by Jay Stringer
Becoming an Agent of Change
Effective agents of change do not bury their pasts; they allow the past to reveal and transform their purposes. It could be that God is going to call you to allow your specific struggle with unwanted sexual behavior to be a light to others who dwell in shame. But your struggle could also be the invitation to take greater authority as an agent of change as a parent, spouse, leader in your dorm, or vocational leader. As I stated earlier, there is no obligation to pay your healing forward. Instead, when the seeds of healing grow, the fruit will be a life oriented around the welfare of others.
If you sense that your calling might be to reenter the world of unwanted sexual behavior as a guide, you have my support. Across the globe, women who have known harm in prostitution and pornography are now leading survivor services for other women and girls trapped in that lifestyle. Likewise, men who have been the primary perpetrators of sexual violence and consumption of women are now leading groups to educate men about not using their gender as a means for entitlement. When pastors and community leaders ask me, “What can be done about the epidemic of pornography and sex buying in our cities? Who can change this for the next generation?” I often find myself saying, “The addicts! The addicts who have come to know their stories.” What our churches and cities need most are men who want more than to dart their eyes away from lust. We need men who want to step on the neck of evil that promotes violence against women as the antidote to masculine wounds.
If you sense that your calling is to step into your marriage and family with greater passion and loyalty, you also have my support. I do not believe there is anything more powerful than the ability for children to grow up witnessing a marriage that lives out the ability to offer honesty and honor for one another. Many clients I work with speak to a deep desire within them to have an enduring legacy in their families. They see generations of addiction and disengagement in their families and sense that their chief calling is to heal in order to bring flourishing instead.
If you sense a desire to cultivate your creativity in your vocational field, go for it. You have my support. Part of your healing journey requires the ability to translate idle time historically consumed by your addiction into a channel for cultivating your talents. Many of my clients inevitably recognize that addiction consumed their creative energy. As they heal, they feel rejuvenated and begin to unleash their creativity. Creativity looks different in each person’s life. For some it means moving from mid-level players in their organizations to executive leaders. Others choose to write and publish poetry. Some join jazz bands or rugby teams. Others launch organizations devoted to offering healing to others caught in similar traps. The mark of healing is not merely the cessation of problematic behavior but rather a life filled with greater passion, contribution, and purpose.
DISCOVERING A GREATER SENSE OF PURPOSE
Write down three of your greatest life goals. After you jot them down, reflect how unwanted sexual behavior sets up roadblocks to achieving them. For example, you may want to influence change in an organization or academic field but find yourself using pornography far too often instead. Or you might want to be a good dad who spends time with his family but instead get involved with affairs on business trips. When you arrive back home, your guilt and hypocrisy keep you from fully investing in your ultimate goal of family.
Write down two ways unwanted sexual behavior keeps you or others focused on your failure rather than encouraging you to discover who you want to become. For example, it could be a parent that found your Internet search history but rarely found you to invite you to go camping or take you out shopping or to a movie. It could be that you were shamed for promiscuity as an adolescent or young adult, but no one cared to take notice of the sexual abuse that happened years prior.
Annie Dillard—in her Pulitzer Prize–winning book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek—wrote, “I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.”[109] Dillard is describing the moments in life where something deep within us is struck and we ring with joy and meaning. Write down three examples of when your heart was struck with meaning or joy in the context of community. It could be a perspective you offered to your organization that changed the trajectory of a project; a friend naming something about your character, gifts, or wounds that you never could have articulated for yourself; or a time you offered insight and empathy to a family member and their gratitude sank deeper and deeper into your heart. Think of these as your “record-setting moments,” when you recognized you loved the person you were in the story. The three examples you recall will provide a valuable window into the person you already are and the person you long to become. Notice the patterns across the stories. What impact recurs across them? How are these stories emblems of your “best self”?
Share your reflections with a trusted friend. What you’ve observed about yourself will give him or her a window into the ways evil works to thwart your purpose, how you were harmed in the context of longing, and the full glory of what you might become if sexual struggle did not consistently sideline you. Additionally, invite those in your community to share other experiences of where they have seen your gifts bring transformation or times when they witnessed you struggling to bring your voice to the community.
BENEFITS OF A SENSE OF PURPOSE
Discovering a sense of purpose is the most powerful way to disrupt a life of sexual brokenness. Sexual struggles saturate you with shame and keep the focus on your failures rather than on who you desire to become. Community recognizes that sexual struggles are real but should never eclipse the larger picture of your life purpose. Each year in community, you will discover more about who you are. In response, gratitude will grow within you, as you will know that your gifts do not remain buried and your talents have not been sabotaged.
[104] This idea is taken from Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day.” The closing line: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
[105] John Kasaona, “How Poachers Became Caretakers,” 15:39, February 2010, TED2010, https://www.ted.com/talks/john_kasaona_from_poachers_to_caretakers.
