This is an excerpt from Robb’s third sermon in the Turned On series. If you would like the text of the entire sermon, email vintagefellowship@gmail.com to request it.

Lady Folly is a porn star. Let’s not deny it. Men, by God’s design, are wired to be attracted by what they see. A man’s sexual energy is connected to his eyes. The Bible calls it the “lust of the eyes.” Pornography appeals to that wiring in men by putting before their eyes beautiful, attractive, seductive, and alluring women. They give men the impression that they are open to them. A man can look at a woman in a magazine or on his monitor and imagine that she is involving him in her activities. He can have, with her, a drama-free, duty-free sexual experience that will satisfy him. That’s what she tells him.

But she’s Lady Folly, and she’s lying. She tells us that it’s no big deal. That it is just harmless fun. That it can be a few minutes of pleasure with no-strings-attached, no affect on us. But porn does affect us. Here’s how:

Porn reshapes the way men view the world. Do you remember that Friends episode, The One with the Free Porn? Joey and Chandler are flipping through channels one day when they come across a porn channel that has become inexplicably unscrambled. The janitor tells them that if they turn it off, they will probably lose it, so they leave the TV on for days. Life goes on with porn constantly present. But it begins to affect them. Chandler comes home from work one day and shares with the group how surprised he was that the bank teller didn’t want to have sex with him. What he had seen on the porn channel began to shape how he looked at the world.

That’s what porn does. Porn tells us that every situation is a possible sexual encounter. Porn tells us that sex should go on and on for hours. Porn tells us that the more exotic, acrobatic, dangerous, provocative the sex, the better. Pornography sets unrealistic expectations for sex.

Consider, for instance, a married man who is addicted porn and the affect this way of thinking will have on him. He may become distracted at work by his female coworkers, fantasizing about them. He may become dissatisfied with his wife, with the frequency and routineness in their sex life, causing him to pull away from her, blaming her for not being more like the girls on his favorite websites. As he pulls away, other issues become intensified until it is possible that his marriage dissolves, all because of the harmless, no-strings-attached folly of porn.

Porn reshapes the way men view women. Porn tells men that women are sexual objects, that sex is constantly on their minds and that they are ready to drop everything to get it on. Porn dehumanizes women, calling them “playmates,” “pets,” and “bunnies.” And it dehumanizes the men who consume it. Women are not animals, bunnies or pets. They are human beings, created in the image of God, and designed by him to be treated with respect, dignity, and love.

Porn makes sex a selfish and self-centered activity. But that is not what God designed sex to be like. God designed us as sexual beings with a deep longing for connection. Sexuality is supposed to build relationship, not to isolate people. Sex helps a husband and wife in their marriage covenant to connect, the two becoming one – physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

But porn makes sex about me. Me, alone in front of my computer. Me, alone watching a DVD. Me, alone in a sex shop. Me, alone with my fantasies. Porn causes us to step outside of the parameters of God’s design for our sexuality. And that can have profound negative consequences on who we are as people and on the course our lives take.

This is as good a time as any to make a statement about masturbation. Some think masturbation too is harmless fun, a no-big-deal release of sexual energy. But let me ask you this – knowing that God has designed sexuality as an expression of our longing for community and connection, how does masturbation fit into that design? Does it isolate or connect? Does it foster purity or lust? Is it self-centered in its orientation or self-sacrificing?

Lady Folly is a porn star. She tells us that she can deliver satisfaction and happiness, but in reality, she distorts and destroys the sexuality God has designed. Just because it looks good doesn’t mean it is good.