Maasai warriors traditionally hunted lions as a rite of passage into manhood. It’s the local version of slaying the dragon to earn your knighthood. These templates speak to men in a simple way. They are saying this- your masculinity must conquer a barrier for it to be verified. The Lion and the Dragon are symbols of death. If you do not slay them, they will slay you. Killing them just doesn’t spare you from death; it teaches you how to live. It teaches you how to kill the next lion. It gives your palate a taste of victory and lets you know that you can win as a man in this life. One of the predators that barricade the modern man from entering into victorious masculinity is pornography. Porn is a fierce dragon of our time. It is the lion that every Moran must face. It’s the lion that will kill you if you do not kill it.
June is Mental Health Awareness Month for men. If our mental health is a battle, then you must know what you are up against. A research on the effect of porn on our mental health was done by Vincent Cyrus Yoder, Thomas B.Virden III, and Kiran Amin. In their study on Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, they found that men who consume porn tip strongly towards loneliness, depression and mental health problems. That’s because porn makes men weak by robbing them of masculine resolve. The heavy rush of dopamine trains your brain to appreciate instant pleasure without the process of engaging in process. Process is getting to know people in relationships. Process is work. Process is dealing with difficulty and learning grit. Process is doing hard things. Doing hard things makes men resilient. Porn takes the backbone of men and gives them a spaghetti-spine. As long as you loathe process as a man, your mental health will always be under attack.
The Moran who killed the lion returned home as a champion. The women around him felt safe. They knew that if a lion ever came to the Manyatta, the Feline-Slayer would arise. With his spear in his hand he would save the vulnerable of his village. The man who watches porn teams up with the lion to murder the women and the vulnerable children. He holds the proverbial spear in his hand and masturbates to desecrate his lineage. Just look at the stats below:
Timothy E. Bleecker and Sarah K. Murnen, did a study on the relationship between porn and men’s perception of women. Their study was titled “Fraternity Membership, the Display of Degrading Sexual Images of Women, and Rape Myth Acceptance.” What they found correlates with the work of Jeanette Norris, from The Journal of Sex Research. Jeanette’s article was titled “Social Influence Effects on Responses to Sexually Explicit Material Containing Violence.” It is empirically found that men who consume porn and sexually explicit content develop increasing positive attitudes toward rape.
Such men hear that a woman was raped and think or say, “What was she wearing?” Or “She must have been asking for it.” Or “She must have seduced him.” Porn tells the potential Moran that the village is to blame and that the lion is just hungry. If they didn’t want to be eaten by lions, why did they build their Manyattas in the Savannah? Porn produces rape culture. Porn makes men weak, and weak men defend their lusts.
As we handle Mental Health Awareness Month for men this June, we must be gentle with the men, for many have been broken, but we must also speak some necessary hard truths to awaken them. If your son is watching porn and you are not intervening, you are raising a rapist. Porn makes us perceive women as our archenemies. Instead of seeing them as complementary to our masculinity, we see them as foes, competitors and hindrances to our success. And of course I know that there are crazy women out there, but a true Moran knows the difference between the virtuous women of the village and the witches in the caves. The knight in shining armour knows the difference between the damsel in distress and the evil queen. A true warrior won’t raze the entire village system simply because he was stung by a bee. Porn brings a gender rift.
Brothers, if I had time I could go on. I could share the research that shows how porn affects the financial success of a man. I could share how porn increases marital unfaithfulness by 300% and ups divorce by 40%. I could share how porn brings about premature ejaculation and kills sexual satisfaction in marriages. But why spend time showing you the mid term while I could show you the long term. Death. The lion will kill you. The Savannah is not a zoo and Panthera Leo is not a pet. Your life is on the line. The dragon will scorch you. And nothing about your legacy will remain except burning ashes of the man you could have been. Death. Let me give the scientific data a rest. Look at godly wisdom.
Proverbs 5:3-5 For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. (NIV)
Proverbs 6:32 But a man who commits adultery has no sense; whoever does so destroys himself. (NIV)
Proverbs 7:25-27 Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths. Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death. (NIV)
Proverbs 2:12-19 For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who have left the straight paths to walk in dark ways, who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. Surely her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. None who go to her return or attain the paths of life. (NIV)
But gents, please understand that it’s not just a porn problem. If all the porn in the world were deleted, you would not be counted safe. All the lions in the Savannah may die but a Moran must still undergo his rite of passage. The real issue is your capacity to regulate your sexuality. The digital women in porn just mean that the lions are closer than they were before. And if that is true, then we have less time to prepare, less time to warn our sons and less time to go to war. What’s the solution? Number one- find another man and confess your sin. After that, let this article on my own victory over porn give you wisdom on what to do after confession: https://www.penstrokes.co.ke/2016/04/how-did-you-get-out-of-porn-and-masturbation/
