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Question #23: YHWH designed man to be visually stimulated, looking at nude pictures of any woman other than ones own wife would fall under "thou shalt not covet...". If the woman that you are looking at is unmarried she is still under the authority of her father. The act of masturbating may not be a sin but when you are doing it while looking at a woman that is not yours to look at you are participating in whoring and coveting. Men look at naked women for one purpose and one purpose only to satisfy there sexual desires and this is what a harlot is for.
While I agree that He made man to be stimulated visually, I don't see how you are drawing your conclusion. By your own admission, YHWH designed man to be visually stimulated. So is being visually stimulated to be considered a good thing or a bad thing? If it is a bad thing, then we accuse God of authoring evil. If it is a good thing, then we must acknowledge that the OBJECT of the stimulation must be the deciding factor of determining its morality. In other words, a man looking at a woman for "visual stimulation" must be, in itself, amoral. To say otherwise would mean that a husband looking at his wife's body for visual stimulation is participating in the same immoral act as the man looking at another man's wife. So what constitutes the immorality of looking at a female for visual stimulation? You said it would fall under the "thou shalt not covet" precept. If you have read some of the articles on our web site, you already know that you can only covet what you are not allowed to have. Essentially, if it is unlawful for you to have it, then it is unlawful for you to desire having it. That is the essence of coveting - wanting another man's property. Yahushua was quite clear that a man coveting another man's wife is effectively committing adultery with her in his heart, precisely because she already belongs to another. Let's remove the concept of pictures for the moment and just deal with the matter of our thought life. If a man only IMAGINES what a female might look like under her clothes, or IMAGINES what it would be like to lie with her, would this also constitute sin? We know that if the woman in question is married to someone else, then she is out-of-bounds to all other men and Yahushua's words are quite clear about committing adultery in one's heart. But instead what if she is available to be married? What about one's fiancee? If we follow this thinking to its logical conclusion, we end up with the mistaken idea that even THINKING about sexual relations with an available unmarried woman would be sinful. If she is available for marriage, then it cannot be wrong to desire her for that purpose. Otherwise we would be equating all sexual desire for all women as sin. Sexual desire came from YHWH and He gave us specific prohibitions against unlawful sexual activities. A man having a natural sexual desire for an available woman is not sinful, unless you can show me clear Scripture to the contrary. You say that men look at naked women to satisfy their sexual desires and that is what a harlot is for. I submit this is also what a wife is for. As I've already stated, the context determines whether it is sinful activity, but we cannot simply state that all sexual desire must be sinful. After all, the woman doesn't have to be naked for the man to desire her. If she were fully clothed, would you then say it was no longer sinful for him to desire her? What if he only has a picture of her face? Better yet, what if the man simply closes his eyes and imagines her? Isn't Scripture clear about what constitutes sexual immorality? If it is, then we already have a basis for determining what thoughts constitute sexual immorality. The real issue isn't about a photograph. It has to do with the thoughts and intent of the person viewing the photograph. I will say this, however. Probably 99.99% of all "porn" out there is filled with imagery that is unlawful and sinful in one manner or another. Therefore, if we were both presented with a variety of pornographic materials, I believe we would be in agreement regarding their status. But that is not the same thing as making a blanket statement that ALL forms of female nudity (whether in photographs, paintings, statues, etc.) other than of one's own wife, must necessarily be sinful to observe. |
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