[Warning: This post includes some explicit material of a sexual nature and should not be read while children or teenagers are in the room.]

A READER sent me the comment below a long while ago and I thought it justified pornography use so I put it aside. Still the male commenter made some good points. Let me restate the argument: Women can create the occasion for the sin of pornography use by denying their husbands marital intimacy. It is sinful for women to deprive their husbands of intimacy, a definite marital obligation. Women offend God when they don’t treat their husbands as the physical beings they are. Many people balk or laugh at that idea because it is so unfamiliar to them, yet it’s true. Pornography use is also sinful and the man who uses it is culpable. He offends God, his wife, and his children. Abstinence won’t harm him; pornography will. Pornography has damaged countless marriages. The makers and purveyors, the judges who have allowed it, are criminals, who have created a temptation that destroys.

Feminism and the burdens of the careerist life have desensitized some women to the needs of men. Men are generally disinclined to put their feelings into words and to let their wives calmly know something is wrong. Men may also encourage women in exhausting work outside the home, which leaves them with little energy at the end of the day, another serious factor in undermining marital intimacy, something the commenter below does not acknowledge.

I cannot recall whether the reader wanted his name published and I have lost his address, so I will omit it here. He wrote:

Many and various sources are talking about an epidemic of porn and many women, specifically, talk about this as though it has nothing to do with them.

But of course it does — it has everything to do with wives.  God does not have men and women cleave together as “one flesh” for them to then live in celibacy, and the fact that women do so, that the vast majority of women withhold sex from their husbands doesn’t make that right or OK.

In fact, I wonder how many women consider themselves the sexual protectors of their men?  I have never spoken to one who did.  Yet this is exactly what the Bible calls for…

1Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.a 2But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. 3The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. 5Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6I say this as a concession, not as a command. [Corinthians 1-6]

Is there an “epidemic of porn,” or is there an epidemic of wives not honoring God?

Here’s where, in reality, the problem comes in, and because we live in age of radical lies being accepted as truth, all too often I find I have to say things that would go without saying in a saner age.  Here goes.

Women are not sexual creatures.  Women are reproductive creatures; women do not require sex.  Let me put it this way:  for a woman to give up something comparable to sex for a man, she wouldn’t give up sex — she would have to stop menstruating, because the drive to have children is the woman’s equivalent to a man’s sex drive.  You may note that in all of history no one has ever marveled at a woman not having sex.  If that was, indeed, a remarkable feat, Elaine would not have had to offer double the stake to enter Seinfeld’s celibacy contest!

While women absolutely have sexual urges and enjoy sexual pleasure, they don’t require sex as men do.  Yet women act as if they are paragons of virtue for not doing something that they don’t require.

But by withholding sex from their husbands, wives are directly ignoring the biblical mandate to not deprive each other sexually.  And the reason is clearly stated:  so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self control.  God fully recognized that men would fall into sin left to their own devices (and with an eager assist from Satan), so he set up the most wonderful assist imaginable for the other team:  a wife to satisfy a man’s drive for sex in a way that is not only pleasurable to them both, but also pleasing to God.

This is not to say, ladies that this will always be an easy task.  Men and women are still made differently.  You may be required to make love when you don’t feel like it.  But, on the upside, this is the simplest and best way to maintain a solid marriage in God and provide the husband you love with a much needed defense against the temptation that surrounds him in this fallen world.

So women, are you defenders of your men?  What are you willing to do to keep your man safe?

Here’s another comment worth revisiting from a reader in a previous discussion on pornography. I agree, by the way, with the reader’s correction. I should have said pornography scars rather than destroys souls.

Mark wrote in response to a comment on pornography by me:

This is well said, and I wish every one of your readers would get this into their psyche. Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned (Prov. 6:27)? The question answers itself, yet people persist. And there’s no sanctimonious judgment on my part when I say this, because I was among those people. And I’ve been burned by my experiences.

