Giving Everything to the "Dancing" Woman Online

The price of a man's head

From Mark 6:17-29

Herodias’ own daughter came in and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests.  The king said to the girl, “Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you.”  He even swore many things to her, “I will grant you whatever you ask of me, even to half of my kingdom.”

[After asking her mother what should she request] . . .“I want you to give me at once on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”

This is an excerpt from today’s Gospel, and how crazy is it?  Girl does dance for man, man promises her anything and everything, girl asks for the head of another man.  Who said the Bible didn’t have seduction, violence, and weird family ploys?  The Young and the Restless way before it’s time.

How often have we men let women “dance” (or more) before us online, and for the moment, we promise this virtual person anything and everything----time.  Time we could be at work, time we could be with our significant others, time with our friends or family, time in prayer, time exercising, time sleeping, time playing basketball, time reading, time playing guitar, time creating something, time writing, time building something, time laughing, time eating, time going to baseball games, time hiking and any other time we could be spending with our lives? 

Marriage alone does not free us from the
chain of sexual addiction.

For the first time the other day, as a married man, I was tempted to look at porn.  Look at porn?  Isn’t he married to a beautiful wife and making love all the time?  Firstly, no it’s not all the time, and I think every married man will tell you that, even newlyweds like me.  Secondly, I said a defiant “No!” and got up and worked on a project (at the moment it was building the bathroom shelf unit, whose legs weren’t long enough to mount above the toilet, bless my life).  Thirdly, I bring it up because I want to make a point that there is a common misconception among many young unmarried guys that the struggle of pornography and any other chastity related issue will magically disappear once married (even if your wife is smokin' like mine.)  Especially for guys who save sex for marriage, many (including myself at one point) may view marriage as a sexual free-for-all with no more barriers, boundaries, or challenges.   I remember once in college when discussing the struggle of pornography, one guy said seriously to the other men in the room“ Well, I’m not going to have that problem anymore when I’m married because I’ll be having sex every night with my wife!”  I haven’t talked to that guy in years, who now is married and has moved to another state, but I hope the first part of his sentence is true because I bet the second half isn’t.

The unfortunate truth is that many married men still look at porn.  In fact, 56% of divorce cases involve one party having an obsessive interest in pornographic Web sites.  A man I read about claimed he had sex with his wife 25 of the 30 days of the month, but confessed that during the abstinent five days he would still watch pornography.  To me, this just proves that the addiction of pornography supersedes any amount of sex a man could have.

"56% of divorces involve one of the spouses' addiction to porn.  This means porn addiction has broken up 1 out of every 4 marriages."

Pornography isn’t just about chastity, it’s more serious.  It’s an addiction that can be stronger than a drug addiction, similar to cocaine from how it physically wires the brain.

I write about this stuff because I desire for every man to become the best, most alive, strongest and happiest version of himself.  Imagine a world with men living to their full potential, living with passion, fervor, and purpose.  We men are powerful, and pornography simply takes away that power.  It emasculates us and virtually decapitates us. 

I just heard of a site called freedom-coaching.net that involves one-on-one mentoring to free men from this addiction.  It’s Catholic, but one does not have to be Catholic or even religious to use it.  Every man I know (including myself) who has been freed from addiction will tell you it has taken more than just themselves to get out of it.  Every alcoholic or drug addict needs help; pornography is no different.  It’s the New Drug as the great FightTheNewDrug.org Web site calls it. Check out their great video below that describes how pornography affects the brain.

Get help and fight it.  Do it for your (present or future) wives, do it for your (present or future) children, do it for people in your life who depend on you, and do it for you.   If you are addicted, I bet your true power and capabilities are yet to be uncovered.

Do it or we will offer up anything and everything to the “dancing” girl on the net.  We could, in the end, even offer our head.

Amén.