As porn use has skyrocketed, the average age of first marriages has increased to 27 for women and 29 for men. For starters, this means we’re waiting longer for marriage at a time when our culture makes it more difficult to wait for sex. The result: more hooking up, more cohabitation, and more porn use.
What if porn not only makes it more difficult to wait for sex, but also makes it more difficult to get married? Here are several factors to consider if you, or someone you know, struggle with a porn habit and want to be married.
Porn Strips Away Goodness
Many times we forget that if we’ve surrendered our lives to Christ, then our sin no longer controls us (2 Cor. 5:14-20). Though you may struggle with porn, you shouldn’t let that weakness define you. Indeed, we all struggle with our sin nature (Rom. 7:14-25). Frankly, porn is only a symptom of deeper heart issues. It’s the fruit, not the root.
However, few sins can strip the goodness out of a man like the sin of porn. It can lead you down roads never imagined when you first began to view it, and perhaps it already has. I personally know two men of God who are in prison today, and their porn habit put them there.
Though I’d never wish it on anyone, getting arrested by federal agents at least brought the sin to light so it could be dealt with. It’s the friend with a carefully hidden porn problem who is in grave danger.
Sin is not like a cold that just goes away after a week or so. It’s a cancer that without treatment grows and grows. It robs you of your joy, peace, strength, and sanity. Eventually, porn will kill your soul. As you become a warped version of yourself, you become less and less capable of loving and cherishing a precious daughter of the King.
Don’t believe the lies anymore! Take your stand not just against porn, but for honor, purity, and life. Resolve in your mind to be who you want to be, rather than do what you want to do.
Porn Reprograms the Sex Drive
Both sex and our sex drive are precious gifts created by God for our good and His glory. They’re wonderful, powerful things. That’s part of the appeal! But sex is also dangerous, and it is intended for unhindered enjoyment only in the safety of a committed marriage relationship.
But what good is the sex drive if you are not married? Especially if you’re in college, high school or middle school and seemingly years away from marriage? Is it merely a nuisance- a burden or curse?
Could I suggest another alternative? What if the sex drive was intended by God to be a motivator, not simply to have sex, but to get married?
No, I am not saying you should just get married if you want to have sex. In fact, sex may very well be the worst reason to get married. Here’s what I am saying. If the God who designed our sex drive intends for us to enjoy the pleasure it seeks inside marriage alone, then that would make puberty our wake-up call to begin preparing for marriage.
Yes, what I just typed sounds outlandish to the modern ear, where the onset of haywire hormones could only mean one thing: HAVE SEX! (Of course, responsibly, safely, only if you really love each other, blah blah blah.)
But if you believe God made sex exclusively for marriage, and you feel the urge to enjoy it, then the healthiest response to your sex drive would be to pursue the maturity and stability necessary for loving and cherishing the woman with whom you could enjoy the sacredness of sex. (Does this idea really seem that crazy?)
Regardless, the fact remains that when we get our sexual desires “satisfied” by porn, our sex drive doesn’t drive us to marriage. It drives us to more porn. You may want to be married, but porn is just so much easier.
The result: you satiate your sexual appetite in a cheap, artificial sort of way, instead of letting your desire drive you to prepare and seek God’s calling in marriage.
Related: Porn and the Desire Dilemma
In the world of porn, you aspire to be a sex god, but that is a silly and small aspiration. Man was made for more! Resolve to become something greater: a man who protects, provides, and cares for a woman for a lifetime, no matter the cost!
Porn Inspires Sexualization Instead of Relation
Our God is a relational God. Indeed, before creation He already existed in relationship with Himself, three persons perfectly and eternally unified as one God.
Made in His image, we also long for relationships- healthy relationships defined by love, peace, joy and freedom. Further, most of us are like Adam, made for a helpmate with whom we can enjoy a unique connection called oneness, which is far bigger than sex.
But exposure to porn causes men to sexualize women rather than relate to them. Instead of viewing women as fellow image-bearers with souls, we just see them as sex objects. Eventually, this objectification can stunt our social skills, making us detached, uncomfortable, or ashamed around the opposite sex.