Some philosophical types shrug off pornography as banal, but then, as you’ve indicated, banal is not benign. Speaking for myself, I wish I’d never laid eyes on pornography. I remember the first time I came across it at a sleep-away summer camp when I was 12 or 13. A counselor had showed us a magazine with two European couples engaged in oral sex in some wooded area. I was initially disgusted. But it didn’t take long for disgust to turn to curiosity, then fascination, then titillation, then out-and-out lascivious yearning. In my teenage years (i.e., during the 1980’s), I rented porn videos, which only led my appetite to grow more insatiable. On one occasion, I was at a house party (parents absent) where I watched such videos in a group setting. (Yeah, great crowd I was running with!) Anyway, those of us who weren’t into sex were into drugs. The druggies were upstairs doing their thing. One guy had passed out on the floor after hyperventilating PAM out of a sandwich bag – an act that I remember thinking was an unbearably stupid thing to do to one’s brain cells. Meanwhile, others among us were downstairs, drinking beer, eyes transfixed to the 20” TV screen, with VCR images of group sex, up-close-coitus, etc.

It didn’t occur to me at the time that I was engaged in self-destructive activity that was, in a way, similar to what Mr. Hyperventilation was doing to himself. From 18 onward – I was a relatively late starter, by today’s standards – I began having sexual relationships with numerous partners. I’m sure I crossed the line into experimenting with homosexuality, depending on how you’d define it, but thankfully this side of things never progressed.

In the early 90’s I began to be very much [concerned] about my own lifestyle, and started looking for answers, exploring Christianity, first from the periphery, then in a more serious way. But still, I had allowed myself to be corrupted, and even though I could intellectually acknowledge the emptiness of casual porn sex, that mental awareness did absolutely nothing to remove the cravings, the unholy desires. (Would that our detached, philosophical friends would appreciate the total depravity of the human heart, and its susceptibility to evil — Jer. 17:9.)

When you said in the above quote that people who live out the porn lifestyle have “destroyed their souls,” I would only modify the statement as follows: they have scarred their souls. Soul destruction can yet be avoided, and in my case I came to Christ in my 30’s, which gave me a new start. But the scars remain. The things I was exposed to and acted out in my teens and 20’s still affect me today. I’m now 42, married to a good woman who never experienced what I did (fortunately for her), but I can tell you that my exposure to pornography has affected our marital life. It’s not an insurmountable problem, it’s not too great for God’s grace, but let’s just say it’s taken time to begin to enjoy normal sexual relations and also to discipline my mind not to drift to pornographic thoughts, which will do me nothing but harm. This has been an uphill battle.

We have two beautiful young children, a girl and a boy, and I regard it as my sacred duty to protect them. Among other things, this means there will be no watching Lady Gaga in my house to discuss why it is empty, bad, or whatever. Just to watch such things is to be defiled, and to open others up to temptation that they may live to curse me for.

— Comments —

Margaret writes:

I agree with and respect many of the first commenter’s statements. It is absolutely the duty of both spouses to physically satisfy the other, and women in particular are spiritually and morally obligated to make love to their husbands and keep them satiated. I am less sure about his assertion that women don’t require sex, but that’s not the main issue I have with his comments. They are overly one-sided. Everything he says could easily be flipped.

Men nowadays are introduced to porn on a widespread level as a child or teen. They aren’t just turning to porn as adults with unsatisfying sex lives. By the time the average man enters marriage, he has been deeply immersed and inundated with porn. Studies show that porn changes the brain and causes men in particular to be less satisfied with their partners, to want riskier sex, and to want a larger number of partners. Even if a woman is sexually active with her husband, she is likely to feel betrayed by his disappointment or his pressure to do things that are dangerous or immoral. If a man starts watching porn during the marriage, she is likely to feel cheated on, “less than,” and worthless, or to assume she won’t ever measure up. In this case, it is certainly still wrong for her to withhold sex, just as it’s wrong for a man to turn to porn no matter what his wife does. But it’s understandable and deserving of compassion. It’s a deadly cycle and a give-and-take; it’s not one person’s fault more than the other. It is woman’s duty to be sexual protector, but man’s duty to protect his wife’s honor and be faithful to her.

