Growing up in the mountainous area of Pennsylvania, I am accustomed to seeing many of God’s beautiful creatures.  Quite often they are roaming around our yard.   From the safety of our house, we have seen deer, squirrels, rabbits, possums, bears, and foxes.  Each animal has distinct beauty and attributes.  However, there is one creature whose beauty always amazes me whenever I see it roaming our property.

           This particular animal is stunning to look at.  It's fur is so luscious and beautiful.  It shines so elegantly.  It is the deepest color black you could ever see.  It walks proud and upright.  Its beauty and grace is unmatched in the wooded area around my house.  What is this stunning creature?  It is a skunk.

           Does that answer surprise you?  Most people do not look at skunks as things of beauty.  They are more known for their horrible stench they spray.  Skunks are not revered or admired, they are feared.  When you get sprayed by a skunk, it affects your life for days, sometimes weeks.  The stench lingers a LONG time.  If you hit a skunk with a car, it will stink for ages. Sometimes it can even get into the fabric and permanently ruin it.

           When I was in college, we had a skunk take up residence underneath our dorm.  It popped out from time to time.  I remember once some friends and I came back from a McDonalds run and saw the skunk sitting right on the front step of the dorm.  We were so worried that someone would innocently open the door and get an unwelcome greeting right in the kisser. 

           Every year our school had a big banquet at the end of the year.  It was THE event of the year.  It was always in the spring, when the weather turned nice.  This spring was unusually warm, so most of us had our dorm windows open.  That’s when our friendly neighborhood skunk decided to go for a stroll around the building.   One of the freshmen saw it, got scared, and decided to chase the skunk away by throwing stuff at him.  You can imagine what happened next! 

           The skunk let 'er rip!  The smell infiltrated every window.  Our clothes stank, we stank, it was awful.  Then it hit everyone that our good clothes which were washed, ironed, and ready for the banquet now smelled like skunk!

           Finally, one of my friends had enough of this skunk.  Knowing that once a skunk sprays it can’t do it again for a few hours, he and another guy decided it was time to kill the skunk once and for all.  They covered themselves in garbage bags from head to toe, grabbed some shovels, and set out to eliminate the enemy.  They came back an hour later.  They had tracked down, killed, and buried the skunk.

            So why am I telling you all this about skunks?  Because I want you to see an interesting fact about men.  Even though a skunk is a beautiful creature, we all have enough common sense not to mess with it.  They are smelly, destructive, and have the potential to cause great damage to us and our lives.  If men are smart enough to figure this out, then why are so many men unable to avoid pornography?

           “Whoa, Jamie, where did that come from?”  Well think about it.  Men look at the beautiful woman in pornography, gaze at their seductiveness and lust after their sexual appeal.  They fantasize about these beautiful women.  Yet they fail to realize that pornography is way more destructive than a skunk could ever be.

           Pornography will ruin a man’s life.  It is THE most addictive thing in the world.  When men see a pornographic image, it releases a special chemical in our brain which causes the memory to be etched in our minds.  That is one reason it is so hard to break free of pornography. 

            Pornography is one of the leading causes of divorce.  Many marriages are destroyed by it.  Pornography causes men to look at woman as objects.  They lose sight of the humanness of women, often leading to abuse.  Porn causes men to lose touch with reality. 

           They live in a fantasy world where the women never have needs or problems in life.  They are not real woman.  They never grow old and their looks never change.  When they do, there is always another girl to replace them.   Then they date or are married to real women with emotional and physical problems.   The men have unrealistic expectations for the women in their lives, and when they aren’t met, they eventually end up divorced.

           Pornography opens the door to marital infidelity.  Men who would never cheat on their wives begin to find themselves attracted to the woman at work or the clerk at the store.  Before you know it, marriages are destroyed and lives are ruined. 

           Pornography is such a dangerous trap, way more dangerous than a skunk could ever be.  But many men take way more precautions with a skunk then they ever do with their tv or internet.  In the words of the Apostle James, “Brothers, this should not be so”.

           Every man has the choice of how to deal with pornography in their lives.  You can either deal with it like the freshman dealt with the skunk and just throw a bottle at it and not take it seriously, or you can do what my friend did and take strong action and kill it in your life.  

            We need to be men who begin to take pornography as seriously as it is.  We must avoid it at all costs.  We must take every precaution we can take. Use your tv v-chip to block out sexual content from your tv.  Use the parental controls available on all internet browsers. There are programs like B-safe that you can install on your computer.  Not only do they keep you from being able to view porn on the internet, but they also send out email alerts to the men you choose to be accountable to, telling them what your web activity includes.