Conservative Allie Beth Stuckey says porn weakens men—and gets called a feminist?

Why Christians are responsible for healing the gender divide

Conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey posted a video with a message for men: porn weakens you, and women need you to be strong.

Men got mad. Women got mad that men got mad. Some accused the angry men of being porn addicts. Those men got mad about that.

Everyone’s mad. Just the internet doing what it does best.

But if you’d just read a transcript of Allie’s message without any other context of who is mad and why, you’d probably agree with it. Porn does weaken men. We do need strong men. So why did men get mad?

Most of these men heard it as nagging. Cross-gender criticism rarely goes well. When men criticize women as a group, women bristle. When women criticize men as a group, men get defensive. It’s predictable.

For example, Will Noland posted about how women should help men overcome porn addiction—women didn’t receive that well either.

It makes sense that cross-gender criticism doesn’t work well. Men and women have been divided since the Fall of humanity. Adam blamed Eve for his sin. Enmity entered the relationship between man and woman, and that divide still exists. But Christians have a special responsibility to recognize the divide between men and women so we can work to heal it.

It’s more urgent now than ever. The gender divide is being exploited. In the 2024 election, the Harris campaign ran an ad encouraging women to vote against their husbands and hide it from them. Political parties are dividing along gender lines, and we can’t let that happen. We cannot let our nation split men against women—that’s an attack on the family, which is an attack on human civilization itself.

So what do we do?

When my wife and I fight—even when she legitimately wrongs me—I’ve learned that getting mad and fighting back only makes things worse. She gets more mad, then I get more mad, and it’s a vicious cycle. We’re both so focused on the wrong done to us that neither of us can reflect on ourselves.

But when she wrongs me and I don’t retaliate, she apologizes almost immediately. Because we love each other, and she doesn’t want to hurt me. That is why our Lord told us to turn the other cheek: it’s easier for someone to reflect on their sin when they don’t feel accused.

Men and women need to apply this wisdom to our broader conversations. Men, refrain from criticizing women as a whole. Women, refrain from criticizing men broadly. And when you must address something, do it with love and acknowledgment of the good.

(Which, if we’re being honest, is exactly what Allie did.)

However, criticism is inevitable. When men do criticize women and women do criticize men, we both need to respond with grace and a willingness to forgive.

That grace will make it easier for that person to repent if they’re wrong. It’s also going to be easier for us to hear the truth if they’re right.

That’s the takeaway from this whole Allie Beth Stuckey controversy. Don’t be so quick to take offense and hit back, especially in gender conversations. That divide is only going to deepen if we let it. And when that divide deepens, society falls apart.

We need each other. Men need women. Women need men. And we all need to stop letting our differences become ammunition for outrage.

The algorithm wants us angry. The powerful want us divided.

Christ wants us to love one another.

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