CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

Jesus Christ

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Parakaleo Women’s Support Group – 3/24

I am happy to announce that a trio of leaders have stepped forward to restart the Parakaleo women’s support group.

Parakaleo is a Christian support group for women whose lives have been affected by the sexual behavior of a significant male in their lives.  The group is designed for the female partners of men who struggle with maintaining sexual purity, no matter what the man’s struggle might be.

Date: Monday Nights starting March 24th (TONIGHT)
 Time: 7:00PM – 8:30PM
Location: The Fellowship – Student Building
22765 Westheimer Pkwy Katy, TX  77450

Characteristics of Parakaleo
  1. Parakaleo is primarily a group providing support and comfort to its members through the empathy of others who have had similar experiences.  It is not a therapy or counseling group.
  2. Parakaleo is a Christ-centered program or group, and as such recognizes that Christ is the “highest power”, however any individual of any faith or no faith at all may attend.
  3. Parakaleo meetings are only for women whose lives have been affected by the sexual purity issues of a significant male in their lives.
  4. Parakaleo is a group led by non-professionals; meetings are facilitated by women who have experienced the healing power of Christ in their own lives in the area of dealing with men who act out in compulsive sexual ways.
  5. Parakaleo provides a “safe place” for women dealing with men having sexual purity problems.  Elements of safety include confidentiality, anonymity, and an accepting environment.
  6. Parakaleo meetings provide a place of structure and familiarity where the chaos, confusion, and craziness of living with a male who is acting out sexually can be put aside.
  7. Parakaleo provides opportunities for its members to grow and heal through working through the 12 steps under the guidance of sponsors.

The facilitators of Parakaleo can be contacted at Parakaleo@merimnao.org.  Women who might want to be part of this group are encouraged to contact the facilitator ahead of time with their own personal questions.  You can also visit their website at ParakaleoWomen.org.

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Pornography and Virtual Infidelity

by Paul Coughlin

The photograph was invented in 1839, and in just 11 quick years the word “pornographer” was seeded into our dictionary—unaware of the Zeus-like power and combustive fury that was to come as virtual infidelity would some day be as close as a harmless-blue Click Here.

Once a loathsome industry of photographing haggard prostitutes with drunken johns, this underground market, now more acceptable and mainstream due largely to Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine (first edition 1953), is today an estimated $4.9 billion behemoth. Earlier this decade the domain name business.com was sold for a record $7.5 million, as sex.com was valued at $65 million. Perhaps we should call it the Intercoursenet instead, as an estimated 28,258 people every second, mostly men (72%) but also women (28%) view pornography. Every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being created in the United States.

Christians Aren’t Immune

Christians aren’t immune. When surveyed, 53% of men who attended Promise Keeper said they viewed pornography that week. More than 45% of Christians admit that pornography is a major problem in their home. An anonymous survey conducted recently by Pastors.com reported that 54% of pastors admitted viewing porn within the last year. In an online newsletter, 34% of female readers of Today’s Christian Woman admitted to intentionally accessing Internet porn. One out of every six women who read Today’s Christian Woman say they struggle with addiction to pornography (Today’s Christian Woman, Fall 2003).

If only virtual infidelity were limited to viewing strangers copulate in what was once considered a sacred act just a few decades ago. In order to save, heal and protect our marriages from porn, we need to adopt a broader understanding of this pernicious and slippery world, an understanding that currently and unfairly pins most virtual infidelity on husbands.

The fact remains that electronic media, which includes the Internet, hunts both genders. More and more women are not just viewing porn, they are entering anonymous chat rooms and are more likely to act out in real life what others just type about. And as marketers know, it has always been women who have fantasized about relationships with men other than their husbands through soap operas, not to mention romance novels and magazines such as Cosmopolitan and other little sisters of porn of another kind.

The virtual infidelity that separates husband from wife is more than visual, and has been since fantasy, escape, betrayal, and the need to be held, loved, and understood—in a word connected in body and soul, which is a gift from God. Think of virtual infidelity as anything—images, wood pulp with words on it, chat rooms with words in them—that replace your current spouse with someone else in the recesses of the undisclosed regions inside you, where discontent grows and festers into a new, ugly, and unintended creation.

