Editor's note: This is an updated version of the May 6 issue column.
Of all the reasons that pornography is harmful to men, perhaps you haven’t considered this one:
It conditions us to be cowards.
Porn creates a world in which men are insulated from hurt and the possibility of rejection. In the storyline of porn, men are cast in the role of “the most important person on the planet.” We are the center of the universe, and everything revolves around us.
Absolutely nothing is allowed into our experience that would challenge our will, play with our emotions or wound our ego. All the perfectly air-brushed and HD-quality citizens of our world are smiling, desiring and accepting, and there is certainly no chance for hurt, pain or rejection. We are given the illusion of intimacy without the risk of vulnerability.
The more a man grows accustomed to this, the more he will prefer safety to sanctity. Having lodged his heart many nights in the all-inclusive resort of the fantasy woman, he will cringe at the idea of an adventurous but dangerous expedition into real love. And when God calls that man to initiate authentic intimacy with a flesh-and-blood woman, the lustful coward will cower in fear, terrified of the sanctifying vulnerability that such a task requires.
Of course, this cowardice almost always goes hand-in-hand with more heinous vices.
The new HBO series Girls just debuted on April 15. The series is described as “a comic look at the assorted humiliations and rare triumphs of a group of girls in their early 20s.” Like a lamentable plurality of new shows, Girls not only follows the rollercoaster relationships and career paths of the four main characters, but their tragic sexual escapades as well. And their lives are certainly not examples to be followed.
Even so, in a recent New York Time’s interview with Jack Bruni, Lena Dunham, the 25-year old star, writer and producer of Girls, mused about the nature and exigencies of sex — and she recognized, not without disdain and a certain shocked disbelief, that pornography affects men and the way they relate to women. As Bruni wrote:
Other sexual complications, she said, are perhaps generational. She thinks young men today are influenced by pornography, which the Web has made more instantly and cheaply available.
“When I first started kissing boys,” she said, “I remember noticing things, certain behaviors, where I thought, ‘There’s no way you learned that anywhere but on YouPorn.com. There’s no way any teenage girl taught you and reinforced that behavior.'
She added that the instant connections a person can make on the Web, which also lets them survey a broad world of possibility, can create a restlessness and an even greater disinclination to commit:
“I knew a guy, and I couldn’t actually believe he was saying this, but he said, ‘Why would I want to eat in the same restaurant every night when the world’s a buffet?’ I thought people said that only on 'Entourage.'"
This relational cowardice, this disinclination to commit to the sacrament of marriage, and especially this reduction of women to selections on a “buffet” — this is utterly beneath the dignity of a man made in the image of God.
The greatest calling we have as men is to love like Jesus Christ. Christ loved his disciples “to the very last” — and in his commitment to love, he suffered; he was wounded; and in the end, he was murdered. True love involves a tremendous commitment to danger.
In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis put it this way:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
Yes, true love involves danger. Yet we serve a God who meets the risk of love with the reward of holiness — and glory! In his vulnerability, Christ accomplished our redemption. In his willingness to throw open the doors of his soul to our sin, he reconciled us. And because he was rejected and forsaken by his Father, he saved us.
I’ve known the safe and sordid pleasure of lust, and I’ve known the breathtaking and dangerous vulnerability of real love. There is no comparison. The worst day of heartbreaking, risk-taking love is better than the best day of self-protective, cowardly lust.
So, don’t do it, brothers. Don’t cower in front of a computer screen or hide in the corner of a porn store.
Anytime we follow Jesus in risking love, we become the men he wants us to be. We become like him. His love was never exercised in vain; neither will ours. Even unrequited love makes us holy, forms us into “men of whom the world is not worthy” and prepares us for that “far better country” and “the City that is prepared for us.”
So, as John Paul the Great reminded us: “Be Not Afraid.”
Throw open the doors of your soul to real love. Bare your heart.
And be MEN.
A former Baptist pastor who entered the Catholic Church at 2011’s Easter vigil,
Vaughn Kohler is currently a marketing and communications specialist
at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.
Find him online at VaughnKohler.com and contact him at writingvaughn@gmail.com.
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Great point. If I as a dude, I’d be really fired up at the end. Heck, I’m not a dude, and I was fired up anyway.
Beautifully said and a decidedly different take. Congratulations on joining the Church and thank you for sharing your gifts with us.
Beautifully well said! God Bless!
“Anytime we follow Jesus in risking love, we become the men he wants us to be. We become like him. His love was never exercised in vain; neither will ours. Even unrequited love makes us holy, forms us into “men of whom the world is not worthy” and prepares us for that “far better country” and “the City that is prepared for us.””
Great article all around, but that was the biggie for me. I’m still processing a recent disappointment in this area and that paragraph is exactly the type of encouragement I need right now.
Excellent.
First, a disclosure: I was raised a Catholic. While I am still a believer in the essentials of Catholicism, I study and believe in other Scriptures besides the Bible.
