Jamin Bradley

There are many reasons people get hooked on porn. Over time, the Holy Spirit showed me an unexpected reason as to why I was trapped: I found worth in it. It taught me that my body had power—power to make another person feel really good and really special, which made me feel like I was important and worth something. I wanted to make someone that happy.

Of course, porn is all an act, so it could never make good on its offer, but it hoped I would never notice that. So long as I stayed in its cycle of searching for worth, just to feel completely worthless and ashamed after, it could keep me hooked for good. 

Many people look for worth in sex, creating a minefield of problems. It’s been communicated to many women that their worth is found in having sex with their partners, and if they don’t, they might be abandoned or experience abuse. Many men have been taught that their manhood is tied up in sex and that if they’re not getting any, then they’re not a man. The list of threats and lies goes on, and the Bible has even been twisted to endorse these sick ways of thinking. It’s no wonder so many of us experience such deep sexual brokenness.

Leah had a broken marriage. Not only was she stuck in a polygamous relationship, but the other woman was her sister, whom her husband was hopelessly in love with. In an attempt to find some worth in his eyes, she bore him a son and hoped that he would then love her. But he didn’t. Then she bore him a second and a third, and hoped that the third son would bring them more tightly together—but no such thing happened. Sex and children were not converting into worth because the worth-giver wasn’t putting any stock in her. So when she gave birth to her fourth child, she instead put her worth in God, who surely gave it back.

I wish I could tell you that this was the end of the story, but Leah’s sober mind didn’t last forever. Her barren sister got jealous of Leah’s childbearing and so she turned to the ancient method of raising a child through her chief servant—something akin to sex slavery. This servant became a third wife, while the children she bore belonged to her boss. Leah then did the same with her servant, increasing their polygamous marriage to five. The next time Leah wanted to have sex with her own husband, she had to pay her sister off to arrange the moment.

The family dynamic had evolved into pure madness. Just like porn, there was an empty lie that intimacy and worth might be found in it. But every time it was sought for, self-hate was found instead.

May we find our worth first and foremost in God, who longs to offer us true love, true worth, and true intimacy. And as we do that, may his love be converted into our love for others in all of its appropriate dynamics.