These social sites like Myspace, Facebook and others, are simply frightening to me.  I know I have a distorted perspective because of what I do.  I’ve seen too many marriages effected by Internet affairs and heard of too many stories of predators online. I actually signed up for one site about two months ago.  I got friend requests within a few hours.  I got spooked by the whole process almost immediately.  I was startled by the random and spontaneous nature of the “friendship” process.  So I withdrew from the site the same day.

I realize that this is part of the way people connect and participate in community now, but, I still urge caution.  I will probably get on such a site some day.  In the meantime I encourage my clients to be very careful about anything on the internet. I am probably too cautious, however, I certainly believe it is better to be safe than sorry.

It’s getting colder in Oklahoma.  As I bundle up to go outside, all I want to think of is going somewhere tropical to explore warm waters.

I guess I’ll have to suffice with virtual diving in the mean time. This youtube video reminds me of one of the dives I took when in Maui. Like this video, one of my dive buddies had to take evasive maneuvers to avoid a turtle.

Few would ever think of President elect Obama and President elect Bush as having much in common.  It would appear however that supportive, caring marriages is one such commonality.  Here is brief article touching on President Bush’s marriage.

It seems to me that the Christian world has been actively addressing the issue of sexual addiction, or Cybersex inappropriateness, for some time.  The secular world has been more sporadic in acknowledging the problem. Often the secular community will either react in the extreme to isolated stories or minimizing it’s significance.  As I recall, MANY years ago Michael Douglas admitted to sexual addiction issue.    I found this rather stale news of David Duchovny’s problems.  This article seems to be acknowledging that there is a real problem. Be warned, it certainly suggests some levels of cybersex dalliance may be acceptable, a statement with which most Christians would differ.

I can tell you that the internet has created problems for a number of men who would’ve never been tempted by another form of pornography.  The semblance of anonymity, false as it may be, has allowed many men to satisfy their curiosity and much more.  I know exactly when I had a dramatic increase of men dealing with porn addiction/abuse.  It was in 1996 when AOL went from pay by the hour to $19.99 for all you can view.   Within six months I had a boatload of men dealing with cybersex issue and marriages in trouble since the wife discovered her husbands viewing of internet porn.

The women aren’t completely innocent either.  Although, they were more often struggling with inappropriate cyber relationships.  I’ve had a number of men insist on marital therapy after discovering a cyberaffair.

Unfortunately, Christian’s struggle with these issues almost as frequently as Non-Christians.  On some levels it might even seem to be a worse problem for the Christian.  Christian’s may realize they have a problem far earlier than the Non-Christian, simply due to a difference in values.  As such, Christian’s tend to see a problem and seek help at levels Non-Christians are not usually concernd about.