God defines sexual morality as a husband and wife having mutually pleasing, non-harmful, natural sexual intercourse for the purposes of marital intimacy, mutual enjoyment, and/or procreating to have children. Now I understand that this definition may sound a bit outdated to some people, but God is the creator and manufacturer of the human body, and He alone is qualified to define how our bodies are to be used sexually. So, we can either obey these rules that He has made concerning how our bodies were created to be used properly, or we can ignore them and have major problems because of it. When we drive our car, put gas or oil in it, or have maintenance done to it, we don't think that is outdated, because we know that we must stay within the laws that the manufacturer has set for our car, or suffer loss or harm if we don't. We must follow the rules for how and what something was created to do, if we want the maximum benefit from that product. Otherwise, we run the risk of breaking it, losing it, hurting someone with it, or destroying it and having to buy a new one. We cannot just go out and buy a new body or soul, so we need to understand God's rules for proper sexual function and practice, so that this area of our life works out well for us and for those around us. God gave us sex as a gift and He created it, so He should know best how it works and how it doesn't. We can trust Him to give us the best in every situation, we need not change it. I will deal with pornography and masturbation (which we will just call P & M to save time) as one thing, and sexual perversion as a separate thing, since the motivations for doing them differ somewhat.

1. Pornography and Masturbation (P & M)

When we become pleasure addicts, we want our pleasure under our control, and we don't want to have to wait, or depend on someone else to gratify it. P & M is a form of "life-cheating" since we were designed to either wait and have sex with our spouse, or to wait and eventually have a nocturnal emission (if you are male). So God has provided normal channels for sexual gratification, we aren't forced to cheat, we just choose to. When we are pleasure idolaters, we pervert the right use of God's normal gifts to kind of build our own little "pleasure amusement park" where we go from one ride to another, to get a fresh pleasure fix. But the price you pay to play in this amusement park can be very high. This P & M problem is not just a male problem; more and more often now, females are being caught up in pornography, masturbation, online affairs, and sex chatting. When we surf porn or masturbate, we are feeding a very dangerous animal called "lust", and the more you feed it, the stronger it gets, and the weaker you get against it. The constant hiding, or worse, getting caught looking at porn or masturbating, can take a terrible toll on your sense of self worth, your marriage, your pocketbook, your reputation, and even your job if you are caught doing it at work. We are constantly bombarded in the media with sexual images on our TV's and computers, or we are around people daily that dress to evoke sexual desire in others. To get free, you will have to understand how God created you to function sexually normal in order for you to abandon everything else that is abnormal.

When I was deep into P & M as a Christian, I was laying in bed one night feeling very hopeless and I began to cry out to God for help. I knew I was trapped and doomed, and that I needed some outside help to get free. I then began to see a scene in my mind, kind of like a vision I guess. I saw a large, wide, dark canyon full of people shuffling forward to what I felt was their judgment and punishment for the evil they did in life. I was also in this crowd and I saw people there that were nearly nude that looked like they must have worked in the porn industry in life. I then saw a man high up on a cliff viewing the crowd as they moved along. Somehow I knew this was Jesus, and He had a very pained look on His face as He viewed the crowd. I tried yelling out to Him to get His attention, but He didn't seem to hear me. The crowd was pushing me forward, and just as I was just passing by where Jesus stood, He all of the sudden turned and looked straight at me. I screamed out to Him, "Lord, I don't belong here with these people, I am a Christian, please get me out of here!" Then I heard Him speak to me without His lips moving, into my mind. He said very clearly "If you do not repent in earnest, you too will suffer the same fate as these people around you". The vision then ended, and I was beyond freaked out to say the least. I immediately jumped out of bed and got onto the Internet and desperately searched for some help. I found a place called "Setting Captives Free", and enrolled in an online course called "Pure Freedom" (now it's called "The Way of Purity"), and I then started on a path to finally get free from these life long problems of P & M and perversion.