Both Genders Are Tempted

As this series explains, virtual infidelity tempts both genders in similar and divergent ways. A husband’s temptation toward visual infidelity is erosive: visible from the outside and easier to spot. A wife’s temptation is more subtle and nuanced, making it corrosive: less visible, attacking from the inside and harder to spot, acknowledge and heal.

This double-bladed sword of virtual infidelity is the result of a good desire, human connection, gone in the wrong direction and missing its mark, which is part of the definition of sin. Deep physical and emotional connection can result in a blessed state of relaxation, escape, and elation (the French word for orgasm, La petite mort, means “little death” the loss of consciousness of the world around you). All are God-given, the result of his great love for us. These blessed gifts and connections create a kind of mini-vacation from the usual stress and strain of life that creates mysterious yet real bonds. Unfortunately, virtual infidelity tempts us to take mini-vacations with someone other than our spouse. We need to learn to take them with one another—a sacred and a times difficult act.

Solutions to virtual infidelity pivot from moving from illusion to reality and from a passive to an assertive stance in marriage. Husbands and wives need to bolster their courage and be honest about their intimacy desires, and at the same time, bolster their understanding and be realistic about that they should expect from a gender that is similar but also different.

Copyright © 2009, Paul Coughlin. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.

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The Best Way

internet-addiction-depressionThe best way to deal with any kind of addiction is to seek the help of a qualified therapist. Neither sex addiction nor porn addiction is considered an official mental disorder, but they are compulsions that can have serious effects on one’s sexuality and can be detrimental to social functioning. Any decent therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist will recognize this and be able to provide you with tools to reduce your dependency on pornography. There is a variety of software available that can filter out certain content from the internet before it gets to your computer. These filters are usually used to prevent explicit content, including pornography, from reaching the innocent eyes of children, but they can have applications for the porn addict too. Of course, it’s easy to disable your own filters, but simply having them in place may provide enough of a deterrent when you’re craving a porn fix. There is also keylogger software that will track every move you make on the internet and even accountability software that will not only track your internet activity, but will also send a weekly report to your “accountability partner” to keep them up to speed on the sites you’re visiting. For most of us, viewing pornography is an occasional guilty pleasure. But for those who are driven to use porn constantly, it can represent a genuine mental, emotional and physical trap. With a combination of therapy, internet filters, affirmations, accountability, and research, it can be overcome.
http://www.askmen.com/dating/love_tip_400/404_love_tip.html

“The priority of any addict is to anesthetize the pain of living to ease the passage of day with some purchased relief.” – Russell Brand

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Lawrence Taylor Jr. Charged With Statutory Rape

Like father, like son….  Men, if you have children, don’t let them grow up to follow in your addiction-filled footsteps.  Do something about it, fight the fight on a daily basis!  If not, your children will grow up to be like you, or marry someone like you.

LTjrLawrence Julius Taylor Jr., the 31-year-old son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor, has been arrested in Georgia on felony criminal charges of statutory rape, aggravated child molestation and aggravated sodomy in connection with alleged sexual assaults on two juvenile females, according to police.

The arrest/booking report on the website of the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office says Taylor Jr. was arrested Sunday by police in Power Springs, Ga. He was being held without bond in the Cobb County Adult Detention Center in Marietta, Ga.

In a statement, the Power Springs Police Department said detectives interviewed the two females who made the allegations.

“One juvenile alleged that a sexual assault occurred on (July 6) at Taylor’s Power Springs residence. Another juvenile alleged consensual sexual contact with Taylor in early 2012,” said the police statement.

The Cobb County District Attorney’s Office said the maximum penalties, if convicted, are 25 years to life for aggravated sodomy, 25 years to life for aggravated child molestation and 10-to-20 years for statutory rape.

The son gave the presentation speech in 1999 when his father was inducted into the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.  “If I could pick anybody to be my father, I would pick Lawrence Taylor every time. Me and my father have a good relationship,” he said in his speech.

