Online Immorality Casts a Shadow on Marriages

I operated a Facebook account for years before I stumbled on its dark side. At the initial stage, I scrutinized every ‘friend request’ I received. Along the line, I felt I needed to be more liberal to enable
me minister the Gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as I could reach through the platform. That
decision opened a floodgate of friend requests, especially from Arab guys. At a point in time, Facebook notified me that I had met the quota of 5,000 ‘friends’.

Then the horror started. I was confronted with a deluge of pornographic materials, both video and
pictures. This took me by surprise because I had no idea that such things were happening on the net.
In fact, a particular Arab man offered to give me five hundred American Dollars ($500) if I agreed to
have sex with him online. It took me weeks to ‘Unfriend’ more than 1,000 people who were soliciting
for online sex!

I decided to share my experience to give a background to the dark world of online pornography
that has destroyed many marriages and relationships globally. Cybersex has become another tool
used by satan and his demons to undermine the integrity of the marriage institution. And it has proven to be an effective tool! Why is the devil targeting marriages?

To answer this question, we have to return to the Garden of Eden and the first couple, Adam and Eve. After the solemnisation of the first marriage, God said to the couple, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Although sex was not explicitly mentioned in the quoted Scripture, it was implied because they needed to have sexual union to father and birth their offspring.

We all know the story of the fall of man; how the devil tricked Adam and Eve to disobey God, thus exposing humanity to the influence of the dark kingdom. Through sin, satan has perverted sexuality in his quest to delete God from the human heart. According to Jimmy Evans, an American Pastor, whoever controls sexuality controls the heart of a person. On this score, he believes that satan has made huge inroads into all segments of the society. That is why Biblical morality has been thrown to the dogs in much of the secular world and immorality is exalted, especially among the so called ‘Woke’ crowd in Hollywood.

Nowhere is this sexual depravity more celebrated than on cyber space comprising of the Internet and telephone. In an article titled, ‘The New “Elephant in the Living Room”: Effects of Compulsive Cybersex Behaviours on the Spouse’, Jennifer P. Schneider (www.jenniferschneider.com) analysed the impact of online sex addiction on the family unit.

She observed that a growing number of the victims neglect their families, social and work obligations, as well as their own health and wellbeing, in order to spend hours on the computer screen in search of sexual gratification. In a survey conducted by the author in 2000, ninety-one women and three men aged between 24 and 57 claimed that they experienced serious adverse consequences from their partners’ involvement in online sex.

And what really is cybersex? According to Oxford online dictionary, this refers to sexual arousal using computer technology, especially by wearing virtual reality equipment or by exchanging messages with another person via the Internet. Wikipedia gives us more insight into this menace which it says goes by many names.

It can also be called computer sex, Internet sex, netsex, and, colloquially, cyber or cybering. Wikipedia defines it as a “virtual sex encounter in which two or more people connected remotely via computer network send each other sexually explicit messages describing a sexual experience. It is a fantasy sex accomplished by the participants in which they describe their actions and respond to their chat partners in a mostly written forms designed to stimulate their sexual feelings and fantasies.

The evil practice also involves real life masturbation; that is the sexual stimulation of one’s own genitals
or other body parts like breasts in women, for sexual arousal or pleasure. The stimulation may involve sex toys like vibrators or the hands. Wikipedia explained that cybersex can occur anywhere, even when the participants are in public space; though the intensity of the bestiality might be less in the public.
Cybersex may occur either within the context of existing or intimate relationships, for example among those in a long distance relationship, or among individuals who have no prior knowledge of one another but met in virtual space!

An article by Qiaolei Jiang and Ran Tao titled, ‘Internet Addiction’ in www.sciencedirect.com is illuminating. According to the two authors, cybersex is intoxicating because it allows the participants to meet the three powerful psychological forces of sex, intimacy and romance. They also revealed that
clinical therapists are inundated with cases involving clients that are suffering from online sexual compulsions and addictions

As with everything that has its root in the kingdom of darkness, there are those who try to rationalise this perversion by insisting that it is the safest form of sex. Some argue that it should be encouraged because it allows shy people, those with low self-esteem and other social misfits to derive sexual pleasure without being judged by the society. There is also the thinking that it is of benefit to real life spouses who are geographically separated to continue to be sexually intimate with the use of their imaginations. These views are contained in an article titled, Cybersex: Advantages and Disadvantages published posted on www.iosrjournals.org

The most damaging effect of online sexual immorality is on marriages. An article titled, ‘Are Internet Affairs Different? (www.apa.org) highlighted the outcome of several studies conducted in some countries on the issue. The authors revealed that more women are increasingly engaging in cybersex; a situation they viewed as a reversal of roles since men were traditionally associated with cheating in marriage.

In one of the studies conducted in Sweden, it was observed that 37% of women aged between 35 and 49 engaged in online sex compared with only a quarter of men in the same age group. Another study conducted in Australia showed that more than 10% of 183 adults who were in a physical relationship had formed sexual alliance online; 8% of them had engaged in cybersex and 6% had met their Internet partners in person. However, 71% of the respondents admitted that online sexual relationship constituted unfaithfulness.

The authors also observed that online cheating is more difficult to check because it can happen right under the nose of the innocent spouse. Since almost everyone has exclusive access to phones and other Internet-enabled devices, it is difficult for spouses to spy on each other without creating more problems at home. Another factor that hinders speedy resolution of marital conflicts associated with online immorality is the fact that some cheating partners do not believe that it qualifies as an affair.

Some of them excuse themselves by saying that they did not have sex with their online partners. To them, they were merely engaging in fantasy. Of course, online sex could qualify as a “fantasy”. But this is a fantasy that involves emotion. That is why some victims have gone as far as seeking divorce. Many marriages have collapsed because of this demonic fantasy and we as Christians must refuse to be sucked into this cauldron of filth.

While we cannot control the lives of other people, including our spouses, we make intercede for their deliverance if there is any sign that they are engaging in this evil pastime. We must fight the battle on our knees rather than recourse to nagging or threats. Couples contending with such issues should seek help from their Pastors or therapists. They could also work together in love to built trust and save their marriages. There is also the need for them to dig deep in other to unearth factors that contributed to the online affair in the first place.

At another practical level, the idea of couple sleeping in separate bedrooms should be discouraged. They could have separate bedrooms for the purpose of convenience in the storage of personal effects; but they must sleep together. We all know what happens when we create a crack for the devil. He widens it into a doorway! Let’s maintain the sanctity of our marriages in honour of our Heavenly Father.