(Photo by Samantha De La O)

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS CONTENT FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY

Avoiding Trigger Talk

By Zelda Dominguez

If we are being honest here, lust is not just a guy problem. It is a human problem, which makes it a sin problem. The biggest predicaments we have in the fight for moral purity is that we’ve let the lies of the world influence our thinking. Neither sex nor sexuality is our enemy. We need to rescue our sexuality from lust so we can experience it as God intended.

Being a sexual being, with sexual desires, is part of how God created us, as the Bible tells us in Genesis 1:27-28. Gen 1:27-28 says, “He created man and woman and they became one.” Sex in God’s plan was created to be enjoyed and to multiply within the context of marriage. Verse 25 in Genesis 1 states, “They were both naked and felt no shame.” Outside of marriage, there is shame associated with sex. It’s just a part of the experience outside of God’s plan. Song of Solomon talks about a courtship that turns into a marriage and sexual fulfillment. In chapter 2 of Genesis, it mentions that there is a correct time to experience sexual relations. It says, “Not to awaken love until the time is right.”

As Christ followers, embracing our sensuality looks radically different than the world’s view. We don’t deny we have sexual desires, but at the same time we choose to practice restraint and not be led by every sexual impulse.

What is Lust?

Lust is craving sexually what God has forbidden. To lust is to want what you don’t have and weren’t meant to have. Lust is selfish. Lust wants to go outside God’s guidelines to find satisfaction. It is in essence using the other person, their body, having no consideration for who they are as a person.  Lust never satisfies. It wants more, and it is destructive. The more you feed it, the more it craves. Lustful thoughts seek only to please oneself. Lustful actions fulfill those desires without caring who or what could be hurt by those actions. Lust does not look at consequences; it only looks at what and how much it can have NOW.

Mercuricome was an old school topical antiseptic to treat minor wounds, burns, and scratches. I remember it was a bright orange liquid that was applied to your skinned knee and it would even stain the skin. It was what was used back in the day as good, and to prevent infection and kill bacteria. It was a household commodity, then years later the FDA banned the product due to some unsafe contents.

It reminds me of entertainment and media. It’s good, entertaining, and informative, but some things it contains can be harmful. That’s the defining factor.

How can we know when it’s dangerous?

Did you know there is Trigger Talk?

You’re out having coffee with friends. When one of the girls says, “Did you sees such and such movie? Didn’t you think that guy was so hot?” Everyone starts to engage in the conversation and you even find yourself  joining in. If you have a problem with lust, listening or participating in that sort of talk isn’t helping you. Like I mentioned, it has content that can be harmful and can cause you to go into an ongoing cycle of failure.

How about trigger-talk that either guys or girls are talking about in regard to their sexual encounters. How it went, and being descriptive about it. Flaunting their experience. Would you sit there to listen? How does that help you?

Today on TV Mike on Chicago Fire seems to be one of the latest man crushes. I have heard married women share about how he’s so this or that, and how they are obsessed with the program. One girl went as far to say she fantasied about him.

It’s the same with sex-filled TV shows and movies on Netflix or in theaters. Both men and women get addicted to them and discuss it. Some start to talk about the characters as if they were real. I was so surprised in researching to find that these shows are explicit, pretty much showing sexual encounters, group sex, same sex encounters, prostitutions, affairs, bondage and asphyxiation. The whole 50 Shades of Grey trilogy is only creating a lust for a distorted view of sex. Young women are being aroused and talking about how they wished their significant other were like Christian Grey, thus desiring more the fantasy than reality.

Watching these shows, I can tell you, aren’t going to help things. A woman told me how she started to talk on the phone dirty to this guy at her work in the beginning as a joke. Then it turned into a habit, which developed into a lust problem.

Flirting with temptation like this is dangerous. It turns into a diet for lust too hard to resist. Then feelings of guilt and shame develop, in which you run away from God because of.

Marked Ministry’s theme verse is I Thessalonians 4:7, which says, “God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives.” Many times we make our own standard and rely on our own will power and strength. We don’t put our faith in God but in our own self to resist, and try to be good in our own ability. James 1:21-22 says, “Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”

No matter how much we study the Bible, pray, etc., we will never move forward in holiness if we are filling our minds with lustful images and ungodly themes through entertainment and trigger talk. The key to escaping the cycle of defeat is to embrace Gods standards for holiness, His source of power for change, and His motive for fighting sin.