[106] “South Africa and the United Nations, 1946–1990,” South African History Online, March 30, 2011, http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-africa-and-united-nations-1946-1990.
[107] This does not mean that involving yourself in an SA, SAA, or Celebrate Recovery group is detrimental to your purpose. At least one community group for a season should focus on your unwanted sexual behavior.
[108] Jacques Lacan, The Sinthome (New York: Wiley, 2016), seminar 23.
[109] Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (New York: Perennial Classics, 1998), 36.
Conclusion
WE LIVE AT A CRITICAL INFLECTION POINT IN our world’s relationship to sex. Sexual pain and confusion are commonplace. The debris of sexual violence is scattered across every continent. Virtual reality porn and sex dolls fill an already bloated market for sexual perversion. The #metoo movement, systemic sexual abuse cases, sex trafficking, and violence against LGBTQI fill our newsfeeds. As we look at the debris, all we seem to be able to collectively do is blame one another.
We blame liberal culture. We blame conservative culture. We blame people with power. We blame the marginalized. We excuse misogyny through blaming sex addiction. We blame those who genuinely suffer with sex addiction. Few groups, however, have the humility to recognize the unique ways their approach contains truth but also contributes to the decay of sexual beauty in our world.
The widespread remedies we’ve forged leave much to be desired. Militant surveillance and accountability will only go so far in maturing men and women. Hookup cultures that invite us to sexual pleasure without the pursuit of meaning will leave another generation disillusioned and confused about sex. God designed our hearts to be full of desire and meaning, restless until we find it. Therefore, approaches aimed at mitigating sexual desire or diminishing sexual meaning inevitably lead to sexual e
xile.
A high calling on the life of a Christian is to be the light of the world. In our arrogance (and perhaps unwittingly), we have too often believed being light is about making sure the world lives “right.” The sexual themes we care about and those we refuse to care about reveal our co-opted interests in maintaining power and asserting authority. We want the world to change, but given that the rates of unwanted sexual behavior are similar inside and outside the church, let’s be honest about who among us is in the greatest need of redemption.
Being the light of the world in our particular era of history might look like shining the light on our own need for repentance—our own need to change direction. The sexual world is out of orbit for a variety of reasons, and it’s time to lead through owning our unique contribution.
Central to the gospel we proclaim is a belief that God is active in our story, inviting us to participate with him in restoring all things. For this reason, God loves to invite us to use our story—the broken family, lack of purpose, lustful, angry, shame-full stories—to bring personal and communal healing. In community, the trampled grapes of our collective stories are gathered and transformed into something more stunning than we could have ever conceived. God is the Master Vintner, taking stories of sexual shame and transforming them into the very wines of blessing. In God’s economy, nothing about your sexual brokenness is wasted; it’s all part of the redemption brew.
Since I completed my research study and wrote several articles addressing the why behind unwanted sexual behavior, e-mails and letters have come pouring in. Scores have asked me to interpret sexual fantasies they’ve been puzzled by. One woman shared the heart-wrenching ways her grandfather set up her introduction to pornography under the guise of a movie night tradition. Too many have told horror stories of how their sexual behavior or sexual identity was addressed by their churches or universities. Countless spouses have written trying to understand why their partners pursue sexual behaviors that seem so inconsistent with everything they thought they knew about them.
The most common response, though, goes something like this: “I’ve always tried to stop my porn use with prayer or accountability. You name it, I’ve tried it. I now recognize why those methods haven’t been effective—they didn’t address the specific reasons that drive me to my unwanted sexual behavior. I always thought God was irritated with me for not being able to quit. Now I see how my sexual brokenness is pointing to a fuller picture of what healing could be.”
These responses tell me that the research findings are striking a nerve. We want to be understood. We want to be known. We want to know that everything that is broken within us can be made whole.
I dedicated this book to the women and men who completed my research survey. This was not a frivolous decision. In sharing the most significant themes of their lives and the most specific details of their sexual struggles, they allowed for remarkable insights to be obtained from the data. The research was not a means to an end; it was a means to bring light to those who live in the shameful shadows of unwanted sexual behavior. The respondents told stories, in the form of data, to show us that if we pay attention, sexual brokenness can reveal our way to healing.
This is just the beginning.
My commitment to you is to continue pressing into sexual brokenness with kindness, curiosity, and skill. There is so much we are discovering. And of course, the more we know, the more we realize how much more there is to learn. What do you say we keep learning together? I’ve created a page on my website—jay-stringer.com/journey—where you can share your story in future research or sign up to be the first to get key insights when findings are available. When we learn from one another, we aid our collective freedom.
