post supportMIKE

Dear Mike
I read your letter and was particularly encouraged by your desire to combat the growing problem of pornography.

What happened with me is that my dad never had any input into that side of my development, and my mum didnt' really either. I wasn't really ever close enough to share stuff with an older guy as I moved through my teenage years and so my struggles were mine and mine alone. There were people occasionally who I shared things with when my conscience was too burdened to keep it to myself any longer, but none of these really ever followed me up.

I think it's of utmost importance that when it comes to sex and all the temptation in our society that we do our best to cultivate a culture where we can talk openly, respectfully (no matter how bad the mistakes) and caringly and even make light of it to bring it down a few notches on the serious scale. I think generally the enemy wants us to be embarrassed about our sexual nature so that it's the last thing we really deal properly with in our lives, but in reality it's just another part of what God said was so "very good"!

One of the things that I have learnt is that it is absolutely essential for young guys (i don't know what it's like for girls) to have their dad teaching them how to deal with sexual temptation, and if not their dad, then someone older who's able to get to know them well enough to really be of help.