Is Pornography Really Just Adult Entertainment?

There was a time when porn was hidden in seedy little “adult bookstores.” No one (well, almost no one) would ever risk getting caught going in or coming out of one of them. There were also adult movie houses, but they were never the “in” place to be. When porn was sent through the mail, it arrived in a plain brown wrapper. The nature of the distribution of porn cast a dark shadow on it. Sure, there was a lot of it and lots of people figured out how to obtain it, but no one admitted they looked at porn.

Today porn is a click away. It is joked about in sitcoms broadcast during TV’s “family hour.” Strip clubs are called “gentlemen’s entertainment” establishments. Men tell me in the counseling room that while they would never go into a place that sold or showed porn, they have given in to the temptation to look at porn in the privacy of their homes, on their own personal devices. Porn is here to stay, and for one major reason: It is big business. Where there is money, people find a way. So today we have easy accessibility to porn and a culture that is convincing us that it is harmless. But porn is anything but harmless!

What I see as a marriage counselor is that porn wrecks lives and destroys marriages. For many, it becomes an addiction. Porn addicts spend lots of hours and lots of dollars on it. The truth is that every man is vulnerable to porn; if we don’t admit that, then our vulnerability increases that much more. If I believed, which I don’t, that I was not vulnerable to porn, I could leave the door open and porn could somehow find its way in. Because I admit that I am vulnerable, I know I have to shut the door to porn. So do you. It is destructive if you are single and if you are married. It objectifies women and takes us far away from God’s beautiful plan for sex in marriage.

In 7 Secrets to an Awesome Marriage, you will learn about how to have the best sex ever—and it has nothing to do with porn!