I remember when my wife was 8 weeks pregnant and she was reading in a few online discussion forums for pregnant women. She came across a number of threads of conversation about pornography. Several women said their husbands had really ramped up their use of porn during the pregnancy. To some women this was deplorable. To other women this was seen as all right (“After all, don’t all guys look at porn?”).
One common theme I noticed among the more permissive women was that the only ethical dilemma was related to a guy “sneaking around” to look at porn. For these women, the real problem with porn is the secrecy that often comes with it. They believe as long as he’s open about it, there’s no problem. If they watch it together in the bedroom, no harm done.
I think wives who allow this to go on in the bedroom need to stop and think about the consequences.
1. First, I would challenge wives to think about what their standards are for a healthy sexual relationship. Is it merely bigger orgasms, more experimentation, more variety, or is there something of a connection you long for? Could sex actually be better if you knew you had all of your man, not just his body, but his full attention?
Where is your husband’s mind during love-making? Is it more focused on the women in the porn flick, or you? Even when he’s not looking at the screen, where is his mind? Mentally, what he is doing is similar to watching porn while alone and masturbating, only in the bedroom he’s using his your body.
I agree with Dr. Judith Reisman when she says porn causes men to be impotent, in the classic sense of the word: unable to function with their own sexual power.
If he can’t make love to his beloved, if he has to imagine a picture, if he has to imagine a scene, in order to actually reach the heights of completion with this person, then he’s no longer with his own power, is he? He has been stripped. He has been hijacked. He has been emasculated. He has, in effect, been castrated visually.
I believe if wives are being honest with themselves they would say, “No, I do not want to train my husband’s mind to always need to withdraw into fantasy in order to orgasm. I want to know he is fully present with me.”
2. I would challenge wives to think about all the psychological harms that come with repeatedly watching pornography in general. Viewing pornography has been proven, for both men and women, to decrease our sexual satisfaction in marriage, make us escape into fantasy and avoid connection in authentic relationships, lower our view of women, and create a thirst for watching more pornography. (I outline a lot of these harms in a short e-book I wrote called Your Brain on Porn.)
Bringing porn into the bedroom exposes a husband to these harms. A wife should fight for the sexual health of her man. Bringing porn into the bedroom also exposes you as a woman to these harms (as this great testimony on our blog talks about).
3. I would remind you that God is the wise designer of sex, and godly sex, as He commands it, should not contain elements of lust. Certainly some women might believe their man isn’t lusting after the women in pornography if they’re using it to spice up their bedroom life, but this is turning a blind eye to how they know their man really is. If he were alone masturbating to porn, he would be lusting. If he’s in the bedroom with you being turned on by the women he sees on the screen and filling his mind with images of them, then he’s lusting. Yes, he may simultaneously be turned on by you. But this is like eating a salad and washing it down with a BK Whopper and saying you had a healthy meal.
Yes, and in addition to Traylor’s point, watching and therefore supporting porn also diminishes the actors’ dignity as human beings in general. I often think about this in connection with what many people consider acceptable degrees of sex portrayed in R or even PG-13 or PG movies. Those actors may have spouses or future spouses (or may never marry!) who should be the sole participators in their sexuality; by watching we are saying that in order for us to be entertained, or in order for a story to be told, it’s OK for them to compromise their privacy and dignity. Yikes! It’s not even like gratuitous violence in films which has its own moral problems), produced mostly by special effects.
Hi Luke,
My name is Rosanna van Straten and I write for the UC Santa Cruz campus newspaper, City on a Hill Press. I am currently writing a feature article on the effects that online Pornography has on the way we think about sex. I was wondering if you might want to talk to me about your ideas on Pornography, because judging from this article you would have some interesting things to say. Let me know as soon as you can,
Thank you!
Rosanna
Great post Luke!
One thing I would add to the reasons you mention is that by participating in porn you are supporting an industry that is closely tied with human trafficking and all sorts of injustices done to women and children. How would the couple know if the actors on-screen are there by their own free will or if they are actually being forced to do what they are doing? Even if they are there by their own choosing, many ex porn actors and actresses have gone on record about the deplorable conditions on most porn sets.
@Traylor – Absolutely. There are so many injustices involved in the porn industry. It not only hurts couples in the bedroom; it hurts women around the globe.