Related: License to Lust–How Porn Trains Objectification
The result: you imagine sharing oneness with a myriad of women you cannot hold, while you struggle to carry on a meaningful conversation with the women you could.
We were made for intimacy. Not the kind where we bare our bodies, but the kind where we bare our souls.
Those are just three thoughts to consider, but I share more in a second post here at Covenant Eyes. In the meantime, I’m betting you already know other ways porn is keeping men from marriage. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below.
I am single right now and talking with seven different women. All of whom would sleep with me if I pushed the issue. Three have boyfriends. Three are married. One is single. Therein lies the problem. You write this article as if women are biblical women. Sweet. Innocent. Loyal. The reality is few women follow what is in the bible. The men are held that standard but women are never held to it.
Plenty of scriptures call women to holiness as well as men, but the truth is that men are called to more than merely holding a standard. They are called to lead. I’m not sure what you mean by “talking with seven different women,” but if from this “talking” you have been able to discern that all these women would sleep with you “if I pushed the issue” it must be a far different kind of talk than you should probably be having with them. To be perfectly frank, I don’t know a single woman (besides my wife) who would sleep with me if I pushed the issue. One could laugh at that, thinking that probably has to do with my sexual attractiveness, but the fact is, I simply don’t talk with women in such a way that I could find out that they would sleep with me if I pushed the issue. And if I suddenly found myself in such a conversation I pray I would do what I’m encouraging you to do: Not hold to a standard, but to LEAD! Either lead by quickly changing the conversation from such sensuality (whether spoken or non-verbal) or more likely lead by simply LEAVING the conversation all together and avoiding these women which you find tempting to you (whether it be due to your sinful desires or hers or both). LEAD my brother! I may not know any women who would sleep with me, but I most certainly do know many women – single, beautiful, God-fearing women who are looking for a single, confident, God-fearing man to love them like Christ loves the church.
I have really been floored and encouraged by this article! It is profound in ideals concerning the holiness of marriage! The truth is a hard pill to swallow but you shall know the truth and that truth will set youFree!!!! I pray my brothers and sister’s will come to this cross!road and choose purity of ❤ in our intimacy with Christ this new year and beyond is my prayer! Lujah and Glory to God
Thanks for your encouragement, Mario! Glad it could bless you! The truth will set us free; regardless of how others respond to it.
First thing, good article. For all you guys bashing Michael’s work, you are missing a great point. Porn re-directs one’s energies away from the God given duty of actual procreation (Genesis 1:28) and towards useless fantasy. Our sex drive is very similar to our food drive, both have a purpose and both can be abused. Think about how terrible it would be though if we had food porn. Not just pictures, but a process that actually cured hunger and the press of a button. The result would be mass starvation, or at the least mass mal-nourishment. This is what porn is doing today.
And for all you that will say this concept is not based on real world experience, you are wrong. I remember one man in particular I was counseling in my church. He had a significant porn problem, but after meeting together and lots of payer, he went cold turkey.
Two weeks later he had a girlfriend.
He directly credited his success with his stopping porn. Suddenly, he was sexually attracted to girls he already was around (I mean, what else was his mind going to feed on?). He simply decided to start dating one of them. Porn had been killing his appetite.
Now, the relationship never went to marriage, and I think a lot of that may have been on her end. But the point is still the same. If you want to improve your game and get more dates, stop doing porn. Porn takes away your edge. You need that edge.
And lastly, I am single too and all you single guys that want to blame others for your problems… I sincerely hope I never find myself sharing a foxhole with you. Look, of course feminism is a problem, probably THE problem since it is addressed less by the church than pornography (Good work Team Covenant Eyes!). Seriously, I just got stood up on a date by a “Christian” girl today and of the five or so girls at church I would like to date, all would absolutely freak out if I asked them out. However, Jesus tells us to work on our problems before we start trying to fix everybody else (Matthew 7:5). Look, until you are willing to tell us how long since the last time you visited a porn site is, please don’t go about trashing all my American sisters in Christ, no matter how trashy they may be. (And for the record, I have never visited an official porn site, and of the things I’ve read online that I am really ashamed of, none have been within the last year.)
