Porn: Adam Savage's Podcast on Pocket Pornography

I know - weird title right? Well don’t click away just because you were looking for porn and found my blog.

First to get the context of this post listen to this 11 minute talk by Adam Savage. He is one of the former stars of Myth-busters and he gave some key points in a talk about Parenting, Pornography, Kids, and how to address the constant pain of what parents are to do when boys and girls come of age in this constant culture of sexual bombardment.

Click it… It’s really a good listen.

LINK TO ADAM’s Thoughts on podcast regarding pornography and kids.

And then come back and think about some of his points or other wandering of this writing… we’ll most likely end up in Scripture.

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I found within myself a lot of truth in what he was saying in that the internet twists and causes the most pleasurable thing in life at times to be something so horrific for women and sometimes also for men in the images and power constructs that are presented in today’s message that Porn is needed or useful. Women have even bought the thought that it is something that is necessary in order for sexuality to be expressed or that it is manly. Just don’t let me know about it. But when they do it’s so degrading and painful in the comparisons that I have heard women have about themselves and how it effects their sense of self.

Now don’t click off… I know I sound like some closet women’s lib promoter or anti-American machismo or something.

Really I’m not.

Also that somehow it’s acceptable to have Pornography be part of a man’s world and that to not let someone know about porn and have access to porn, alcohol, or man’s focus on power is emasculating.

But come one guys!!! Really??? I think were missing the real point that intimacy isn’t spelled P-O-R-N.

The points in which a woman is viewed as an object. Something to be used. Something to be dominated. All of it is really disgusting. I know that marketing has in many ways taken a liking to exciting the brains by broadcasting or plastering visual bulletin boards in ways that are enticing, and attractive to the eye.

Such process worships one thing - The idol of MONEY.

As I think about what the end result is and how it makes one’s singular objective - how can I go about doing business today and making the minds around me want what I have, the American psyche has been so programmed to not ever react to things that 30 year ago it would have thought was pornographic. Media keeps pushing the envelope.

Gradually the ages and exposure keep getting younger and younger. Our clothing has changed. Our tolerance of fashion and what is OK or not OK. It seems to keep pushing the envelope.

Time magazine noting that 20 somethings are coming up with erectile dysfunction was particularly shocking to me. The reason found to be that the thresholds and stimulation of visual experiences that most young men are experiencing through the visual product of the internet has pushed the pleasure point so high (climax) that a guy experiencing real sex and a normal woman’s body through a regular relationship which leads to safety and security and real intimacy is impossible and unable to be experienced. A young 20 something is impotent because the visual quality of the experiences he has in vivo (live) doesn’t compare to the high def and surgically shaped versions of women who are supposed stars and famous for their overacting and false portrayal of sexual tension and pleasure.

I’m so bothered by it as Adam notes, because what will my son’s understand or know. I knew such visual garbage existed only later in life. Now there isn’t a time in which I can really tune in to watch a sporting event, a news article, or view the latest sit com or reality TV without which there is a reference, an interlude or glance of a camera man showing a woman’s features. Is this really the truth about how women want and desire to be viewed? I so hope not.

In Genesis 2 it talks about how God fashioned woman not as something to be worshiped. Rather God fashioned her as a help mate. A helper. God did the first surgery. He presided over the first marriage. He gave Adam the right to name the woman. God created a vessel and a manner for the perpetuation of the human race through the “joining” of Adam and Eve together for other “one fleshes” to occur that were made in the image of God. Images, mind you, not god’s.

So what does some blogging fanatic like me who is trying to understand the link to pornography and biblical literature and how to parent kids in a porn saturated environment have to do with writing on this topic?

Well, wanted to go back to the age and moment as described in Genesis 2 in which there was beauty and not marring. Perfection and not sin. Raw creation and not blemish.

To be in the presence of a Holy God there must have been no spot or evil in Creation at the time on Adam or Eve. Man and God were relational and interactive. Adam obeyed by sleeping and allowing God to make something out of himself. God being present as the Creator knew it was not good for man to be alone. God compassionately did something gracious and purposeful. God chose to make something that was half and create the other half to make a whole so that other halves could be joined by other halves to create a whole half, exponentially perpetuating until the end of which none of us know the end of time, return of the Savior and judgement.

So in hearing and reading a little more, the last words in the chapter are stellar in my opinion.

