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NOWHERE MAN #6
X-RATED SUBSTITUTES
She’s known to her readers only as “Laurie.” No last
name — and even “Laurie” is a pseudonym, a substitute name to hide the
horror of what she went through. In a way — carrying on with our radio
theme from last week, “Nowhere Man” — she epitomizes that same stripped-of-all-identity
feeling of just plain not being a person.
She’s the author, this “Laurie” is, of an incredible book entitled An
Affair of the Mind. We did a radio series based on the book a few years
ago, and decided to return to it here as we continue to think about the
spiritual condition we all have of feeling like we don’t count.
Because An Affair of the Mind is a no-holds-barred description it’s like
to be the WIFE of a man addicted to pornography. What it’s like to be
tossed aside while your life partner looks at pictures instead. What it’s
like to go to sleep alone, with nothing but a bare spot next to you in
a king-sized bed, while your husband is out with a hooker.
Laurie finally found herself sitting in a bare medical office, waiting
to have her blood drawn. Then waiting for the results to come back, so
that she could find out if maybe she had the HIV virus. A nurse, not realizing
the hurt she was causing with every innocent word, said: “I don’t understand.
Why are YOU here?” Nothing on Laurie’s chart indicated that she might
be at risk. And Laurie had to force the words out: “It’s . . . my husband.
He has . . . a sexual addiction.” “Oh.” And the nurse left the room —
while Laurie waited alone.
I don’t suppose many of us can imagine what it must be like to be traded
in for a four-color spread in a men’s magazine. You were supposed to be
a WIFE, a lover, a partner in all things good and bad. Your husband’s
desire was supposed to be for YOU; that was part of your identity, part
of what made you YOU. “I’m the woman he promised,” you could always say
to yourself if it was a hard day, or the tail end of his long, three-week
business trips. “I’m the woman he wants.” And then to find out that he
would rather have the NON-woman, the imaginary partner in Penthouse or
the virtual sex toy in from a CD-ROM like “Virtual Valerie.”
Laurie writes with compelling honesty about what it was like to be the
scorned wife. But she also puts her finger right on the problem with pornography.
Because the user simply trades one “Nowhere Woman” for another. Listen
to what she says about it:
“Pornography lies. The first lie is that the viewer
is having an intimate relationship with the men or women involved. Playboy,
in particular, is a master at creating the illusion that you KNOW this
month’s centerfold. Pictures showing her everyday life, and stories crafted
to make her look like the girl next door, create a sense of ‘knowing’
her.”
But does Laurie’s wayward husband really KNOW Miss
October? Of course not. She is nothing but SKIN to him: images of private
body parts stamped by four-color presses into six or seven million magazines.
Pornography strips the wife of HER identity, and Miss October of hers
as well. It steals a person’s worth on both sides of the counter.
Laurie goes on to share this damning reality:
“Pornography and spirituality do not coexist. If a
person is spiritually aware, he has RESPECT for himself and others. Pornography
sells and feeds off of DISrespect for self and others.”
Well, friend, pornography really isn’t our topic for this week. But I
urge you — if this is an area where the enemy of God’s children has tempted
you — to realize the truth. A vice like pornography is wrong largely because
it does the very opposite of what God does. God values people; pornography
DEvalues them. God tells us: “You count because I created you. You matter
because I gave you a character, a soul, a spiritual nature.” Pornography
tells us: “You’re nothing but a toy: centerfold skin and breasts and genitals.
Lust candy for a selfish man’s eyes.” God says: “I see you as a child
to be redeemed. I make the ultimate sacrifice – My Son – to meet your
needs.” Pornography says: “I see you as a tool to satisfy my cravings,
serve MY needs.”
