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

questions, and not one man scored any lower than four. It
    doesn’t take much imagination, then, to see why the bifurcation myth is
    so dangerous. While a graduation ceremony or a wedding reception may mark your
    move across the line into a new, separate adult life in your own mind, the
    addictive cravings for these sexual chemical highs know no boundaries. Your
    eyes and brain go with you into whatever future you choose.
    Let us
    share some other stories with you along these lines. Thad is recovering from
    drug dependency at a local Christian ministry. He says this:
    I’ve been trying hard to get my life in order. At the drug center,
    I’ve learned more about myself and my addiction to drugs, but I’ve
    discovered a second, unexpected thing: I have a problem with looking at
    women.
    I want to be free, but I’m becoming frustrated and
    angry with the church. The Bible says women should dress modestly, but they
    don’t. The women soloists are always wearing the latest, tightest
    fashions. I look at them, but all I see are curves and legs. You know, that one
    who always wears the slit way up the thigh? That thigh flashes with every step
    she takes. Believe me, I notice!
    Kerry, an eighteen-year-old high
    school student, told us he absolutely dreads going to his bedroom:
    I
    always study in the living room as late as I can. I stall before returning to
    my room because I know what’s going to happen. Before too long, I have
    the computer booted up. I tell myself that it’ll only be for a minute
    while I check e-mail, but I know I’m lying. I know what I really want.
    I’m hoping to view a little sex scene or two as I flip around with the
    mouse. I tell myself that I’ll only look for a minute or two, or that
    I’ll stop before I get carried away. Then my motor gets going and I want
    more and more, sometimes even opening the really X-rated sites.
    The RPMs are going so high that I have to do something, or it feels like
    my engine will blow. So I masturbate. On a few occasions I fight it, but if I
    do, later when I turn the lights out, I’m flooded with lustful thoughts
    and desires. I stare wide-eyed at the ceiling. I see nothing, but I literally
    feel the bombardment, the throbbing desire. I have no way to get to sleep, and
    it’s killing me. So I say,
Okay, if I masturbate, I’ll have
    peace, and I can finally get to sleep.
So I do, and guess what? The guilt
    is so strong I still can’t get to sleep. I wake up totally exhausted in
    the morning.
    What’s wrong with me?
    What about
    you? Maybe it’s true that when you and a babe reach a door
    simultaneously, you wait to let her go first, but not out of honor. You want to
    follow her up the stairs and look her over—check out her butt. Maybe
    you’ve driven your car to the parking lot of a local gym after school,
    watching scantily clad classmates bouncing in and out, fantasizing—even
    masturbating—in the car. Although you wonder what’s wrong with you,
    you just can’t help yourself.
I T ’ S A Q UESTION OF M ALENESS VS . M ANHOOD
    If we get into sexual
    sin naturally—just by being male—then how do we get out? Well, we
    can’t eliminate our maleness, and we’re sure we don’t want
    to.
    For instance, we’ll eventually want to look at our future
    wives and desire them sexually. They’ll be beautiful to us, and
    we’ll be sexually gratified when we gaze at them, often daydreaming about
    the night ahead and what bedtime will bring. In its proper place, maleness is
    wonderful. The full constellation of male traits is an awesome, special
    creation of God that prepares us to lead and protect our homes with courage and
    strength. We can’t afford to eliminate that!
    Yet our maleness is
    also a major root of sexual sin. So what do we do?
    We must choose to be
more
than male.
    We must choose manhood.
    If
    you’ve ever heard a youth speaker urge you to “be a man about
    it,” he was encouraging you to rise up to a standard of manhood. He wants
    you to