25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

-Genesis 2:25

God made a work and world where there was exposure, beauty, vulnerability, pleasure, safety, and every positive reference that there could ever be - Heaven; Paradise - and yet God really didn’t want it all to be something that was just manipulated by him. God gave man and woman the ability to reason. Name things. Tend to things. Care for things. Enjoy their world. Seek out and find things and experience things.

Much of these characteristics are still present in mankind as a whole, but the defeated enemy, and master of evil of this world lately and throughout time has been intentionally degrading and pouring out the lie that what God had created was not sufficient and that his improper version of life and liberty is that there should not be any guidelines, or that guidelines are meant to be tested, pushed, and overcome. God indicated that he wanted to be a Provider of such a unique way. Had not man known there was a choice or been queried, then I wonder what would have occurred without the presence of evil. But God didn’t do that. He chose to seek out and make beings that had their own volition or will.

Part of this I think is what Adam Savage expresses in that his son’s have a mind that is not controlled by their father. They are curious. They are knowing. They are absorbent of the information of the environment. So was Adam when he powerfully named and had dominion through the naming of things.

Admittedly I stressed over what to name my own offspring knowing they would one day use this as a framework, sense of self, and identity. Most of all I just really want them both to know they are loved. Perhaps that is what I also sense in Adam Savage. He wants to love his kids well. His thoughts on social process and justice are good, and the thoughts that his son’s need to understand the true nature and calling of women, but in the picture in Genesis 2 I see so much of the divine and influence of care and compassion and setting up of systematic cycles that were set into motion and continue to be lived out to this day.

So I keep going… land the plane, Andrew… OK, so on the descent now…

I guess what I heard in the process of Adam’s talk was the recognition that our son’s are beings that are able to understand. That our charge as parents is to make sure they are successfully alive physically, and then I heard from Adam Savage his deep call as a moral human being to train up his brood in a way that counteracts the cultural acceptance that women and men in the United States are suppose to be unequal.

When I go back to the original setting of the beginning of time, I see that God began Creation in a way that was equal. Woman was valued. Woman was a help mate. Woman came out of the side of man, not the head or the foot. The side. The core. The very essence of Adam. Bone of my bones. Flesh of my flesh. Eve had his DNA. And God really did a great job of fashioning as a sculpture that which man would come to adore, protect, and nurture. God gave man something to value and love.

However, sinful man has deeply perverted anything of good in this day and age. I suppose I might even in typing this be marked as a weirdo, or different one. But I hope that the markings of taking a moment to think about the impact of twisted porn and problems in how we don’t give prudence and honor to the original design that God had for mankind, causes a deep disconnect and rift. An insatiable black hole in the hearts of men that are desperate to fill it with something that will keep them distracted from the truth that each person must understand their choice to accept or reject the things of God and that evil forces are continually perverting the Creation of God and making it so that even man’s attempts to extreme pursue pleasure will end up in pain, disharmony, and disunity. (Time Articles) Anything pursued to extreme seems to be something that causes slavery of some kind, because we’re still frequently attempting to know, understand, and fear things that should not be fear or revered.

God is.

So when man uses so much perverted or twisted creation to attempt to distract and fill the hole that was left when God couldn’t be around a creation that chose itself or knew shame and then attempted to find ways to avoid pain, then there results more brokenness. But Savage seemed to indicate that he was looking into the core matter of how to bring balance and understanding to a mind that seeks knowledge, understanding, and is wired to know pleasure and goodness. How does one convey principles of knowledge and good to the next generation so they don’t perpetuate the disconnect and slavery of sexes to ideas that are demeaning and temporary.

It’s a start maybe. That a father could help their boys understand that true manliness is found in naming, creating, joining, and living within the bounds of Almighty God who deeply desires us to know and be known by Himself. That God would reach and find, hold and secure, comfort and grow deep connection with us. That we could crawl up in a lap and be comforted by Abba, Father. Daddy. - The Holy One.

Praise be to God who made a way for man to know God, through Christ the Messiah of mankind.

Maybe I didn’t really land the whole thought, but gave me some time to just think through and express, and that is sometimes what is part of my need to do and what I think I am partially created to do and be. My heart still aches to think that the world I know won’t be the world they know. I pray that I would know through God’s Spirit the right way to bring them up, as my help mate all the time is influencing and telling me her version of what she thinks is good, and I am pressing in and being hard nosed and anger oriented about how to form men who will follow, be balanced, and know they are loved by their father and Almighty God.