I can't get a straight answer

Glofishy

Can anyone tell me if the organization believes that when a married spouse is addicted to pornography, they are actually cheating? I mean cheating in the sense that the "innocent" spouse can then declare that they are victims of adultery, and be free to marry again? I looked around their website and found nothing that specifically stated that it is considered cheating. It talks about how it's good to abstain from it and stuff, but no clear cut answer. I called their media relations office to ask them, but the gentleman on the line referred me to the same excerpts from Awake publications that didn't provide an answer. He also encouraged me to get a study going, which I am not interested in frankly, I just wanted an answer to my question. Not that this is a particularly crushing issue to me, but now that I don't have the answer to my question, it's bugging me! I feel like Monk. lol

SixofNine

No, not cheating. If they engage in phone sex, then they would consider it cheating.

AlmostAtheist

No, porn's not cheating. But they really do consider phone sex to be "porneia" (or however it's spelled), and you can scripturally divorce over that?

Don't get me wrong, I can sure see a wife (or husband) feeling totally betrayed by it. I just have a hard time imagining them calling it fornication.

(Edited to add: I suppose nothing they come up with should surprise me anymore, but still...)

Dave

Valis

Eh if you kept looking at porn sooner or later wouldn't they just nail you for being unrepentant...?

Sincerely,

District Overbeer

Elsewhere

The WTS considers "fornication" or "adultry" to be a reproductive act. Therefore any act which cannot produce a child is not fornication or adultery.

This is also why sterile JWs cannot use donated eggs or donated sperm and in vitro fertilization to have a baby. Any JW who does that will be DFed for adultery.

If donated sperm is used, the woman is DFed for adultery.
If a donated egg is used, the man is DFed for adultry.

*** Awake March 8, 1993 p. 27 Surrogate Motherhood?Is It for Christians? ***

Does Surrogate Motherhood Honor Marriage?

God?s Word tells us that he looks upon marriage as something sacred. For example, Hebrews 13:4 states: "Let marriage be honorable among all, and the marriage bed be without defilement, for God will judge fornicators and adulterers." God expects all Christians to consider marriage honorable and to keep it that way. What defiles marriage? Fornication, which can dishonor marriage in advance, and adultery, which dishonors marriage after it has been entered into.

Does surrogate motherhood honor marriage and keep the marriage bed undefiled? Simply put, no. Traditional surrogacy requires the insemination of the woman by donor sperm. The Bible?s view may be found at Leviticus 18:20, which says: "You must not give your emission as semen to the wife of your associate to become unclean by it." There is no Biblical basis for making a distinction between insemination by intercourse and insemination artificially by donor implantation. Therefore, in either case, fornication or adultery is committed when insemination is accomplished by a male other than the woman?s legal husband.

What about gestational surrogacy? This too defiles the marriage bed. True, the fertilized egg would be a union of the husband and his wife, but it is thereafter placed in the womb of another woman and, in fact, makes her pregnant. This pregnancy is not the result of sexual relations between the surrogate woman and her own husband. Thus, her reproductive organs are now being used by someone other than her own mate. This is inconsistent with the Bible?s moral principles that a woman bear a child for her own husband. (Compare Deuteronomy 23:2.) It would not be proper for a man other than the surrogate?s own husband to make use of her reproductive organs. It is an improper use of the marriage bed. Thus, surrogate motherhood is not for Christians.

No Apologies

Eh if you kept looking at porn sooner or later wouldn't they just nail you for being unrepentant...

That still does not give the mate grounds for divorce.

The WTS considers "fornication" or "adultry" to be a reproductive act. Therefore any act which cannot produce a child is not fornication or adultery.

Also incorrect. Bestiality and things like oral and anal sex between unmarried individuals are considered fornication.

I believe fornication or porneia is currently defined has to include the "improper" use of at least one set of genitalia and two individuals/bodies. Thus an individual masturbating doesn't count, adultery does count, bestiality counts, etc. Phone sex seems to be a stretch, but I think did see somewhere that that would be considered porneia.

Hope this helps

No Apologies

Glofishy

Now why couldn't they just TELL me that? lol

I guess it will remain as a rhetorical question. Now, lets just say that surrogate pregnancy is considered cheating, and the usage of one's genitalia with two persons is cheating. How do they reason that the woman that poses in pornography does so knowing that she is doing that for one purpose, for visual stimulation, and the recipient uses it as a means for sexual release? There's two people involved and it involves the use of one person's genitalia.

I suspect that they don't want to take such a strong position on the issue since it would probably result in a lot of unhappy couples having actual validation from the religion for divorce. I would suspect that a lot of elders and such would also be demoted as a result, or expelled completely if anyone found out. One can be reproved privately, but a divorce is a matter of public record.

As far as phone sex goes, the woman on the other end of that phone has absolutely no sexual interest in the caller. Phone sex operators think the callers are losers, quite frankly. The image in the Aerosmith Sweet Emotion video is not very off base, lol.

Mulan

But they really do consider phone sex to be "porneia"

...........learn something new everyday!

candidlynuts

i've told the story before of someone close to me, a life time witness whos sister was one of the first jw's in the area,..her husband molested his grandaughters by using his fingers not his penis. she divorced him, was told she would be df'd if she remarried because she wasnt scriptually free. HE became a witness, and not only that , a FAVORED witness who was allowed to live in the downstairs apt at the kh. she was faithful, kept attending meetings, service, had some bad health times where no elder even bothered to check on her. finally the old man died and she just remarried this year to a nice worldly guy who is studying and when told "he's not a witness yet " by the elders she basicaly said for them to fuck off lol.(in a nice way i'm sure..she's in her 70s now)

so their definition of what consists of " adultry"and what sets a spouse free to marry are really REALLY screwed up.

No Apologies

Has anyone else heard of a recent adjustment, where someone viewing Pornography *on the Internet* has automatically disassociated themselves? This is only internet porn, not videos, magazines, braille, morse code, interpretive dance.. ok sorry about that, I am getting off track... Anyway the rationalization I heard was that somehow viewing porn online was a "public" thing, somehow everyone would know you were viewing this or that site. Which makes no sense at all. I'm fairly certain the kid at the movie knows which customers like to rent the movies from the little room in the back, the guy at the book store has his regular customers, if anything the internet is more anonymous, not less.

I think the real reason for this is to further demonize the Net to the R&F. If young brother zealous is afraid to look for porn online, he sure isn't going to be looking for apostate sites.

Anyway, has anyone else heard of this? It was from a KM school 2-3 years ago, I believe.

No Apologies

I can't get a straight answer

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