explore this topic, I made up my mind to attend the talk, especially since the crowd would be a most interesting one. I looked forward to the question-and-answer segment at the end of the talk. University students are always full of interesting questions and viewpoints.

The talk held in the evening drew a good mixture of male and female students… boys and girls who would become ladies and gentlemen after listening to Andrew’s eloquent lesson on one of Pope John Paul II’s greatest legacies for the Catholic Church and the world at large.

One of the most interesting parts of the talk came when Andrew invited all present to imagine a particularly tantalizing scenario. Loud boisterous hur-hur-hur came from the young men present, laughter which masked their embarrassment, possibly from having viewed something similar during their private pornography viewing sessions. The louder the laughter, the more embarrassment it masked.

The other most interesting part of the talk was when someone asked Andrew about the female equivalent of lust. For males, lust (using of another person) usually manifests itself through sexual lust. Lustful males are pornography’s largest viewers. But what about lustful females? What is the female equivalent, asked a student.

Andrew’s response was to suggest romance novels. Immediately, the girls present giggled in embarrassment. That was an eye-opener for me. For while young men tend to laugh in embarrassment when their secret thoughts are laid bare in such a talk, Andrew expertly laid bare the secret thoughts of the young ladies present.

Just last week, I was speaking with a religious sister in her seventies, who shared with me that even at her age, she experiences the temptation to fantasize when she reads sexually explicit scenes in novels. Although romance novels are not her cup of tea, she sometimes encounters them in crime novels. When she does, she skims over them. Pope John Paul would call this “custody of the eyes”, a form of self-defense.

Incidentally, certain Korean drama serials came to mind when Andrew mentioned romance novels. It suddenly dawned on me (when it should have long ago) that these drama serials which draw the women by the thousands are none other than the female equivalent of pornography. It’s not pornography per se, because it does not meet the definitions of what pornography is, but it becomes apparent immediately that many ladies are as hooked to drama serials (and romance novels) as many men are hooked to pornography.

The results are expectedly similar. While pornography addicts become increasingly unsociable, and find increasing difficulty in relating to the opposite sex, women who are hooked to drama serials and romance novels also become increasingly unsociable, and also find increasing difficulty in relating to the opposite sex.

While pornography addicts may end up projecting their fantasies onto the women in their lives, resulting in unhappiness and dissatisfaction in relationships, drama serial addicts may also end up projecting their own fantasies of how a man should be onto the men in their lives, which also result in unhappiness and dissatisfaction in relationships.

There we find the line between reality and fantasy blurred. As we become accustomed to the images of men and women in our respective fantasies, we want our fantasies to become reality, and when we don’t get it (since it is impossible, that’s why it’s called a fantasy), we are dissatisfied with whoever we are with.

As no man or woman is perfect, and no reality can be fantasy, we will forever be dissatisfied, so long as we expect our fantasy world to become reality. It is easy to say that this can never happen to us as we are in full control of our senses, but people who are addicted are not free; they are not in full control of their senses. That is why the line between fantasy and reality is blurred. That is why lust is so dangerous to our humanity. It makes us less human, hence it dehumanises us.

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It started with a comment on another blog that denies seems to deny pornography’s link to rape. I chanced across it while searching the Wordpress tag “pornography”. After writing a whole long comment and faced with the possibility of it being deleted on that blog (like how I delete some inappropriate comments on this blog) through no fault or blame on the owner of that blog, I decided to post the comment, albeit edited, on my own blog. Some sub-headings were included to make reading easier.

What is pornography, and why is it wrong?

As defined in Wikipedia, pornography is “the explicit representation of the human body or sexual activity with the goal of sexual arousal”. In other words, pornography is the use of the human body to sexually arouse the viewer. This is wrong because the human body is not supposed to be used in any way, because when we use a person, we are reducing his dignity from that of a person to that of an object (to be used).

Why is pornography, sodomy, and adultery the “business of the law”?

Pornography, sodomy, and adultery all affect the society, hence it is the business of the law indeed.