I suppose a spiritual fool could respond: “Look, the Bible doesn’t say
a word about porn.” And he’d be right. The Word of God came to us a long
time before Hugh Hefner’s empire got started. I recall, though, a little
piece of what I would call “sanctified fiction,” where the great Christian
writer Marjorie Holmes writes about how she imagines the childhood of
the boy Jesus. He and His young friends, His playmates, are playing their
childhood games one day when an older boy pulls out a little toy he got
from a passing merchant. And . . . it’s a kind of pornography. A little
rubberized kind of nudie doll you can squeeze into all sorts of obscene
shapes. Speaking of Hugh Hefner, don’t think for a minute that he invented
that kind of stuff. It’s been around for centuries. And these boys gather
around, giggling. All but one Boy. Teasing, they push the little nudie
doll into the hands of the young Boy Jesus. And with a cry of pain, of
horror, he drops it in the dust and runs away. The others begin to hoot
at him, but one kid stops them. “Just shut up,” he snaps. “Leave Him alone.
You know He’s different.”
Well, friend, that’s fiction. Marjorie Holmes wasn’t really there to know,
and neither was I. But I DO know that Jesus Christ looks on people and
values them. You and I are NOT toys to Him, not pieces of human flesh
to be played with or bargained away.
And even though the Bible doesn’t mention Playboy magazine by name, it
has plenty to say about people who feel like they’ve been used, stripped
of their human value. I’ve always liked the quiet little Genesis story
of Leah, the wife of Jacob. She was his first wife, but not his favorite
one. Her own husband liked Leah’s younger sister more. Rachel was his
favorite. Rachel’s kids were his favorites as well. And many, many nights
she would go to bed alone, knowing that her husband was over in the other
tent, the spiritual soulmate of Little Sister. Over in chapter 30, she
actually had to bribe her own spouse to spend an evening with her.
So loneliness didn’t come along in just the last half-century along with
the so-called Sexual Revolution. Disobedience to God’s perfect plan has
always had the effect of taking away our self-worth, our value. Have you
noticed how, in the very first chapters of Genesis, after the first sin
there at the tree, Adam and Eve INSTANTLY began to look around for clothes?
For some pathetic little covering to give themselves worth? And they also
immediately began to protect SELF by accusing the other? “It’s not my
fault. It’s HER fault.”
Well, I’d like to get back to some of the thoughts this “Laurie” had to
grapple with. Because her self-worth, her feelings as a woman, as a wife,
as a life partner, were completely SHATTERED. There were broken shards
of ego all over the floor. But listen to the maturity, the spiritual wisdom,
of what she says when all is said and done. This is incredible:
“Your worth depends on what GOD says about you,” she
writes, “not what others say about you, or even what you say about yourself.
And here’s what God says: ‘Fear not, for you shall not be ashamed; neither
be confounded and depressed, for you shall not be put to shame; for you
shall forget the shame of your youth and you shall not remember the reproach
of your widowhood any more.”
She adds a fascinating little note right there, telling
us that the Bible word for widowhood actually means “forsaken” or “discarded,”
which is exactly and precisely what the wife of a porn addict would be
feeling. You know, the Bible, ancient as it might be, is amazingly in
tune with what we need, isn’t it? But Laurie quotes just a bit more Scripture
for us, from Isaiah 54. Listen:
“‘For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts
is His name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the
whole earth, He is called. For the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken,
grieved in spirit and heartsore, even a wife wooed and won in youth, when
she is later refused and scorned, says your God. For though the mountains
should depart and the hills be shaken or removed, yet My love and kindness
shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,
says the Lord, Who has compassion on you.’”
In the Clear Word paraphrase for this passage, verse
six reads like this:
“You’re like a wife who’s been deserted and distressed
in spirit. You’re like a young wife whose husband has turned away from
her.” You know, that is right ON it, isn’t it? But this grand closing
line: “But the Lord calls you back home.”
Friend, it might not be a “porn” abandoning you’ve
been through. It might be in some completely different vale of tears where
you became a Nowhere Woman, a Nowhere Man. That line is for you right
now: “But the Lord calls you back home.” Back to the home where HE is
your support, your Friend, your Partner in love and in life.
Why not turn in that direction right now?
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