Porn Promises Power Without Humility and Love
Cliff had just completed his third sexual purity workshop when we first crossed paths. He was mystified as to why porn held him in its grip. But his marriage was in serious trouble, and he was highly motivated to get to the bottom of his addiction.
While discussing his response to a recent marital conflict, I asked him if porn was a sneaky way of getting back at his wife. Cliff smiled sheepishly. His honesty was disarming.
“I know it’s pretty immature,” he said. “But, using porn is my way of getting payback with my wife.” He went on to describe a pattern that many men will recognize. When he and his wife argued, if she overspent, or if she declined his sexual advances, he turned to porn in order to make her pay.
“It’s like when someone cuts me off in traffic,” he explained to me. “They may be driving up ahead and not even know what they’ve done, but I’m flipping them the middle finger. When I look at porn I’m giving my wife the middle finger.”
Tragically, despite attending three different purity workshops and having met with multiple counselors, no one had ever asked Cliff the payback question.
As our conversations continued, the focus shifted from porn to the much deeper issue of why he felt so powerless with his wife.
[bctt tweet=”“When I look at porn I’m giving my wife the middle finger.””]
For Cliff, porn was only a symptom of a deep wound and broken masculinity. This was his real problem.
Porn promises power over women another way. Images and scenes of women being humiliated, degraded, and violated for the pleasure of men are now commonplace online. What is this about?
Most often, it speaks to the clinical issue of tolerance, the idea that more and more of the “drug” is required to get the same effect. When more of the drug can’t bring about the desired effect, then it becomes necessary to change drugs. In the case of porn, changing drugs means seeking out scenes that are darker, edgier, and even more abusive.
I’ve spoken with numerous men who began their online porn career by “innocently” searching for naked celebrity pics, but eventually ended up compulsively searching for violent and repulsive material they never could have imagined wanting before.
A man may feel legitimate power in the presence of a woman. But true power is never power over a woman. A man seeks power over a woman because he is empty, needy, and broken, and believes he must use her to fill himself.
True power, the power that Jesus consistently demonstrated, is power under.
True power never devalues, dehumanizes, coerces, or controls. Instead, it serves, gives sacrificially, and acts for the good of the other.
Power under is the way of the cross. Power under is the way of humility. As men, we are called to live out our legitimate power with responsibility and humility.
Question: Have you ever thought of porn use as a way of exercising power over another such as a spouse or partner?
Adapted from Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire Beneath Sexual Struggle, Michael John Cusick, p. 16-24, Thomas Nelson (2012)