Pornography, as mentioned above, is the use of the human body as a commodity. Specifically the pornography industry uses the human body in an obscene manner to exploit people - the actors and actresses, and those who purchase the material, all in the name of money. The pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and Earthlink. (Source: Pornography Statistics 2007)

As for sodomy, studies have indicated that the body’s natural immune system is broken down by repeated exposure to semen during anal intercourse. Also, the tearing and rupturing which can take place during such intercourse exposes the individual to infection by manifold serious and fatal diseases. Of these, AIDS is the most well-known and the most dangerous. (Source: Larry, Burtoft, Ph.D, Setting the Record Straight: What Research Really Says About the Social Consequences of Homosexuality, Focus n the Family 1994)

Adultery is a crime against marriage and is illegal in some jurisdictions. If the business of marriage falls under that of the law, then how can adultery not concern the law, since adultery is a breach of the marital contract? I don’t have a source for this, hence this is using common sense.

Did Alfred Kinsey manipulate his results in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male?

Yes, Kinsey did indeed skew his results. Dr Judith Reisman’s research shows us how:

Kinsey engaged in what is known as “category manipulation”. In one example, he classified 1,400 criminals and sex offenders as “normal” on the grounds that such miscreants were essentially the same as other men - except that these had gotten caught. The “human males” category could then include incarcerated pedophiles, pederasts, homosexual males, boy prostitutes and miscellaneous sexual predator.

One of the co-authors of Kinsey’s work, Clyde Martin, was charged with all the statistical analysis of data for the project of “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” despite not having any background in statistics. And even he admitted that “criminal and abnormal men permeated the sample to such a degree that the only way to clean it up would amount to rewriting the entire book”.

Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist of global acclaim in the 1940s, was a friend of Kinsey. He had already proven that volunteers in a sex study were usually “unconventional” men and women with high rates of unhealthy and disapproved sexual activity. Relying upon these volunteers - even those not counted among prison populations - would produce results that showed a “falsely high percentage of non-virginity, masturbation, promiscuity and homosexuality in the population.

Which is what happened - according to Kinsey’s skewed data, 95 percent of the American male population regularly indulged in deviant sexual activities such as extra-marital affairs, homosexuality, pedophilia, etc. Maslow offered to help Kinsey clean up the “volunteer error” in his work, but once Kinsey realised how this would compromise the outcome of the data and steer it away from the results he wanted, he abruptly terminated his friendship with Maslow.

It is an established fact (stats coming) that child molesters regularly use pornography to seduce their prey, to lower the inhibitions of their young victims and to serve as a kind of “instruction manual”. In a study of 36 serial sex murderers interviewed by the FBI, 81 percent admitted using pornography. Of those studied, 87 percent of girl child molesters and 77 percent of boy child molesters admitted to regular use of pornography.

Decriminalizing pornography came about when the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the revolutionary Model Penal Code with its recommendation of drastically reducing the penalties for its 52 major sex crimes according to Kinsey’s data.

Prior to that time, the definition of obscenity according to case law was “anything offensive to chastity or modesty, expressing or presenting to the mind or view something that… decency forbids to be exposed… tending to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts…”

The new Model Penal Code declared a thing obscene if “considered as a whole, its predominant appeal is to prurient interest… And if it goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description…” According to Kinsey, sexual activities such as sodomy, incest, pedophilia, and bestiality are within customary limits, so one is left to wonder what exactly the Model Penal Code restricts.

- the source of these past nine paragraphs is “The Kinsey Corruption: An Expose on the Most Influential ‘Scientist’ Of Our Time” by Susan Brinkman, based on the book “Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences” by Dr Judith Reisman

What does the use of pornography lead to?

Using common sense, consider this: If a person regularly used pornography, he would be so “sexually charged” up (heh heh) that he would need to release it somewhere. First, it would be masturbation, but because these feelings of pleasure lead to addiction, and addiction is a progressive disease, more is required than before to obtain the same sexual high previously experienced. The person would therefore seek out more thrilling ventures to meet his need for sexual pleasure.

If the person was married, sex with his wife would no longer meet his need for sexual pleasure, because the fantasy is always more pleasurable than the reality. He would seek out other sources to obtain that sexual high, such as in extra-marital affairs, prostitutes, etc.

