Emotional Pornography (part of "The Pursuit" series)

I have listened to the radio more in my past four weeks in Portland that in my past four years in North Carolina. See, in my old car I was able to plug my mp3 player into the stereo and enjoy only the music that I wanted to hear. However, the car I drive now does not provide that option, so I am stuck listening to the radio until I break down and buy an fm transmitter. This has caused me to realize and ponder on a few observations about our culture. Only one of which will I get into at the moment.

As I listened to lyrics like, “Your sex is on fire” and “You belong with me” I realized that romantic love songs were pretty rare for my chosen playlists. I also realized that some of the love songs on the radio were made quite well and caused me to desire to share in their experience. I too yearned for that emotional connection that was glorified with such wonderful songs of praise. Then I laughed, and reminded myself that God has a plan for me that involves being single for the time being. Then I changed the station. When I think about how much people listen to the radio and their infatuation with love songs, I wonder if there is a connection between our music and our ability to be content in our singleness. In the area of singleness, maybe my ability to be more content than others has less to do with my spiritual maturity and biblical understanding and more to do with the fact that Five Iron Frenzy just writes crappy love songs.

So, here is the point I am trying to make. I fear that such emotionally charged music serves as a form of emotional pornography. Just as visual pornography causes one to desire and fantasize about sexual intimacy before its time, emotional pornography causes one to desire and fantasize after emotional intimacy before its proper time. 1Corinthians chapter 7 says that singleness is a gift from God that allows us to serve Him in a capacity that married people cannot. Scripture also says that we are to find our satisfaction and contentment in Christ regardless of our situation. I am not making any legalistic claim that rock music is the devil or any such nonsense. I am merely suggesting that if you find it difficult to be content with Christ and celebrate your singleness as the Apostle Paul did, then maybe you should consider changing some of your listening habits. I figure it’s worth a try.