A Realistic Guide to Sexual Peace

Here's one of my posts to a lady dealing with a husband and his porn habit...

Two things are certain:

(1) pornography is an EXTREMELY addictive euphoric drug that is nowadays! free to obtain, easy to administer, and compulsively hidden due to shame. And that's the thing a guy hates about it: he's not in control, he's an addict to a form of pleasure, that sometimes seems so good and fascinating, and then appears ugly and wrong. We get very confused over this. We look to the churches and preachers for answers, but most of them don't talk about it... because they themselves are bound with the same habit.. look it up.This could be at the root of your husbands rejection of Christianity; he doesn't see an answer there for his situation.

The second thing that is certain: (2) When your husband tells you that "its not about you", or him being dissatisfied with you, he is being honest with you. (Case in point: Christy Brinkley.) Masturbation and, sometimes pornography, were his companion long before he was blessed to find a wife. So, these habits are not a negative reaction to his wife. Its just that hetero guys develop a fascination with women and sex that overwhelms them. The pleasure, excitement and curiosity about these things is endless. A guy has 40 times the testosterone (source of sexual arousal) of a female. He is deluged with it 2 times, once as a fetus!, then when he hits puberty. The male mind and body are transformed by this from birth on. We are far more visually oriented than women. If you think about it, this explains a lot. His sexual interests sometimes go beyond what he wishes to share with someone else. Its personal.

I know this sounds like I'm excusing bad behavior, but I'm just trying to lay out the groundwork for why things are the way they are. Guys think about sex every day, usually several times and wouldn't mind having sex if it was convenient about 8 times a week (one figure that i've read), lets say when they're in their twenties. That usually doesn't happen, so they make up the difference, with masturbation. (In other words, If a guy has sex that often he normally won't be very interested in porn or masturbation.) Part of this sex drive is due to men's bodies which are constantly producing new sperm and the body puts pressure on us, while we're young especially, to ejaculate, sorry, TMI. If we don't do so, we have night dreams, sometimes they seem like nightmares. (Apparently, this is God's way to cause regular ejaculations, if we are unwilling or unable to cooperate with the system, so as to provide a fresh, healthy sperm count) These experiences can be very disturbing in early adolescence.

As you may know, the Bible never condemns masturbation. The closest it comes to talking about it is a mention in Leviticus and Deuteronomy to what is likely nocturnal emission, telling the man to wash all his body and clothes so he could go to temple, and not be ceremonially unclean.Most church people condemn it though, for two reasons: their own feelings of false guilt and shame AND because it is ordinarily conducted by means of erotic thoughts or imagery, at least that is the male modus operandi. So, the church, and society at large, have taken to pronouncing a normal human behavior as being immoral, whereas there is no law of God against it. ("Sin is the transgression of the Law" 1 John 3:4)

Next, they condemn men for having a visual interest in attractive women or desiring and thinking about having sex. This too is absurd. God made men to want to have sex, and to enjoy and sexually desire women that they find attractive: Case in point: Song of Solomon. God said when He created sex/male/female: "It is very good". SEX is VERY GOOD. Most people would not argue that point. So, thinking about it isn't wrong, as long as you are not thinking about committing a sexual crime.

Many wives would like to think that she is able to absorb all of a man's sexual interests and fantasies, but this is rarely the case, nor should it be. She has his devotion in marriage, but not over his mind. Each person is entitled to their own thoughts and imaginations.The reason ladies feel threatened by this, is because their primary drive is relational, so for them to get to the point where they are interested in thoughts about sex with another person, they are thinking in terms of desiring that relationship. Guys have no interest in the relationship, just to absorb the pleasure of beauty and sexual relations.. yes, we're crude from women's viewpoint. Some guys don't regulate this and end up, given the opportunity, making the mistake of adultery. This mistake doesn't make the entire behavior pattern wrong.God made the fruit of the garden "pleasant to the eye". Its not a sin to enjoy what is pleasant to the eye unless it causes you to disobey God in some other way: eating a forbidden fruit, coveting another man's wife.

Coveting another man's wife is NOT what is happening with pornography or erotica. It is a stimulus to sexual arousal in general, or to a fantasy only, with no intent to commit adultery, just to have a good orgasm, that's all. IN MY OPINION:The PROBLEM is that a guy allows pornography to take over his fantasy life, to give him the ability to orgasm quickly, due to its graphic content and variety. This acclimates his mind to the wrong thing. (IN other words, guys with a porn addiction, don't really have a porn problem, they have a masturbation habit that has been co-opted by pornography.) Once he realizes that his masturbation habit is normal human behavior, (95% of men, 60-75% of women married, unmarried, young or old, at varying frequencies masturbate; plenty of surveys document this) and that this NORMAL behavior,which CAN be used to relieve sexual pressure, need not be driven by pornography, he can start to be free. Its the shame and secrecy and false guilt that are a part of causing the "addiction".