But don’t take my word for it; that’s just my common sense speaking. Ask a professional psychologist who specializes in addiction. Or, you can take the word of Sexaholics Anonymous, as they write:

“Some common characteristics of male and female sexaholics include isolation, depression, guilt, and a deep sense of emptiness. Our common behaviors include fantasizing about sexual and other self-centered desires, harmful co-dependent relationships, compulsive masturbation, use of pornography, including the Internet, promiscuous sexual relationships, adulterous affairs, and compulsive pursuit of exhibitionism or sexually abusive relationships, regardless of legal consequences.”

Or you can take the word of professionals who have researched this. Both Sexual Addiction Recovery Resources and Sex Addiction Help explain the Sexual Addiction Cycle which begins with Fantasy, which leads to Ritual, which leads to Acting Out, which leads to Shame, which leads again to Fantasy, and the cycle repeats.

I write passionately about this because my life (like Dr Judith Reisman’s) has been affected by the lies that resulted from Kinsey’s “research” which has affected the society where we live in, because our society tells us it is “normal” for every man to view pornography and “it doesn’t cause any harm”. Not true on both accounts. Both come from Kinsey and his skewed findings.

For single men, addiction to porn has many negative effects, but for the married man, it is even worse. For every married man addicted to porn are a corresponding wife and children. How many hundreds of millions of lives are affected directly or indirectly by pornography? We don’t know, but we are slowly starting to feel its effects. Sexual Recovery Institute has more to say about partners and children of porn addicts.

What can we do about pornography? It affects everyone, yes, even you. Because even if you are not directly affected by it, someone you know and are close to is, although you probably don’t know it. That’s how pervasive this problem of pornography is. But because you are affected, you can do something about it.

The first thing that you can do is to find out more. I have a directory of links to good websites that you can go to in order to have a fuller understanding of what we are facing here. After that, spread the word to all the people you know. If each one of you is aware of the danger of porn, the world is that much richer and better equipped to deal with the problem of pornography.

Boys are introduced to pornography and masturbation at a very early age. For some, they are introduced to it even before their bodies develop what is needed to enjoy such activities. Some of the men I have known have been viewing pornography and masturbating to it since puberty and have never had a wet dream before.

Here are some of the reasons why people who continue to use pornography to masturbate give to justify their uses, and the corresponding response I would give:

1. It feels good.
- Can’t deny that, but it doesn’t feel good every time. Sometimes it’s just not satisfactory. At other times, you feel damned guilty afterwards. Still at other times, you left a big mess in the room and you have to clean up and make sure you don’t get caught. Then there’s that nagging guilt and suspicion of other people using the computer and chancing across your porn files.

Life’s more than about feeling good. It’s more than about such fleeting feelings are. Abstaining from instant gratification, not just masturbation, helps create a better, more permanent form of happiness by introducing you to real love, instead of lust.

2. It doesn’t harm anyone.
- Actually it does. It harms you, because you are taking that love you have that is meant for others and directing it towards yourself. Basically, you are having a sexually intimate relationship with yourself which can only lead to the detriment of the loving relationships you have with others.

3. It doesn’t harm anyone else.
- Why is it wrong and against the law, both legal and moral, to commit suicide? It doesn’t harm anyone else too. It is because the ones who love him are harmed when they realize that their loved one had problems and that they could not be trusted to share his secret. There is a great sense of betrayal of trust in the persons.

4. No one loves me. It doesn’t harm anyone else.
- The one who commits suicide harms society as a whole because it deprives the society of one person’s gifts. Similarly, masturbation deprives society of the love you could be giving to other members of the society and giving it to yourself instead. Thus, not only is the rest of society harmed by this selfish action, the rest of society doesn’t benefit from it either.

5. It’s my body, and I can do what I want with it.
- Really? Then make your hair move on its own. It’s your body, isn’t it? Why can’t you move it? Or how about never falling sick. It’s your body, isn’t it? Why can’t you always remain healthy? Simply because your body doesn’t belong to you. It’s been loaned to you to take care of.

Your human body is not yours, contrary to what you might think. You need to return it when you’re done with it. It’s like borrowing someone’s mobile phone to make a call. You don’t use the phone to knock in a nail when you borrow it, do you? No, you treat it carefully because it’s not yours. You use it only for what it’s supposed to be used for. Masturbation is not what the genitals are supposed to be used for.