I find this article insightful and in the tradition of the expansive religious thinking that forms the better part of Catholic tradition. Pornography is dehumanizing; it deadens the soul. Christ was (is) “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Porn extinguishes that Light. Christ love can reignite it.
My response to ‘Why would I want to eat in the same restaurant every night when the world’s a buffet?’
Um…because in your mind it’s the greatest restaurant in the world (no matter if it’s just a dive)?
http://www.motherswatch.net/content/view/12/6/ - Part 1
http://www.motherswatch.net/content/view/15/6/ - Part 2
While I disagree with most of the things that Dr. Phil says, he nailed pornography use perfectly: the only thing that should be in your mind when you consider pornography is that here is someone’s son or daughter whose life has taken a horribly wrong turn.
Some people, who were cowardly for too long, or because of circumstances, are better off seeking, at times, some innocent diversion imo, avoiding pornography and things leading to pornography, and also avoiding romance and courtship that can lead to marriage, and one day, God willing, finding Christian burial.
Ok, maybe this is just nit-picky but did you have to put a URL to a major source of free porn in your article? I am sure that this will not help anyone struggling with/recovering from a porn addition.
A-men! It’s something I’ve long thought, but I’m glad a GUY said it.
Not so oddly, the potential for (/actuality of) the very same cowardice is true for women, too.
Being vulnerable to the intimacies of true love means that more often than not we don’t get what we think we must have.
Like celibacy, we are all called to sexual purity. Those married to singular devotion. Those single to uphold virginity until otherwise committed.
As soon as I make love about my needs I have lost it.
great article….gives me alot to be aware of as a father and an Godparent.
“The desensitization begins with lesson one in kindergarten. The children are being psychologically undressed in the classroom and exposed to explicit pornographic materials. The bishop-blessed Growing in Love has little children exploring the sexual body parts (penis, vagina, etc.), as well as the !@#$% and buttocks. Instead of activities for “reading readiness,” Growing in Love supplies “sodomy readiness” lessons by adding the !@#$% and buttocks to the sexual anatomy,....”
see motherswatch.net for proof of what is being taught to youth.
Contraception is a marital parasite. A marital parasite is anything that sucks the life out of your marriage. They are usually in the form of additions such as drugs, gambling, visual pornography or chemical pornography, which is better know as contraception. They promise pleasure but they are a disease. Contraception leads men to visual pornography.
Boy, you sure seem to know a lot about porn!
Strictly from a scientific view, I have read that porn is a “release” of urges for some men, that otherwise would go out and commit sexual crimes against the public. It seemed logical to me, though I cannot condone porn and those who produce it!
Contraception is a marital parasite. A marital parasite is anything that sucks the life out of your marriage. They are usually in the form of additions such as drugs, gambling, visual pornography or chemical pornography, which is better know as contraception. They promise pleasure but they are a disease. Visual and chemical pornography can not be seperated from each other.
The porn industry’s largest clientele are junior high and high school age boys. Yes, there are millions of dysfunctional adult men who are fools who waste their souls and money on porn. I can remember years ago back in the early 1960’s when many states and local governments outlawed pornography. ACLU and Leftist-activist judges overturned these laws the same way they rule against the people in favor of abortion and gay marriage. We Catholics need to VOTE OUT all liberals from office in November.
In clarification of Vance’s comment - the ACLU and the Leftist activist judges did not succeed in overturning all the anti-pornography laws, and the Supreme Court has supported them. The greater problem is that the authorities don’t bother to enforce them. It’s another of the tragedies of Rick Santorum’s departure from the presidential race. Moderate Mitt won’t lift a finger to protect the society from the destruction brought by pornography.
You may vote these liberals out of office, but what will you do with the curriculae such as “Growing In Love” that purposely desensitze and scandalize youth in parochial schools and CCD programs? See for yourself:
http://www.motherswatch.net/content/view/12/6/ - Part 1
http://www.motherswatch.net/content/view/15/6/ - Part 2
What will you do with the “liberal’ teachers in these schools who do not accept the teachings of Holy Mother Church in regard to abortion and the use of contraception?
Obviously correct Vaughn, but can’t help but think you are preaching to the choir. The man’s question about a buffet is cheap for sure, for buffet food is only meant to fill you for a time before making you sick. The man who asked that question doesn’t know, wasn’t taught, or doesn’t want the nutrition and strength a lasting relationship with a wife can give him. What have you said here to him see the danger of heartbreak is worth the risk?
Wow, 3 days and no comments… Wonder what the readers are looking at?
Enough snark. Having seen and enjoyed porn (along with my wife) after 28 years of great marriage, I don’t see any real world information here. Plus, like a glass of wine or a beer or a cigar while golfing, most things in moderation are not harmful. To call it cowardice to see how the other half (really, .005%) live is fun in a short spurts. Like birth control, porn is part of what 99% of most people, and probably Catholic men have looked at more than once.
