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

maze or weakness. Rather, they’re based on pleasure highs that
    enter through the eyes. Men receive a chemical high from sexually charged
    images when a hormone called epinephrine is secreted into the bloodstream. This
    locks into the memory whatever stimulus is present at the time of the emotional
    excitement.
    Likewise, our “mind’s eye” can cause the
    same chemical high through fantasy. We’ve counseled men who became
    emotionally and sexually stimulated just from entertaining thoughts of sexual
    activity. A guy dead set on purchasing
Hustler
at his local 7-Eleven
    is sexually stimulated long before he even steps into the convenience store.
    His stimulation began in his thought process, which triggered his nervous
    system, which secreted epinephrine into the bloodstream.
    Why
    can’t we say no easily? Why do our eyes bounce toward sensual women so
    quickly? Why do our minds run to fantasy? The answer is
because
we’re compelled by the chemical high and the sexual gratification it
    brings.
    We’re simply saying that the ability of the male
    eyes and mind to draw true sexual gratification from the world around them
    begins to explain why sexual sin is so common. In fact, it explains many
    things.
    First, it explains why young men experiment with masturbation
    early in life. With all this “foreplay” of the eyes going on, and
    with no guidance on what to do with the feelings, the result is understandable.
    There’s no sense in feeling deep shame over it, as if you’re some
    weird pervert or something. You aren’t.
    Second, this explains why
    Paul places sexual sin in its own unique category:
    Flee from
sexual immorality.
All other sins a man commits are outside his body,
    but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:18)
    The means to sin rests
in our bodies
—we can’t walk
    away from our eyes and mind like we can walk away from drugs. This also
    explains why prayer alone is often not enough for total victory. We can go to
    the altar of prayer and be freed, but if we stop short and never fully close
    the gates of our eyes to sensual pollution, the sewage seeps right back in day
    in and day out. The chemical highs return, and we’re captured again.
    So while we’re to pray about sexual sin on the
spiritual
front, we have our orders on the
physical
battlefront as well.
    We’re commanded to actively avoid sexual sin by choice—“to
    flee.” It isn’t unspiritual or “fleshly” to take an
    active role in this battle and to build defenses. We’re commanded to do
    so by God. What’s more spiritual than obedience?
    Third, it
    explains why even married guys remain hooked after their weddings. Married or
    not, you must train your eyes and mind to be pure, or they’ll keep doing
    what comes naturally.
T HESE G UYS K NOW A LL A BOUT I T
    Recently, I had
    breakfast with some guys from Columbia, Missouri, who had read
Every
    Man’s Battle
as part of a men’s group at their church. The
    book includes the following test to help readers determine the level of their
    addictive sexual cravings:
    1. Do you lock on when an attractive woman
    comes near you?
    2. Do you masturbate to images of other women?
    3. Have you found your wife to be less sexually satisfying?
    4.
    Are you holding a grudge against your wife—a grudge that gives you a
    sense of entitlement?
    5. Do you seek out sexually arousing articles or
    photo spreads in newspapers or magazines?
    6. Do you have a private
    place or secret compartment that you keep hidden from your wife?
    7. Do
    you look forward to going away on a business trip?
    8. Do you practice
    behaviors that you can’t share with your wife?
    9. Do you
    frequent porn-related sites on the Internet?
    10. Do you watch R-rated
    movies, sexy videos, or the steamy VH1 channel for gratification?
    As we
    gobbled our eggs and sausage, we talked about how the guys did on this little
    cravings quiz. A few of the sixteen men admitted that they answered yes to
    eight or nine