6. I need to masturbate in order release this sexual tension in me. It’s the natural thing to do.
- What happens if you don’t release it? Will it collect until you pop? Actually yes. When you sleep at night, your body will release the sperm periodically in a totally natural way. That’s the truly natural thing to do - to allow nature to take its course.

7. But it’s so inconvenient to get up in the middle of the night to wash up after wet dreams.
- The natural thing to do isn’t always the most convenient thing to do. You do have to make a trip to the toilet to pee, don’t you? And no one complains about that inconvenience, except maybe the elderly. But really, this excuse of inconvenience is really all there is to it - an inconvenience… because you and I know that it’s not the real reason why a guy jerks off once a week or more. We do it for pleasure. This excuse of inconvenience is just an excuse to make us feel justified while jerking off.

There are, of course, more reasons, but those are not reasons that I have ever used to justify myself. Maybe I will write another post on that in future.

My dear fellow Catholics,

The grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always.

I am writing this letter to you today to ask for your kind and gracious help. In the gospel according to Luke, Jesus tells his disciples, “Obstacles are sure to come, but alas for the one who provides them!” He teaches us that as fellow Christians we should not cause our brothers and sisters to sin.

There are two groups of people that need your help today and these two groups of people have a special tendency to sin so we must do our best to help them to avoid sin.

The first group are those who are addicted to pornography. For men especially, who are in this situation and trying not to sin, we lead them to sin when we appear before them in immodest dressing. This dressing applies to both men and women, for there are both straight and gay men who are addicted to pornography.

The second group of people are those who have a tendency to judge others. When they see people who dress shabbily or immodestly, they are quick to judge them as disrespecting the Lord. When we present ourselves before them in clothes that are less than suitable for the occasion, we become a cause of sin to these people.

Therefore, on behalf of both these groups of people, I implore you, my fellow Catholics, to dress modestly wherever you go, especially in church. Dress modestly and suited to the occasion, so that we will not be a cause of sin for others.

Thank you, my brothers and sisters!

God bless,
Catholic Writer

The writer of today’s reflection for the daily scriptural devotion called OXYGEN (also available via email subscription) is “John Tan” who shared in the Singapore Archdiocesan newspaper the story of his addiction to pornography, and how he overcame it.

- visit my other blog
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25 Mar - Fifth Sunday of Lent

The Lord Who Has Wiped Out Our Past Sinfulness

The utter completeness of Christ’s forgiveness is almost incredible. When he says to us, “Neither do I condemn you”, the past is dead, snuffed out like wick, forgotten. Laughter and song fill our hearts. It seems like a dream.

- the Sunday Missal
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Forgiven and Forgotten

How I wish for a wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes,
Our sins and our aches,
Could be locked in a case
And dumped in a lake
Never to surface again.

- God takes our sins and dumps them into the deepest lake. The problem: God puts a sign on the lake: “No fishing!”

- When God forgives, God suffers from total amnesia!

- God presses the “erase” button, and the sheet comes out blank!

- taken from “150 More Stories for Preachers and Teachers” by Jack McArdle
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Isaiah 43:16-21

Thus says the Lord,
who made a way through the sea,
a path in the great waters;
who puts chariots and horse in the field
and a powerful army,
which lay there never to rise again,
snuffed out, put out like a wick:

No need to recall the past,
no need to think about what was done before.
See, I am doing a new deed,
even now it comes to light; can you not see it?
Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness,
paths in the wilds.

The wild beasts will honour me,
jackals and ostriches,
because I am putting water in the wilderness
(rivers in the wild)
to give my chosen people drink.
The people I have formed for myself
will sing my praises.
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Philippians 3:8-14

I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him. I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts, the perfection that comes from the Law, but I want only the perfection that comes through faith in Christ, and is from God and based on faith. All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death. That is the way I can hope to take my place in the resurrection of the dead. Not that I have become perfect yet: I have not yet won, but I am still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me. I can assure you my brothers, I am far from thinking that I have already won. All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come; I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus.
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John 8:1-11

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At daybreak he appeared in the Temple again; and as all the people came to him, he sat down and began to teach them.

