Pornography's Devastating Effects on Marriage
Sometimes I hear someone say that men think about sex every 30 seconds, or some such number. Ridiculous. Life is broad, complicated, and demanding.
My friend, outstanding sex researcher, writer, and expert Barry McCarthy, PhD, spreads the message broad and wide that we shouldn't expect every sexual encounter to be great. In a recent communication, he reminded me, "Emphasize the crucial importance of positive, realistic sexual expectations: The most important being that less than 50% of sexual encounters among happily married, sexually functional couples have outcomes that are mutually satisfying, and 5-15% of sexual encounters in marriage are dissatisfying or dysfunctional."
I wonder how the unrealistic expectations created by porn affects those numbers. It leads to anticipations that can never be fulfilled in real life.
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I'm aware that there are very frustrated husbands and very frustrated wives that are angry because they feel that their spouses are sexually inhibited, or seemingly don't care whether lovemaking occurs or not in their marriage. As part of completion of my PhD in sexology, I am developing a weekend workshop for Christian married couples that will have one goal – helping couples develop a sexual life more fulfilling to each of them. Yet, no matter how good the weekend workshop will be (ahem, it's already very good), it will not make every day a great day of sexual fulfillment.
As a proponent of fulfilling sex in Christian marriages, I shout from the rooftops that porn is not the answer to achieving that goal. It creates impossible expectations that lead to misery.
If a couple pursues porn, they will drift emotionally from their partners into an imaginary world that will never exist in reality. They eventually will reach the point where their lovemaking relies on fantasy and not at all on intimacy between them.
If you are both into porn in your marriage, please believe me when I say that my experience with thousands of couples demonstrates that you will develop problems with your intimacy, self-esteem, and fulfillment as a couple. Stop now. Save your future by rescuing your present.
If one of you is into porn and the other doesn't know, don't think that it isn't hurting your marriage. Every exposure to porn immerses you into a fantasy world that erodes the reality you could have together. It will change you; maybe it has already. Think you can keep it a secret? Get real. When your spouse discovers, he or she will very likely feel betrayed, rejected, unattractive, and abandoned.
Even before your spouse discovers it, you are programming your mind in a manner that leads inevitably to a lack of appreciation of and attraction to your mate.
If one of you is into porn and the other does know, the spouse not into porn should take the lead in demanding the removal of porn opportunities altogether. Get rid of the Internet, just as you would remove an addict's access to alcohol. Check up on missing time and missing money. Seek out a Celebrate Recovery group in your area (you can find locations online).
This article was originally posted here.