It’s also true that society, including men, pressures women to engage in work that drains them. If a woman is expected to act like a man all day, it’s difficult to expect her to suddenly become a woman at night, or to suddenly overcome the exhaustion of her oppressive career.

I’m by no means implying that it is ultimately a man’s responsibility; I’m just saying that it’s a symbiotic relationship between damaging behaviors that often work in tandem, and it’s often a chicken or egg situation. How could we tell what “came first,” and does it matter? What matters is that one or both partners stop the damaging behavior.

Laura writes:

Excellent! Thank you. I agree with everything you say.

It is woman’s duty to be sexual protector, but man’s duty to protect his wife’s honor and be faithful to her.

Porn is a drug. Though it is obviously best for a man (or woman) to stop at once altogether, getting over the habit can take time and there may be setbacks. A man shouldn’t get discouraged. If he fails, he should try, try, again. If he trusts in God, and asks for help, he will conquer the habit, which does so much damage to a marriage, even if it occurs before marriage.

From a woman’s perspective, porn use, which is usually secretive (I know it can be a joint habit too), is a form of lying. She feels betrayed.

In a healthy society, porn is illegal. Right now, there’s a drug dealer on every corner. It’s a toxic environment and the social and spiritual costs are incalculably worse than the effects of global warming, which is the subject of so much alarm.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

You can’t talk about sex without getting into details; in this case, that’s where the devil is.

Yes, men need sex. But the number of men “needing” abnormal or repulsive practices is also getting larger as the years of our declining society click by. I am old enough to recall when standard-issue, old fashioned sex was the norm and men were most happy with it. Not any more.

I have no responsibility to allow a man to stick his sex organ in any place other than the normal place. I have no responsibility to mount a man (an inversion of nature). I have no responsibility to use objects (sex toys) before, during or after sex. And that’s just the mild stuff.

If people don’t understand these things, it is because they are degenerate and doing downhill fast. Truly normal, healthy, sensitive persons don’t want, need or even think of such things. Sex is supposed to be spontaneous and effortless; yes, it is.

How can we have a totally degenerate civilization and then think sex won’t be affected? I’ll bet there’s a whole battalion of “traditionalists” who have “needs” whose mere mention would curl your toes.

Paul C. writes:

Wives are also to blame, from a single man’s limited perspective.  Men and women today are so career oriented that one or the other could be too tired for reproduction.  I can’t imagine coming home from a usually hard day, attending to my children’s needs, and my wife’s nonsexual needs, and then having enough energy or desire to engage in marital relations, at least once reaching middle age.  I would opt (theoretically) for an embrace and some making out followed by sleep.

I agree women are the protectors of virtuousness for men and women.  They are the ones that used to push hands away.  Liberalism and false ideas (such as the Kinsey Report) happened in the fifties and sixties along with the pill and later abortion.  But more than those powerful forces, people stopped going to church and being faithful.  Sure one could attribute those evil forces as the cause of the loss of faith.

But they can’t be the cause.  The Romans were beset with immorality.  Yet even the dictator Julius Caesar knew immorality was destructive to Roman civilization.  The feminists cannot imagine a brutal male leader (typical for his day) wanting to stop adultery, which feminists no doubt like to confine to the current Western legal definition, having sex with someone not one’s spouse.  The feminists don’t want to consider the implications from “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”  They don’t want to think the prohibition includes masturbation and lusting after one another mentally.  Inexplicably, the feminists don’t want to accept that Jesus died horribly to save adulterers through the sacrament of confession (now reconciliation).

I disagree women are not sexual beings; they simply have to be.  Anyone familiar with women should know they are from the familiarity. And there is nothing wrong with it as St. Paul’s powerful First Corinthians indicates.  The extent relative to men is the only debatable issue.  I doubt St. Paul cared.

Laura writes:

Of course, women are sexual beings.

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