The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman along who had been caught committing adultery; and making her stand there in full view of everybody, they said to Jesus, “Master, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery, and Moses has ordered us in the Law to condemn women like this to death by stoning. What have you to say?” They asked him this as a test, looking for something to use against him. But Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger. As they persisted with their question, he looked up and said, “If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then he bent down and wrote on the ground again. When they heard this they went away one by one, beginning with the eldest, until Jesus was left alone with the woman, who remained standing there. He looked up and said, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she replied. “Neither do I condemn you,” said Jesus. “Go away, and don’t sin any more.”
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Someone asked me why did I choose the name “John Tan” when I shared the story of my addiction to pornography. It could be because today’s gospel reading comes from the apostle John.

Since I shared my story publicly for the first time two weeks ago, I’ve come to realise that the problem of pornography is more widespread than I imagined. How many guys have I known without knowing of their addiction? How many women whose marriages have fallen apart because of their husbands’ addiction to pornography?

But the reflection today is not about me. It’s about the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. My story revolves around him because, as St. Paul writes in the second reading, “I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts”. Indeed it was only when I realised and accepted that I could not overcome my addiction on my own strength and willpower did I open the door to my Lord Jesus to begin his healing work in me. And even today, I dare not say that I have already won, because I still get tempted, and the 10,000 pornographic images that I’ve seen in my 13-year struggle still appear in my mind, although 10,000 is probably an underestimate.

When I reflect on today’s gospel reading, I imagine myself as the woman caught in adultery. I imagine myself as the man caught viewing pornography on his computer, while masturbating with penis in hand. I imagine being dragged in front of a crowd where Jesus sits teaching and made to stand there in full view of everyone. I imagine Jesus looking at me with compassion in his eyes, and then turning to the people looking judgementally at me and saying, “If there is one of you who has not viewed pornography, let him be the first to throw a stone at him.”

And I imagine everyone going away one by one, because they have all viewed pornography and may still be doing so. And finally, all that are left are Jesus and I, and my Lord Jesus says to me, “John, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” I shake my head slowly, and my Lord says to me, “Neither do I condemn you. Go away, and don’t sin any more.”

Laughter and song fills my heart. It seems like a dream. But because my Lord Jesus believed in me, he gave me the strength to overcome my addiction. And indeed no one has condemned me…

(Today’s OXYGEN by “John Tan”)
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Prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ, please allow us to experience your unfailing love for us, that we who are trapped in shame in our addiction to pornography, may experience your healing. Help us to realise that we cannot overcome this problem on our own, and that we need your help found in the people around us who love us and would never cast a stone at us. Amen.

Give Thanks to the Lord for: Those who love us and support us totally.
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Disclaimer: The reflections expressed in this e-mail are the writer’s own. They may not necessarily reflect the teachings of the Catholic Church. Nonetheless we should all be able to learn something from it.

Someone was commenting in another post in my main blog that when a ‘red-blooded male’ goes for some time without masturbating, he gets very tempted to masturbate, and it becomes hard to think and focus clearly. He would much rather jerk off and get on with life than to endure until he gets a wet dream.

I used to experience the same thing in the past. I would often tell myself that not masturbating makes it hard for me to think clearly and to focus, so I would go for a “quickie”, which is what I called a masturbation for the main purpose of getting a quick fix, and then get back to work.

But now that I look at it, and even though I denied it back then, it’s quite apparent that there was certainly an addiction to masturbation. Like other addictions, for example, to smoking, drugs, alcohol, etc, addicts experience similar withdrawal symptoms when they are off their substance of abuse. They might experience shivers, difficulty in concentrating, etc, and all this would be quickly fixed (and justified) with a “quickie” of their substance of abuse.

You know you’re addicted to something when you can’t seem to function normally without it. This is one good way of checking whether or not you’re addicted to something. If you’re not addicted, you can easily go without it for a period of at least three to six months, or forever. Those who are addicted, if they go cold turkey, will find themselves falling back to their substance of abuse, usually against their will.

A common lie that addicts tell themselves is, “I’m not addicted. I just choose to do it because I like it.”

