I feel that we need to protect not only our husbands and wives in marriage, but also our children from the damaging influence of pornography. However, since this is a marriage class I will talk about things we can do to help protect ourselves.
I feel that the first step that we must do is to is first make sure that we are not personally viewing pornography. These days, there are so many things that are sexually explicit in nature. While perhaps your intent was not to view pornography, you may fall into a grey area of "soft porn". Satan tries to gives us these grey areas, which will then turn into black areas. In the grey areas, you initially don't think there is an issue and often it isn't a problem until you are far into it. Just yesterday, my stepdaughter was scrolling on Facebook. She freaked out and I asked her what the problem was. In her newsfeed, showed a very sexually explicit video of a woman with hardly any clothes on. We were both shocked that this was allowed on to this page. While she didn't actively reach out, since she did have this person as a friend, it showed up in her feed. She quickly hid and blocked the content. This just proves how even unsuspecting people can be caught into the web of pornography.
In our home, my husband and I both know the passwords to each others phones. On our cable, we ensure that even teen rated shows are blocked. Our internet is blocked by most everyone, so that most can't access it. Yes, there are always ways around thing--but we do what we can to protect not only our marriage--but our children.
President Howard W. Hunter said, "Pornography, flirtations and unwholesome fantasies erode one's character and strike at the foundation of a happy marriage. Unity and trust within a marriage are thereby destroyed. If we want to do anything for our marriage, we need to have a happy marriage. That can come by following the counsel of prophets and by limiting those sources which can lead us to stray and into grey areas.
As we safeguard our family, we must also recognize that we must be respectful, be positive and appropriate when we speak to our spouse. Our children learn by examples. If we are being degrading and disrespectful, this doesn't give them a good example of healthy relationships. The best thing we can offer our spouse and children is to show them kindness, respect, love and by being appropriate. I love when I see happily married couples, who show the kind of love that others dream of. This is how we should be with our spouse.
I like the quote from President Howard W. Hunter from the October 1994 General Conference address "Tenderness and respect- never selfishness-must be the guiding principles in the intimate relationship between husband and wife. Each partner must be considerate and sensitive to the other's needs, and desires. Any domineering, indecent or uncontrolled behavior in the intimate relationship between husband and wife is condemned by the Lord. What better advice could we have been given? Being tender with one another and respectful, sensitive to what our spouse needs."
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