Keep that focus, my friend. Not just on your own sin, but on God’s great grace in light of it! He is faithful even when we are not! He leads us in spite of ourselves. Thanks for contributing to the conversation!
I’m sure that some kinds of feminism have something to do with the delay of marriage, but that is not a topic I know much about. I do, however, know about being a single guy in his thirties. I struggled with porn and I have talked to a LOT of guys who struggle with porn.
There is undoubtedly a tie between porn use and the delay of marriage. Porn doesn’t prevent a guy from dating, but it often: 1) trains him to compare his dates with the women of his fantasies, 2) leads him to give off social signals that make women feel uncomfortable (even if neither of them are aware of it, 3) tends to waste huge chunks of his time, 4) reinforces his sense of being a loser, 5) saps his motivation for really awesome things (like God, being productive, helping people, and having epic adventures), and a whole lot of other things. I find that porn a) lowers Christian men’s ability to think that they are suited for marriage, b) raises the amount of time they think they need to prepare for marriage, c) tends to come with a whole bunch of habits that impoverish the mind, soul, and, yes, bank account, and d) makes them less likely to pursue a relationship sacrificially. I think that many girls pick up on this, but I would guess that the most important factors in how porn delays marriage have to do with retraining a man’s perspective about himself, women in general, family, and God.
Out of all the guys I have talked to deeply about porn use, roughly 40-50% of them have significantly adjusted their marriage timelines because of guilt and fear about porn use. (But that doesn’t mean that they haven’t tried dating the whole time BTW.) Of course it could be that these guys–and I am one of them–were already prone to guilt and fear about marriage and adult life and that porn use was just a symptom of another problem. Yet even if this were the case, I can tell you this that whether porn led to the delay or was a symptom of some other cause, porn always compounds the problem.
I’m sure that women have their own issues to deal with (and porn is one of them), but as men we are primarily responsible for our end of the problem–and it is pretty stinking huge.
God bless you James for actually reacting to what I wrote and offering your own thoughts of how porn could be connected to delayed marriage. All great thoughts! Thanks for contributing to the conversation! Praying we can all look at our own issues and ask God’s grace to root out our own sins, setting us to be free to be who He meant us to be regardless of what the women in our lives will do.
To the December 30 commentator: The unbiblical counterpart to feminism is chauvinism. Feminism is male-bashing, and chauvinism is female-bashing. From your vast, over-generalizing, and extremist comments about women, it’s clear that you are angry, bitter, and prejudice against women, which makes you a chauvinist. Very unbiblical of you to be so, and quite possibly a reason you have not found your “Mrs. Right.” If you deal with your own heart before the Lord, I ASSURE YOU, you will begin to see more biblical women you say you don’t see. If you get the log out of your own eye more than focusing on the speck in your brother’s (or sister’s), I ASSURE YOU, you will see more biblical woman with newly-cleared eyes. Your harsh, critical, and judgemental comments sound quite bitter, among other things, which is a recipe for a bad marriage, and no recipe at all for getting married. Look to God — not women or men — and you will see the way God sees, which is what we all need . And if you — yourself — display the fruit of the Spirit that you apparently don’t see in “women these days,” your relationships get revolutionized.
When you look at the statistic you see that marriage rates have fallen since feminism has taken hold of america. It isn’t porn. It is feminism. The data is quite clear on this. Furthermore, you really begin to see how feminism has destroyed the family. They destroyed it by killing babies via abortion (future families and people ~ 59 million of them ~ that is basically an entire nation of people), in the divorce courts (men lose everything and never want to marry again), and now, men are choosing not to marry at all. Porn isnt doing it. It is feminism and the evidence and data is quite clear on this.
What statistic? What version of feminism? The first wave that started in the 1800s? Other waves of feminism since then? Why can’t it be both the influence of porn and feminism—not just one? For being such an “analyst,” you’re certainly making a fair amount of unqualified, broad-sweeping statements.
May God heal your hurts and fill you. As a woman, I am sorry for the wrong you have experienced and/or observed. Do not lose your way; trust in the hope of Jesus.