Of course you like it, otherwise you wouldn’t be addicted to it. But to really prove it to yourself and to others, that you’re not addicted, go ahead and do without it. It is not enough to not go back to doing it; there should also not be any withdrawal symptoms.

Of course as mentioned above, another common lie we tell ourselves is that, “I’m only doing it so that I can concentrate better.” That, if anything, is stronger evidence of addiction.

Speaking of addiction, I’m just going to make a side note here. If you miss Mass, rosary, charismatic prayer session or the devotion of your choice, and you spend the rest of the time feeling down, depressed, guilty, it’s a possibility that you might be addicted to religion. I won’t write too much on this now, because it’s a whole post on its own.

Bottomline is that many of us are addicts without realising it. Some of us know it deep down in our hearts, but we deny it so forcefully that we react strongly whenever anyone even suggests that we’re addicted to something.

One clear way of telling whether or not we’re addicted to something is to check for withdrawal symptoms over a period of time.

For some of us, our substance of abuse causes us shame, and we purposely shy away from any discussion of it. For others, we talk about it in a completely detached way, such as not associating ourselves with it at all.

For still others, we are not ashamed of it at all, because we are able to fully justify our reasons for doing it. We embrace our addictions. We then go around trying to convince others to see things our way, because the more people who see things our way, the more “normal” we will feel about our addiction. We want others to justify our behaviour because it is not enough for us to justify our own behaviour.

As always, check for withdrawal symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and craving. They are good indications of an addiction.

Incidentally, here is a Cyber Sex Addiction Screening test that you can do to see if you’re addicted to online pornography.

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“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
- Edmund Burke

One of the reasons why the problem of pornography is so widespread today, is because we have done nothing about it. We talk about it, sometimes, and we disapprove of obscene images on the internet or on TV, but we don’t do anything about it. By not doing anything and remaining silent about it, we are actually showing approval about it.

We are either part of the problem or part of the solution.

What then can we do to change from being part of the problem to being part of the solution? Here are some ways. Feel free to add more.

1. When you see a blog with objectionable material, be it text or images, highlight it to the blog administrators. In Blogger and Xanga, you can ‘flag it’. In Wordpress, you can ‘report it as mature’. I am sure every blog provider has something similar.

Don’t worry, you’re not being a prude. You are helping to fight the problem of pornography.

2. When people pass around pornographic images, whether by email or mobile phone, make your disapproval heard and your disgust known. Again, don’t worry about being a prude. You’re being a trend-setter.

3. Talk about it openly with friends. There are three kinds of people whose lives involve porn. The first are those who see nothing wrong with it. They can talk openly about it, and for it. The second are those who indulge in porn and feel guilty about it. They don’t talk openly about it. The third are those who no longer indulge in porn. They too can talk openly about it, and against it. Be the third kind, who are inspirational to the second kind.

4. If you are a parent, do not ignore or brush aside the matter when your children bring it up. Take pains to explore the matter with your children and help them come to realise what’s wrong and evil about porn. Of course this means that you must first know what’s wrong and evil about it yourself. Keep the channel of communication open with your children, who must feel confident about approaching you about the matter.

5. Report porn spam to internet service providers. Provide them with the IP address and sample of the spam. Internet spam clogs up ISPs. ISPs will be more than happy to help get rid of them. Complain to your ISP, and the sender’s ISP.

6. If you see VCD or DVD vendors selling porn material, anonymously tip off the police. Patrolmen will be sent to investigate, and you will discourage these vendors from frequenting your neighbourhood. It might not solve the problem, but it protects that neighbourhood at least.

7. If you see objectionable material being broadcast on television, complain to the relevant authorities. In Singapore, it is the Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore. In the U.S., it is the Federal Communications Commission.

8. If you see indecent, but not obscene material, broadcast on television, complain to advertisers who buy air time for commercials on those programmes. Advertisers are very sensitive to complaints. Complaints means that people may be rejecting their products, which means that the huge amounts of money they spend on advertising on TV might be going to waste.

Note: Advertisers frequently buy TV time months in advance, booking a specific time slot without knowing what programmes are going to fill that slot. If you get that response, tell advertisers that they should monitor the programmes they sponsor more closely and, when needed, screen individual programmes prior to airing.

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