Family, Relationships
“Should I Marry a Man with Pornography Struggles?”
by Clay Staggs
Surfing around the web last week, I found this question posed by a young woman engaged to a man whom she dicovered has “struggles” with porn. She posted the question on a Christian website (here). A guy named Russell D. Moore (with whom I'm otherwise unfamiliar) gave her a detailed answer (here).
The answer is not all bad, but I'm going to say two things about it. Before I get started, though, I want to make something clear. Nothing in what I'm about to write is meant to excuse porn or minimize the destructive effects it can have on men. It is sin, no question about it. But it's not some kind of deep, dark, heinous, twisted, worst sin of all kind of sin. It is, factually, incredibly common. I would go so far as to say that any man without a hormone deficiency and with a computer has looked. And, any man fitting those descriptions who denies that I would suspect of lying. Now to my points.
First, the answer given by Mr. Moore omits an extremely important point - probably in my view the most important point. Males are wired for sex. We like it - a lot. We like it a lot, and we like lots of it. That's the way it is. I think the answer given to this lady completely ignores this undeniable fact. And this undeniable fact is behind a lot of porn consumption, because most men don't get to have as much sex as they want, so they resort to porn. Again, not excusing that, but it's true. (And also, I recognize that porn can be used to feed some flat-out deviancies, but that minority of cases is not what I'm addressing here.)
I think that a realistic answer to this lady might be that (so long as her finace's porn use is not of the deviant-minority type) her husband-to-be is a normal male, and normal males really like sex. Moreover, I think a good question for her might be whether she understands this fact, and is ready to have lots of sex with her new husband. Because that's what he wants and needs.
Similarly, somebody also ought to explain to the guy that the his new wife doesn't view sex the way he does, and that when their sex life isn't like what he's seen in the porn, he doesn't get to go back to porn. In fact, he's got to understand her needs sexually to0, and that those are REALLY different from his - much more emotional and focused on intimacy in ways that aren't exclusively physical.
So, it was a little disapointing that the answer given this lady didn't really talk about how men are different from women, and how successful marriage (especially including sex life) is about understanding those differences and working on that. This leads to my second point.
Mr. Moore used an allusion to the wolf-man in describing her fiance and his sexuality:
Far too many women are watching “The Notebook” or “Twilight” for indicators on what kind of man they should marry. Instead, you probably should watch “The Wolf Man.”Have you ever seen any of those old werewolf movies? You know, those in which the terrified man, dripping with sweat, chains himself in the basement and says to his friends, “Whatever you do, no matter what I say or how I beg, don't let me ought of there.” He sees the full-moon coming and he's taking action to protect everyone against himself.
In a very real sense, that's what the Christian life is about.
I really hate this image. Given man's sin nature, perhaps the wolf-man part is an OK metaphor, but the metaphorical solution of chaining the poor sinful guy up in the basement and leaving him there is pretty dismal. This woman is about to marry this guy. Is that the template for dealing with his sexuality? Just chain him up so he can't get to the computer and hope that the fever passes while he howls and sweats it out? That doesn't sound like what a “helper suitable for him” would do, does it?
If two young people are about to become one flesh, they'd better learn all about that flesh before taking the leap, and not just hope to chain up the unattractive parts of the guy. That is a recipe for failure.
I largely agree with your statements- particularly about the different perspectives the sexes bring to the topic of sex itself When I read this post last week I bounced off a different facet, however. Not contrary to you, just different.
Moore states through the analogy that a large part of the problem is that the wolfman is trying to protect everyone else from his curse, essentially. This is a major part of the problem- not just with porn, obviously, but all sin. In a marriage and to some degree in the church, hiding pet sins can be a huge obstacle. (Gollum & his Precious suddenly flashes to mind)
I guess where the analogy breaks down is that it's just wolfie left to fight the moon alone. The Christian is to be about the business of running to the only one who can give any real relief/escape-Christ. We are NOT alone! I don't think that's so much an oversight with Moore as much as a problem with the analogy. It would seem to be a logical assumption from the context of the few of his posts I've read, at least.
Comments no longer accepted for this entry.
To prevent spam, comments are no longer allowed after 60 days.