I fully recognize that if you’ve gotten this far in the book, it’s likely you are filled with many conflicting, raw emotions. You are fearful. You are angry. You are thrilled to have glimpses of answers you’ve long hungered for. You are heartsick for all you have lost. You may even want to hit fast-forward and have the grueling work you’ve read about be successfully behind you. And mostly, you get to entertain the very dangerous prospect of hope.
Dare you believe your story might be made whole? That yes, even your sexual brokenness can reveal the way to healing? If you begin down this path, will it lead to what your heart longs for, or will it once again corner you with disappointment? I did not invite you to this place lightly. From the beginning, my aim in writing this book was to guide you to an inflection point of your own. What I have witnessed is that those who find the courage to pursue their unique reasons that bring them to unwanted sexual behavior are mysteriously met by the transforming love and kindness of God. You can find the restoration your heart has longed for. It will not be easy, but it is absolutely possible.
I close with the words from Jeffrey, the man you met in the introduction. As you read his words, remembering how dreadfully his story began, join me in imagining the hopeful words like these that you, too, might someday write:
My name is Jeffrey. I was the one who used to ride my bike throughout my neighborhood, hoping to lock eyes with my schoolmates. It’s an odd and rare opportunity to be invited to conclude a book on an area of my life that nearly robbed me of everything. Sexual brokenness was trying to get my attention for a real long time. I didn’t know whether I wanted it to stop or have it go on forever. Sexual behavior filled me with shame, but it was also the only doorway I could enter to get what I wanted. Only years later am I able to say there is so little imagination and beauty that exists inside the vortex of unwanted sexual behavior.
What I’ve learned on my journey is this: Unwanted sexual behavior is an opportunity to be transformed by love. My unwanted sexual behavior was evidence of a lot of things, but until I allowed it to be evidence of my need for love and the necessity for personal growth, I stayed in hiding. There is so much joy out there to be found. It happens when you enter the wild, unpredictable terrain of your own story and discover all the beauty that exists within it.
Research Appendix
THE PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH was to conduct an initial field study into the parental and childhood experiences that impact maladaptive adult fantasy and sexual behavior. The researcher introduced a new survey, the Stringer Survey of Sexual Fantasy and Behavior (SSSFB), to conduct the research; therefore, the secondary purpose of the research is to obtain validity evidence for the SSSFB.
The sample obtained for the study was a convenience sample of 3,817 adults who volunteered to complete the survey anonymously. These volunteers were part of mailing lists or social-media sites maintained by organizations that exist to help those struggling with unwanted sexual behavior. The offer to participate was made via e-mail and social-media feeds by the organizations. The solicited volunteers may have shared the link with others who also completed the SSSFB. The SSSFB was administered online. A link in the e-mail brought the volunteer to the landing page for the SSSFB. The SSSFB data were collected between November 2016 and January 2017.
No personally identifying information was gathered (e.g., name, address, personal identifications, etc.) by the survey. The data set provided for data analysis contained only five demographics (gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, age category, and marital status) and a random number to identify unique records.
Demographics
The survey participants were primarily male (73 percent) and primarily heterosexual (92 percent). These sample characteristics are consistent with the sample characteristics of other studies of this population. Participant ages ranged from eighteen to more than sixty-five, with more than two-thirds of the participants falling in the age range of eighteen to thirty-two years old. The participants were primarily white (78 percent); 58 percent were single, and 37 percent were married.[110]
SSSFB Validity and Reliability
The SSSFB is comprised of 103 self-report items rated on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 = No Extent, 2 = A Little Extent, 3 = Some Extent, 4 = Great Extent, and 5 = Very Great Extent. Ther
e are twenty statements related to Mother or Father communications with the participant, fifteen statements about “In my childhood,” seven statements about sexual fantasy and behavior “in the last year,” thirty-one statements about different types of sexual fantasy and behavior, eight statements about “I pursue sexual fantasy or behavior when . . .” and twenty-two statements about “In my life . . .”
These statements were submitted to a series of exploratory factory analyses with a principal components analysis and varimax rotation. Various factor solutions were reviewed to assess the dimensionality of the SSSFB. An eighteen-factor solution including 93 of the 103 statements was considered most suitable from a statistical and theoretical perspective. The eighteen-factor solution excluded from the analysis items 74–81.
A confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the eighteen factors. Confirmatory factor analysis results for the SSSFB indicate a moderately good fit with the eighteen topics (CFI = .783, TLI = .762, SRMR = .06, and RMSEA = .049). This provided a good basis for proceeding with the eighteen topics and modeling relationships among the eighteen topics and demographics. Finally, the reliability of the eighteen topics (scales) was assessed. The scale-reliability coefficients were fair to very good: Eight were between .63 and .69, five were between .70 and .79, and five were between .80 and .83.