Lawrence Taylor, now 54, played with the NFL’s New York Giants from 1981-93 and was named to the Pro Bowl 10 times. He helped the Giants win two Super Bowls.

In January of 2011, the father (also named Lawrence Julius Taylor) pleaded guilty in New York to sexual misconduct and patronizing a 16-year-old prostitute. The misdemeanor charges carried no jail time, but Taylor was sentenced to six years’ probation and required to register as a sex offender.

Before the plea deal, Taylor had pleaded not guilty to third-degree rape, patronizing a prostitute, sexual abuse and endangering a child. Taylor had been arrested in May of 2010 for allegedly paying $300 to have sex with a 16-year-old girl at a hotel in suburban New York City. At the time of his plea deal, Taylor said in court the alleged victim told him she was 19.

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Former NFL Star Lawrence Taylor Gets 6 Years Probation for Sex Crime With Minor

Old news, but still relevant.  With all the addictions Lawrence has struggled with, maybe he needs to look into the possibility of having a sexual addiction.  My opinion is that LT should have been thrown in jail for a while.  Maybe then, he would have hit rock bottom and entered recovery.  The names of the victim has been removed in an effort to keep curious addicts from searching her name on the internet…

March 24, 2011
By: Holly Craw

LTWhen Lawrence Taylor was arrested in May, 2010, he was originally charged with felony 3rd degree statutory rape and 3rd degree felony patronization of an underage prostitute. These crimes would have carried a sentence of five years in prison. He pled “not guilty” at the time. When the case was brought to trial in January, 2011, Taylor changed his plea to “guilty” of the lesser crimes of sexual misconduct with a minor and patronizing a prostitute. Both crimes are Class A misdemeanors, one step down from the former charges which are Class E felonies.

The sentence handed down is six years probation and registration as a sex offender, but the sex offender status has not been determined yet.

The 16 year-old girl, ********* ******, who visited Taylor’s hotel room May 6, 2010 was there under orders from her pimp, ******* *****, who has been charged in a separate trial. ****** texted her uncle while enroute to the hotel stating that she was being forced to have sex with a man, and that ***** had already beaten her into compliance. Because of this, police were waiting for ***** when they returned home, after ****** had been paid $300 for a sexual encounter with Taylor, who was also arrested.

Lawrence Taylor, former New York Giants linebacker, has been called “the best ever to play the game (of football)” with 12 trips to the Super Bowl and MVP and Hall of Fame credits, for starters. He has also acted in movies and the TV series, The Sopranos, and had his moments of fame on Dancing with the Stars. One might say he had it all.

Known for his reckless behavior on and off the field, Taylor admits to many run-ins with the law. From cocaine abuse to hit-and-run accidents to “patronizing prostitutes” on more than one other occasion, he was no stranger to a darker side of life. He even hired call-girls to visit the opposing team’s players the night before a big game, “to tire them out”.

********* ****** claims she was a victim. In New York, the law states that a person less than 17 years of age is legally incapable of consenting to sexual intercourse or other sexual contact. These laws are typically known as statutory rape laws. Taylor throws the word “prostitute” back in her face, and excuses his justification for a paid sexual encounter with being on the road for 10 or 11 days, and that she stated she was 19.

****** is a victim in many ways. She is typical of most of the 200,000+ kids who are forced into sex slavery, starting out as runaways who have generally been abused first at home. Somehow, families are often failing their children, making them vulnerable to predators like ***** and Taylor. Somehow, families are often failing their children, giving them grounds to become sexual predators who then blame the victims for their evil deeds. Somehow, the legal system is failing, meting out a few years of probation or at best, a very few years of prison, for the raping and selling of children’s bodies. Somehow, the media is grossly failing, by presenting an unending supply of sexualized programming that makes light of people’s pain and gives permission to use sexuality as a self-gratifying weapon that destroys those in its wake.

Our country is beginning to wake up to these facts, and change is happening. Laws are becoming more strict as a means of deterrence. Victims and survivors of sex trafficking and abuse are getting more compassionate care. Hopefully, we will learn how to address the root causes of rampant child rape and not just focus on the symptoms.