I really appreciate this article and agree with all of it. “True love involves danger,” well said. As someone who got over his addiction of pornography for more than a year now, I’ve begun to tap in the movement against porn. One of most powerful successes I’ve experienced is asking 48 Catholic men to give me their thoughts on porn, and I published it on my blog here:
http://catholicfriedrice.blogspot.com/2012/04/48-mens-thoughts-on-porn.html
I found that men need to know they’re not alone in the struggle and in the fight. Let’s fight this together.
Yeah so what the heck do you do when your wife wont do it with you any more?
Porn may make people cowards but then again the same would hold true for any “fantasy” that places us in every story, movie, and book that we read or watch no matter the subject. This is the very reason why we get lost in a movie or a book…So we don’t have to live our lives for a moment. I’m just saying…
ds when the wife does not do it any more, niether do you. You should have selected a better wife.
Chivalry must be dead! You ask what to do when your wife will not, she’s turned off by your lack of manliness and manners.
Porn is poison, so the man who says ‘Why would I want to eat in the same restaurant every night when the world’s a buffet?’ is actually serving himself a plate of sugar spiced arsenic. Or better yet, heroin but much much more addictive than heroin or cocaine, I agree “stay away” no “run run far away”
Poetry is more powerful than biochemistry. No doubt.
I call “BullXXXX!”
All right, perhaps that’s a bit harsh, so allow me to amend that to “Nonsense!”
No doubt Mr. Kohler believes the same about video games. Here, men and women (just as it is both men and women who watch porn), can sit in the comfort and safety of their living room and inflict grievous bodily harm on all manner ‘enemies’ of America. They can do so without risk or emotional cost to themselves. So video games are for cowards.
Say, and that probably works for board games too. Why risk real money when you can play Monopoly. Or that matter risk your life, just play Risk instead. Board Games are for cowards.
I wonder, would that then apply to playing with toy soldiers? Watching war movies? That’s it—Movies are for cowards.
Why put in the time and energy or the commitment, both physical and emotional, to really train and compete in a Martial Way like karate or Judo ... Just watch the Karate Kid instead.
What’s that? The Karate Kid is just a movie? A story told for our amusement?
So are video games.
So is porn.
“...this is utterly beneath the dignity of a man made in the image of God”
No, what is utterly beneath the dignity of man is not sex, but the killing and torture of the innocent.
I wonder where Mr. Kohler stands on the war in Iraq. The use of torture on prisoners held in our custody? Unfortunately, his LinkedIn and FB pages do not say. Perhaps he is against the war, but I doubt it.
Porn is fantasy. Nothing more. How “real” it becomes depends entirely upon how much emotional energy the viewer themselves invest in it.
It is strange that porn in particular, and sex in general, is shunned, castigated and otherwise deemed to be outside the confines of sanctified marriage, beneath the dignity of man. And yet, war is held up as necessary, legal and honorable. Almost every Church has a doctrine of “Just War.”
Yes, service in the military can be honorable, but I have found very few combat veterans who praise the glories of war. Most of them would rather make love to a beautiful woman than win another medal on a god-forsaken battlefield. Yes, ‘god forsaken’ for war is not natural. It is not instinctual. It is not sacred.
“It is tempting to close one’s eyes to history and instead to speculate about the roots of war in some possible animal instinct: as if, like the tiger, we still had to kill to live, or, like the Robin Redbreast, to defend a nesting territory. But war, organized war, is not a human instinct. It is a highly planned and cooperative form of theft.”—Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent Of Man.
Or, as H.G. Wells once wrote: “We revile Dr. Moreau for attempting to turn beasts into men, and yet we routinely honor politicians and generals for turning men into beasts.” Why indeed ....
But I digress…..
Porn is just that—a fantasy.
Those who cannot separate reality from fantasy are in for a rough ride along the road of life.
Just because I watch Star Wars and have a light saber, I am not a Jedi Knight.
Just because I watch porn I am not a World Class Lover able to wilt women with a mere glance or cause orgasms with a simple touch. Nor do I think women objects bent only on my pleasure. Indeed, being a part of a woman’s achievement of pleasured is, in and of itself, a true pleasure to be savored and enjoyed with her.
I have found that no two women are alike. Each must be approached as the individual that they are.
There is also this rather profound statement from Leonardo Da Vinci: “When I make love to my wife, I am making lover to every woman in the world.”
I do like the sentiment, but I do not agree, for I find each woman to be a unique flower that is to be savored and enjoyed, not as a bee does, but as an equal partner in a quest for understanding and insight into the human soul.
This borders on the area of the Vajrayana - the lightning path to heaven or hell.
But that’s another story.
Dear God, please create within us men clean hearts. May I rather go without sex forever, than cheat on my wife by lusting after another woman. Teach me Lord to be strong. Satan your power is great, but God’s is greater Jesus help us. Holy Spirit help us. St Joseph help us.
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