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A couple of weeks ago, I said, “I shy away from calling porn use an addiction, but if it’s making a mess of your marriage, hurting your job performance, or destroying your life, it needs to be treated.”
I got some pushback on that, including someone saying, “That’s insulting to the other spouse. It ruins marriages.“
I agree it ruins and sometimes ends marriages. I am extremely opposed to porn. I’ve ranted about it often, but when I looked, I found I’d not done that on this blog. So let me fix that.
To my statement, I see ‘addiction’ as a clinical term with a specific meaning. And porn use does not hit that in my experience. One issue with calling it an addiction is I’ve heard men use that term as an excuse for not getting free. It bothers me that many see it as okay for a man to ‘struggle’ with porn for years. Would we tell a wife to put up with a husband who ‘struggled’ with having affairs for years? My other issue is some folks who call it this use pseudoscience and worse to make it that. Lies and panic won’t help anyone get free of porn.
All that said, if you want to call it an addiction, go for it. Regardless of what we call it, it’s sin, it’s infidelity, and it should be treated as both. Yes, I said it’s infidelity. Seeking sexual arousal from someone or something other than your spouse is infidelity. Many Christians are not willing to go that far, but based on what Jesus said, this is how God sees it.
The other issue is the growing number of Christian couples who use porn as foreplay. One of them may feel guilty and may be doing it for their spouse, but many of them think it’s okay as long as they do it together. When Jesus spoke about lusting after other women, He didn’t say it was okay if your wife was there with you, also lusting.
I feel like this is a losing battle. More and more Christians view porn regularly, including forty percent of women. And while some see it as a sin and would like to stop, a growing number are okay with it, at least in their own mind. I see it as one of the greatest crises being faced not just by marriages, but also by the church.
All of you suffering because of porn have my prayers. There is help, but a lot of those involved in porn don’t really want to stop. Sometimes it takes an ultimatum. And sometimes even that doesn’t do it.
For those who do want help, I highly recommend Be Broken.
~ This is Paul, and porn is not Doing Marriage Well.
Image Credits: First image © Paul H Byerly created with Nano Banana 2 Second image © Paul H Byerly
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