Real Marriage_ The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together - Mark Driscoll [79]
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Likewise, Jesus taught that sexual sins are committed not only in acts we commit, but also in our lustful thoughts. For example, in Matthew 5:27–28, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said . . . , 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Also, in Mark 7:21–23, Jesus said, “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
In the lust category, along with sexual nudity and pornography, we also include women’s romance novels. They commonly entice sinful lust and cause women to fantasize about sexual sin with all the alluring power of visual pornography for men. This kind of sinful lustful fantasizing extends to such things as the Twilight phenomenon, where older women, many of them mothers, openly fantasize about sexual desires they had for the young actors in the film.
Even mainstream women’s magazines contribute to the objectification and degradation of sex. Cosmo, as well as an entire industry of other women’s magazines lining the rack of your local grocery store, fills its covers with pornographic article headlines shouting to the world that lust is a good thing. And their pages are filled with detailed instructions teaching a young woman how to look and act like a porn star so as to attract a boyfriend, outperform his previous girlfriends in bed, and be as hot as his favorite porn fantasies. The goal is to keep him well satisfied and in the relationship as if he were a god to be worshipped.
This cycle of men and women viewing and then acting out leads to an increasingly soulless and dangerous sexuality for both men and women. Dr. Drew, a well-known therapist, has written about what causes this kind of behavior in his book The Mirror Effect.11
Dr. Drew is perhaps the most famous counselor in the world with his VH-1 reality television shows Sober House and Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew. He is perhaps best known for his long-running radio show, Loveline, where he takes calls from sexually troubled, assaulted, and deviant people. I (Mark) have cohosted the show with Dr. Drew, and was told I was the first pastor to do so.
In what he calls “the mirror effect,” Drew says that we are suffering from a culture of celebrity narcissism. To gain and retain attention, celebrity narcissists have to continually act out in extreme, dangerous, and self-destructive behavior. This includes such things as body image (extreme weight loss, excessive plastic surgery, the relentless pursuit of being sexy or beautiful), hypersexuality, substance abuse and addiction, dangerous and violent behavior, and self-harm, including cutting and suicide attempts.12
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As a pastor, I recognize that in theological terms, narcissists want to be the center of attention, like a god, and have people worship them by paying attention to them, buying the products they promote, and emulating their behavior. Aiding them in this pursuit is everything from reality television shows, daytime talk shows, social media outlets (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) and a host of magazines (People, Entertainment Weekly, etc.), television shows (TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, etc.), and Web sites tracking the every move of celebrities. Their fans then emulate the extreme behavior of celebrities because the more they are exposed to it, the more normative or even desirable they believe it is. Simply, celebrities model, and their fans mirror.
The mirror effect explains why, as pornography has become increasingly more culturally accepted and emulated, it has also escalated and become more extreme with an entire category for that purpose, called “gonzo porn.” The National