(Your situation is unique in that you are taking steps to help him, he wants help but not sure what kind and it seems like you wouldn't be able to bring in a third party, so here are my suggestions:)If your husband can accept that masturbation is not sinful, but normal, and do it as he feels is needed without pornography, then he will have taken control over his masturbation pattern, as to how and when. Once he feels like he's in control and he's not ashamed, then the bulk of the "forbidden fruit" aspect of this addiction is broken. This causes the adrenaline kick to be diminished, the forbidden thing is no longer that fascinating. It takes less stimulation for him to reach the threshhold. More sex is always good too. ( A lot of readers here absolutely reject what I just wrote, but its my story of recovery)This may sound inappropriate of me, but it is important for him to be looking at you , at your face, when he climaxes, for that will re-inforce his desire to have more marital sex. (Biological fact)

Occasionally, he may have a sexual fantasy or curiosity cross his mind that he might pursue. Once the two of you can open up more about these things, perhaps you can share more of these personal fantasies with each other, without feeling that you've done something wrong or that you aren't being fulfilled with your current relationship. We're just in this big bowlful of sexuality called the humanity and the world, and girls as well as guys take an interest in other things in the bowl besides their immediate friend/lover. If you can share these most intimate things with your friend, you can actually become closer friends than you were before.

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A short history of masturbation, the sex drive, their purpose.

I think you can understand why he didn't talk about pornography and masturbation before you got married. He was too embarassed. Most guys feel a lot of shame and guilt over masturbation. Part of this is caused by our Western society which taught that mastubation was physically and pscyhologically harmful and huge efforts were made to overcome this "deadly habit", not to mention to shame the offenders. And, even though this mindset hasn't been publically promoted for 50 years or so, society as a whole, other guys, parents, ministers have continued to promote a shame and stigma on anyone doing this. The irony is of course, that over 90% of men masturbate, even when surveyed in the late 40's when the shaming of it was still common.

The medical reason for circumcising infant boys was primarily done to inhibit the masturbation, but it was promoted as for good hygiene, as a cover. All of that is to say this: Guys and girls discover masturbation before they marry. Girls usually start masturbating earlier than boys, however the percentage of girls who do so, and the frequency they have is never as high as that among boys. By the time boys are 15, close to 100% of boys have produced their own orgasm. Once they begin, they usually never quit entirely throughout their lifetimes. Its considered normal behavior by those who study sexual health and behavior. By the way, the failure rate of those who try to stop is nearly 100%. (Most of this information is available at websites such ashealthystrokes.com ) The average young man will have normally masturbated to orgasm well over a thousand times before he has sex with a partner. Some where along the way, pornography enters the situation. It has one primary purpose: to arouse sexual desire and imagination for either masturbation or intercourse. If you consider for a moment the nearly non-existence of visual erotica marketed to women, and the overwhelming flood of the same that is geared to men, you'll get some idea of the extreme difference between men and women in their relative interests in the visual elements of sexuality.

I'm not a psychologist, but it seems to me that there is a fundamental difference here of how the sexual response operates in men and women that is the "elephant in the room". Yes, pornography exploits some women, but it exploits men far more, by making merchandise of their sexual chemistry.Of course, there is such a thing as excessive or indecent behavior, and there is such a thing as normal curiosity and upon discovering the intense pleasure resulting therefrom, developing a habit to repeat the rewarded behavior.

At the same time, our mind and body tells us that this is "wrong". What is wrong about it is that it, sexual desire and arousal, is not an end in itself but is a force that is intended to drive the young man, to seek a wife. This in turn will encourgage him to seek gainful employment, develop his talents, improve his physique etc, so as to attract the mate he would prefer.There's a theory that in male/female relations, guys focus more on the sex than the relationship, and girls focus more on the relationship than the sex. Each one is "motivated" to develop the element which is not their "drive" so as to get what they are more interested in. Guys do care about their wives. Ladies do want to have sex with their husbands. But this diametrical confluence is what helps join the two into one, and develop that which is good in each, a healthier relationship and a satisfying sex life.


Originally posted here:
http://xxxchurch.com/gethelp/spouses/index/blog/iveaskedwhyporntoo.html#comment-38896555