Haven’t dated in a while have you? You probably didn’t date much before you got married too. Porn is not the cause of men not marrying. Men are devalued in our society. Women think they can do it all. Also women are very materialistic now. They see all this garbage with the Kardashians and want to be them. Tell you what. Take this article and go read it to men walking out of a divorce court. Ask them if it will be porn that causes them not to marry again. Trust me it wont be. There is very little upside for a man to marry now. Yes, the idea of love and commitment is great. Warm feelings for a lifetime! Caring! Kindness! Support! Good luck finding that in a woman nowadays. I am single. One of the benefits of being single is you can observe. I see all my married friends and how miserable they are. I see all the cheating WIVES. Yes — wives. Surprise you? Wives cheat more than husbands now. Here are many articles on this.
http://elitedaily.com/women/are-women-likely-to-cheat/1057815/
http://www.yourtango.com/201172881/women-more-likely-cheat-men-heres-why
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robi-ludwig/why-women-may-be-bigger-cheaters_b_6000648.html
http://magazine.foxnews.com/love/cheating-statistics-do-men-cheat-more-women
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1211104/Think-men-unfaithful-sex-A-study-shows-WOMEN-biggest-cheats–theyre-just-better-lying-it.html
I don’t need to read about this though. I see it all the time. Women just lie about things more than men. Women are very comfortable with lying to get their way. Start writing about women and how they have lost their way. Better yet. Have your wife do it. See if she will. It might be an eye opener for you as to the reactions you will get.
I’m not following you. Why can’t it be both: men not being valued and men looking at porn? You seem to be stuck in either-or thinking on this one.
Why do you ask like we might be surprised that women cheat? Your whole demeanor in this comment leads me to think you believe we think women can do no wrong in society. If this is the case, you really haven’t poked around on this blog much.
Also, by the way, your assumption in all of this is that women in America are biblical women. They are not. I assure you of this. What you fail to understand is the bible only works when both the male and female follow what is the bible. Men are held to the standard. Women most certainly are not. I dare you to write an article telling women to go back to being the women of the bible. I dare you. See what happens. So what you really have is rules that apply only to the male and nothing really applies to female.
But you will see the reality of all this, when your wife divorces you down the road, you lose everything, and are thrust back into the single life. You will see just how wrong you are about porn being the cause.
Exactly how is the author assuming this?
Porn is a major cancer for individuals! It does affect us personally! And it is a personal choice to live in it as well. I cant control anyone outside of my decision to walk with the Lord(e.g. divorce, adultery) but each one will give account one-day! Our God is a consuming fire! Lujah!
This is a Christian website and a Christian article. When referring to the expected behaviour from both men and women on this website, you can asssume the expectation is from a Biblical standpoint, not a secular one. Why would a Christian website refer to secular requirements, standards, and expectations? If a man is truly a Christian, he is expected to marry someone he is equally yolked to. If he does not, then he also cannot expect his wife to behave in a Biblical way, and vise-versa. You cannot hold someone to Gods standard if they don’t believe in God. Does God hold them to His standard? Absolutely! However, you would be foolish to expect them to actually adhere to something outside their realm of their personal belief’s. Just so you know, a Christian woman will be striving daily to be the wife that God calls us to be. It’s a true desire of mine because of the love I have in Christ. Not a work that I do out of submission, but rather a desire for submission rooted in love. However, with your views of pornagraphy and women don’t expect a woman like that to marry you. Christian women are seeking Christian husbands who take their relationship with Christ serious. How can you lead in this fight for Christ if you can’t even stop viewing porn? There are children in other countries literally laying down their lives in the sweet name of Christ, and yet men in America are “struggling” with pornagraphy and complaining that women just aren’t made how they use to be. Instead of daring the writer to remind women of their role, I dare you to step up and be a true man of God and watch how your wife is steered into her role by love. If you cannot be a man of God, you cannot expect a woman of God. It’s your job first to lead in love and by example. If you are angry and bitter for your wife leaving you (if she did) maybe you should take a hard look at where that anger rightfully belongs. You cannot express your desire to be the headship of your family without also acknowledging what responsibility that role entails for you.