2. Sexual Perversion

Sexual perversion includes anything that is different from God's original design and directions for normal sexual behavior (which I previously defined in the first paragraph above). Sexual perversion changes the normal practice of sex, into something that usually involves some kind of pain, power, punishment, humiliation, abnormality, or selfish pleasure, for the person who practices it. Normal sex should contain intimacy and mutually respectful and pleasureful interaction between two married people (i.e. a male and a female). But sexual perversion is a means to gratify abnormal sexual desires to meet buried abnormal psychological needs and desires that most likely developed during early childhood. These abnormal desires are real, and for someone who has "mis-developed" so to speak, and lived with these abnormal desires, life can be pretty miserable and difficult to say the least. Trying to just tell them to change their desires, is like trying to tell yourself to just stop liking a favorite food, like ice cream or pizza. It is an established preference that only God's power and the truth can change. Some of these behaviors include rape, child molestation, homosexuality, bondage, transvestitism, beastiality, sexual violence and torture, and fetishism (like women’s shoes, or underclothes). Perversion is progressive, and can even lead to sexual murder in its later stages. Sexual perversion is always progressive.

Like I said, most sexually perverse desires develop when we are developing psychologically as children. A child that is molested, can develop abnormal desires because that is what they learned from being violated that way. Likewise, a child that does not receive the normal love and affirmation they need from a parent, may grow up with a desire and obsession to possess, punish, consume, and control that parents gender's traits. Much like a homosexual may inwardly desire to possess and experience what they feel they did not receive from their parent of the same sex. Some of this can also be caused by a chemical or hormonal imbalance as well, but usually, the goal of sexual perversion is to possess, have power over, consume, and punish their parents vicariously through a sexually perverse means. It is a secondary symptom, of an unmet primary childhood need. Please understand that there is no judgment implied here. I once had sexually perverse/violent desires, and the only way that God could correct those wrong desires was to take me back to how, why, and where they got started. God reminded me of my mother’s abandonment, and how she kept violent pornography around the house that I had viewed. He then showed me my buried anger towards her, and my longing to posses and punish her for not being there for us, and then dying in a car wreck while she was out partying. You see, we long for our parents love, and approval, and if these needs are not met properly as children, we can then develop abnormal sexual desires very easily. Because we can subconsciously reject our own gender in favor of one that is considered safer or that we want to possess. Like cement that hardens and sets, our desires stay with us throughout adolescence and adulthood, and no matter how much we try to fight or deny them, they will eventually surface again until we let God help us.

So what is the answer? How do we get free from P & M, and sexual perversion? The answer is, to surrender this area of your heart and life fully and unconditionally to God so that He can heal those damaged childhood roots and help you to begin to walk and live in the truth. It is the truth alone that sets us free in the end. It can take some time, to change old habits and wrong desires, but as you walk with the Lord and cooperate with His daily work, you will see this change happen. Try not to be embarrassed about talking to God about your sexual problems. He has seen every session of porn surfing and masturbation you have had, and all the sexually violent images you have viewed, and like the prodigal son in the bible, His arms are wide open to receive and embrace you. He really is your loving Father that just cares about you, and He wants to cleanse your heart from all the pain you carry deep inside you.

Here is a prayer to pray if you need it.

"Lord God, I ask that you would forgive me for every time I have ever committed sexual sin against you, my spouse, other people, and my own body. I confess that I have been a "life cheater" in this area, and that I need your help to get free from this problem, and to walk in obedience and freedom for good. I just surrender to you right now Lord Jesus, without condition or reservation. I give myself into your hands to be cleansed, changed, and corrected in my sexual desires and behavior as you see fit. I also ask God, that you would take me back, and heal the damaged roots of my heart from my childhood concerning my true sexual identity, my relationship with my parents, and my sexual life here on earth. I thank you Lord for helping me to take the first step in getting free. Guide me oh God, to the people and support that I need to heal completely and permanently in this area of my heart and life. In Jesus name I pray, amen."

Some scriptures to help you.