Free Every Young Man's Battle: Stategies for Victory in the Real World of Sexual Temptation: The Every Man Series by Stephen Arterburn

stroking my
    daughter’s thigh, I wouldn’t just wink and turn away.) When a girl
    lays her head in the lap of a teenage boy, that’s foreplay. You may think
    that’s a mild form, but that’ll get your motor running at levels
    too high for young motors. Even slow dancing can be foreplay if certain parts
    of the body are in close contact.
    This isn’t to say that young
    couples can’t relate physically in ways that aren’t foreplay, such
    as holding hands, walking arm-in-arm, or even engaging in a short kiss. But
    heavy kissing around the neck and chest leads naturally to taking off some
    clothes, which leads to mutual masturbation, which leads to intercourse.
    You may be asking, “What does all of this have to do with my
    eyes?” Impurity of the eyes provides definite sexual gratification.
    Isn’t that foreplay? When you see a hot movie scene, is there a twitch
    below your belt? What are you thinking when you’re on the beach and
    suddenly focus on a jaw-dropping beauty in a thong bikini walking past you? You
    gasp while Mission Control drones, “We have ignition!” You have her
    in bed on the spot, though only in your mind. Or you file away the image and
    fantasize about her later.
    You stare at a sexy model and lust. Your
    motor revs into the red zone, and you need some type of release or the
    engine’s going to blow. You’re preparing your body for intercourse,
    even if it’s “false intercourse” with a jar of Vaseline.
    No doubt about it: Visual sexual gratification is a form of sex for men. As
    males, we draw sexual gratification and chemical highs through our eyes. Alex
    remembers the time he was watching TV with his sister-in-law. The rest of the
    family was at the mall.
    She was lying flat on her stomach on the floor
    in front of me, wearing tight shorts, and she’d fallen asleep watching
    TV. I was on the chair, and I happened to look down and see her upper thigh and
    a trace of her underwear. I tried to ignore it, but my heart started racing a
    little, and my eyes kept looking at the back of her upper thigh. It got so
    exciting that I began to stare and get really excited. I had to release it
    somehow. I masturbated while she slept, right out in the open.
    In
    Alex’s case, impurity of the eyes was clearly foreplay, which led to
    further sin. It’s critical to recognize visual sexual impurity as
    foreplay. If viewing sensual things merely provides a flutter of appreciation
    for a woman’s beauty, it would be no different from viewing the awesome
    power of a thunderstorm racing over the Iowa cornfields. There would be no sin
    and no problem. But if it
is
foreplay, and you
are
getting
    sexual gratification, then it defiles your body and your relationships:
    Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his
    body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that
    your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received
    from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God
    with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)
    And it’s certain that
    you’ll be paying a cost that you may not even be aware of:
    Do
    not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who
    sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction.
    (Galatians 6:7-8)
T HE E YES G RIP THE T HROAT
    Our eyes,
    then, explain why no one escapes, and the problem never goes away without a
    fight. Before we experience victory over sexual sin, we’re hurting and
    confused.
Why can’t I win at this?
we think. As the fight wears
    on, and the losses pile higher, we begin to doubt everything about ourselves,
    even our salvation. At best, we think that we’re deeply flawed, or worse,
    evil persons. We feel very alone, since men speak little of these things.
    But the answer lies more in our eyes than in our souls. Most likely, your
    “addictive” behaviors are not rooted in some deep, dark, shadowy
    mental