Few articles make me mad. I can agree to disagree and listen to other people’s perspective. But this article pisses me off to no end because I am single and living the BS you wrote about. Porn has absolutely NOTHING to do with why men are not marrying. NOTHING. I also find it odd that someone who is married is even writing about this topic. They are CLUELESS as to what dating is like in the year 2015 and soon to be 2016.
Do not even begin to blame men not marrying on porn! Blame it in feminism in America. Feminism is causing the decline in marriage. You have lost your mind if you think that porn is causing the marriage decline. I know you have an agenda, but the reality is that it is feminism. Hell, thousands of articles have been written about this. Here is just a synopsis of a few of them and EVERYTHING listed in this synopsis, I have seen in my life —- repeatedly:
____
A) What exactly does marriage offer men today? “Men know there’s a good chance they’ll lose their friends, their respect, their space, their sex life, their money and — if it all goes wrong — their family,” says Helen Smith, Ph.D., author of “Men on Strike.” “They don’t want to enter into a legal contract with someone who could effectively take half their savings, pension and property when the honeymoon period is over. Men aren’t wimping out by staying unmarried or being commitment phobes. They’re being smart.”
B) Unlike women, men lose all power after they say “I do.” Their masculinity dies, too.
C) What’s left of it, that is. In the span of just a few decades, America has demoted men from respected providers and protectors of the family to superfluous buffoons. Today’s sitcoms and commercials routinely paint a portrait of the idiot husband whose wife is smarter and more capable than he.
D) There was a time when wives respected their husbands. There was a time when wives took care of their husbands as they expected their husbands to take care of them.
E) Or perhaps therein lies the rub. If women no longer expect or even want men to “take care of” them — since women can do everything men can do and better, thank you very much, feminism — perhaps the flipside is the assumption that women don’t need to take care of husbands, either. And if no one’s taking care of anyone, why the hell marry?
F) For women, the reason is obvious: kids. Eventually most women decide they want children, no matter how long they put it off to focus on their careers. So they often nab the best guy they can find, usually the one with whom they’re currently sleeping, and convince him to get married.
H) If the man refuses, we call him, as Smith notes, a “commitment phobe.” But is that fair? Perhaps these men know all too well that women initiate the vast majority of divorces — anywhere from 65-90 percent, depending on demographics. And when they do, they take the kids with them and hang hubby out to dry with the help of a court system that’s heavily stacked in their favor. In the past, Mom got the kids because she was home with them doing the thankless, unpaid, mountainous work associated with that role. Today, neither parent is home, so there’s no reason the default custodial parent should be Mom.
I) We also completely disregard how women are all about MONEY. Want to get married? You better have the cash. I assure you.
J) Then we completely disregard how women are gaining massive amounts of weight. Many women are simply not attractive.
____
So remind me, why would a man marry today?
No, really. What’s in it for him?
Hey there,
Let me see if I can unravel this a bit.
A. Helen Smith’s comment is spot on IF this is your perception of what marriage is all about. The good news is there are many happy marriages between couples who don’t see things this way. Shaunti Feldhahn does a great job demonstrating this in her book, The Good New About Marriage.
B. What do you even mean by the loss of “masculinity” and what can you use to demonstrate this is true?
C. I agree with you here. Pop culture isn’t nice to men these days, for sure. Not sure what it has to do with the topic, however.
D. I agree with you here as well, but I’m not sure what it has to do with the article.
E. An interesting theory that probably has a lot of merit IN SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES.
F. Some women do this, yes, but thankfully I know many who don’t. Your over-generalizations are beginning to hurt my brain.
G. You didn’t have a G.
H. More over-generalizations.
I. I got married to a woman who knew I was living at poverty level. “I assure you” not all women get married for money, and I know many who don’t.
J. If I were an unkind person, I would be inclined to call you shallow. But I’ll refrain and give you the benefit of the doubt, simply disregarding your comment as a slip in your better judgment. Besides, I’ve already replied to you about this before.
Since you asked, “why would a man marry today?” I’ll answer you on a personal level. I got married because I fell in love, because I met a woman who made me want to be a better man, who inspires me to give, love, and serve.
