Why I Love Porn

I’ve read lots of articles on why people hate porn. But if everybody hated porn, all the articles wouldn’t be warranted. The problem is that most of the people saying they hate porn, also love it. That’s me. At one point in my life I loved porn more than I loved anything. That’s crazy to write because I know how absolutely true it is. I loved porn more than my future wife, more than my friends, more than my family, more than anything I owned, and more than God. The truth is, there’s still a piece of me that loves porn, and I know it’s there.

Every now and then an old image pops into my head from a mental filing cabinet that I thought was destroyed in the fire of my salvation. The image is foggy like a distant memory, but explicit enough to bring me to a place where I wish there was more of her. This happens at the most inopportune times, and is frequent enough to be familiar. Guided by the Spirit, I have practices that I’ve put in place to help me move on to more productive behaviors and escape the moral, adulterous failure of giving into the desire of entertaining that mysterious, alluring woman whom I've never met but know as intimately as I know anyone.

Why I Love Porn

Porn is an escape. It is a door that leads out of life’s routine. Porn is a way out of hard work, screaming kids, tedious chores, difficult conversations, and the diligent pursuit that is necessary to make a marriage work. I heard someone say “life is hard and then you die.” Porn, on the other hand, is an easy way out. When we need a way out from life’s difficulties, porn says “this is the way.”

Porn is accessible. It’s easy to find, and sometimes it even finds us at our most vulnerable moments. Porn doesn’t require you to do the dishes, take out the trash, take the kids to school, or even cuddle. Porn says, “I’m here for you to do with me as you please. Use me for your enjoyment and I won’t ask anything of you.” Porn is not an experience; it is a catalogue of experiences that otherwise would not be available to the normal person. It always offers something crazier, more dangerous, more scandalous, and more disgusting for you to enjoy.

Porn feels good. Sex feels good. Explicit, out-of-bounds, naughty sex feels better. Why? Because when you know you are doing something that you shouldn’t, adrenaline bleeds into your body. Your heart races, your pupils dilate, and your body responds with heightened senses. Your five senses open up wide, allowing you to experience more. So the pleasure that sex offers is heightened, too. It is all of the pleasure of an extramarital affair, because that’s what it is.

Porn is anonymous. It is sex with a stranger, and feels as though there are no strings attached and no victims. No fear of pregnancy or STDs. It seems that porn allows one to escape the consequences of an extramarital affair. You don’t have to care for someone’s heart or feelings. You can strip away their flesh from their personhood for your enjoyment at seemingly no cost and no one has to know—not even the object of your orgasm.

The Problem With Porn

Porn is an escape, but everything is still waiting on you. And now the difficulties of life are paired with the guilt and shame from acting out with porn. You didn’t escape anything. You complicated life’s problems. You made them more difficult for yourself. Had you prayed, asked the Holy Spirit for help, doubled down on commitment, leaned on community, and worked through the challenges that faced you, they would have been easier without porn. Porn isn’t a way out; it’s like a revolving door that keeps putting you back in the room with your problems. Only, now they are bigger.

Porn is accessible, but it is expensive. It costs you your humanity, your dignity, your confidence, your joy, your intimacy with Jesus, and oneness with your spouse (present or future, whether you know them yet or not). Every single time you look at porn, you pay this price. Porn has never made anyone kinder, more confident, more joyful, closer to Jesus, or more one with their spouse. You’ve taken a very intentional step away from all of those things and sooner or later they will be gone altogether. That’s really, really expensive. Porn is never worth what it costs. It is a slippery slope of addiction leading to a dark place.

Porn feels good, but so does heroin. If a momentary feeling of pleasure is ultimate to you, porn makes sense. So do heroin, bank robberies, and illegal sex. However, a life of oneness, free from shame, is much better than five minutes of erotic pleasure. Porn is not as good as what God has for you. It makes you its slave, trading a life of intimacy for a few minutes of pleasure. After you have gone over the fence to take pleasure, it is very difficult to enjoy it by entering through the gate. Porn offers you pleasure outside of marriage, but then that pleasure inside your marriage becomes less available, every time. Porn takes away more pleasure than it offers. The porn addict cannot experience oneness with their spouse.

Porn is anonymous, until it’s not. Porn is sex with a stranger AND sex with the single most familiar person to you at the same time. Porn is sex with yourself. It is an enslaving addiction and the only way to start to get free from it is to stand up, raise your hand and say “I’m addicted to pornography.” That is the first step. The irony is that the anonymous sex you explored won’t let you go until others know about it. There’s nothing anonymous about that, unless you plan to die in anonymity and addiction. Satan would love that.

The truth is I love porn, but I know how much porn hates me. Porn hates my children and wants to see our relationship die. Porn hates my marriage and desires to see it end. Porn hates my ministry and wants to make it ineffective or worse, use it to further the work of Satan. I love porn, but it hates me. Porn is a terrible lover who has taken infinitely more from me than she could give. I love porn, but I know it’s not worth the cost. Today I am free and I loathe it much, much more than I love it.

–JP