If it makes any difference, I totally believe feminism has been bad for marriage too; and keeps many a man from pursuing marriage, even as many of the feminists (perhaps most even) wonder, “Why can’t I get married?” So I feel your pain there, but I wouldn’t dream of laying men’s retreat from marriage squarely at the foot of feminism. There are MANY factors. This article only deals with the part of porn.
As a woman, I do not propose the feminist agenda in anyway. In fact, I am very comfortable in my role as a stay at home mom and homeschooler. I truly do not care about money. My husband was in the military when we got married and when he got out he was back in school, so we spent many years tight on cash. That being said, I do expect him to make enough to take care of the family. You cannot expect a woman to stay out of the work field, but not care if the bills are paid either. My husband and I have our own roles in marriage and providing is one of his. He does a great job of providing for us and we are in no way rich. I know many other women who also made good money (like I did) before marriage and gave it up to raise their family. That is hardly a feminist or money grubber.
Now, to address the comments on feminism. To be quite honest, although I think feminism is a big part of the failure in families today, men need to shoulder a lot of this blame. Why would I say this? Because, God made man head of woman. From His word, we know that when women become more like men in the world, we are getting closer to the end. How would women have gotten to this point without men letting them down? See, when men are consumed (like today’s society) with pornagraphy, they are incapable of being “whole men”. When you are not a “whole man”, you cannot provide for a woman according to Gods standard, or a woman’s need. Over the generation’s women have gotten tired of being let down by very selfish men and they have insured a way as to not be trapped. Women are being left with fewer and fewer options of good men to marry, so they are taking things into their own hands to survive, and while I do believe this action perpetuates the feminist attitude, I also understand it. A Christian woman who is confident in her walk and Gods word, will not be seeking a man who is consumed by pornagraphy and most women who will give up a career to raise a family are Christian women. If men are seeking Godly women who put marriage and family first, you need to first be the Godly man that can offer her the same. Woman was not made to be run over by her husband, but rather to be taken care of by her husband and be equals before God in their own separate roles.
That’s all well and good. I have been rejected more times than I care to count. Most of my female friends are either married or have a boyfriend. How can I get married, when rarely get a first glance, let alone a second glance. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Hey Bro, I feel your pain. In school I was shy and many people thought I was stuck up because I was quiet. Many of us were late bloomers. I would be the best me that I can be. I try to take care of the body and mind the LORD gave me. I try to get regular physical exercise and eat right–whatever is right for you. I try to look as good as I can, smell as good as I can and enjoy my life. Just being you is attractive from what the ladies tell me. A person who is okay with who they are shows it. I love the verse in Ephesians 2: 6 about being “seated with Christ…”, in fact, Seated With Christ is a great book by Heather Holleman saying that we all have a place in His service not just the beautiful, popular, educated, wealthy as society seems to say. Hope some of this helps. I am adding you to my prayer list bro. Also if it’s me I would visit some other churches to seek out young ladies if you know everyone in your own church. I want to meet someone who has the same spiritual beliefs that I have. Hang in there ! Steve
Good question, though it sounds like a separate issue from the article itself. (This article is more about how porn keeps men from marriage not all the other causes keeping men from marriage as well.)
I highly recommend you check out the book we wrote a while back. It’s free to download on our website: More Than Single: Finding Purpose Beyond Porn.
That’s tough, Jon! Of course, I don’t know you well enough to offer much useful advice, but I can make one observation and one suggestion. Observation: insecure and/or frustrated men seldom attract a healthy woman. Whereas men who are whole and confident in who God has made and is making them, with or without a woman by their side, will attract a healthy woman. Suggestion: Stop looking for a woman and find another man or two who have what you’re looking for (both in personal confidence and happy marriage). Get to know them (asking questions and learning from their life lessons) and let them get to know you (but let them ask you questions instead of just sharing everything all at once). Any healthy relationship needs to grow over time. This will be true of this mentor type relationship. You also won’t be sorry if you read this other post I wrote for my own blog: http://f-m-u.com/Blog/40-year-old-virgin/. In the meantime, I’m praying for God’s peace for you in the new year!