Porn is not a lust problem

What the masculinity influencers get wrong

Another day, another post about how wives need to have more sex with their husbands.

This opinion is becoming more common.

The advice goes something like: If men have more sex, they will use porn less, so wives need to have sex with their husbands more often.

Now, I’m certainly a proponent of sex within marriage. But “more sex” won’t solve the pornography problem.

Because pornography isn’t a lust problem. It’s a gluttony problem.

How Dante saw lust

In Dante’s cosmology, lust is given the lowest punishment in Hell and Purgatory. In the lust circle of Hell, though they remain damned, Dante has sympathy for two of the souls there—Paolo and Francesca.

Once more I turned around to them and said:
“Francesca, I see tears upon your face.
From sympathy my own tears have been shed.
Inferno, Canto V

Francesca was married to Paolo’s brother, and the two began an affair. She desired him the way a wife desires a husband, but the desire was adulterous and corrupted. But that is the important distinction between adultery and pornography. Paolo and Francesca wanted each other. Lust begins with a desire for a person that eventually becomes corrupted into sin.

Pornography doesn’t work like that.

Pornography is not about a person

Pornography images of people, but the desire is for the image not the person. Pornography is about gorging yourself on visual stimulation. It’s sense-driven, just like the sin of gluttony.

Your natural desire to procreate motivates you toward a person, and that desire is corrupted by lust.

Pornography is a deeper corruption. It removes the other person from sex entirely. It is just a desire for visual stimulation. Like a glutton who gorges on food to taste it, the pornography user gorges on images. And like gluttony, it escalates. You seek more and more fantastical images as you go.

That’s why lust is actually the lowest of the deadly sins. There’s an element of good in it—you want the other person, even if you want them in a disordered way. But pornography strips even that away. It’s not about the person at all. It’s just stimulation to your brain.

Why this matters practically

When you misdiagnose pornography as lust, you think marriage will fix it. But it won’t.

I hear young men say this all the time. They assume marriage will fix their porn addiction. But there are plenty of married people with porn addictions, and it’s not just because their spouse isn’t sleeping with them enough.

A woman just cannot be as available as pornography is. It’s physically impossible. She can’t compete with on-demand access.

More sex with your wife isn’t going to curb pornography use. Just like if you tend to gorge yourself on sugary foods, eating more healthy food won’t remove the desire to gorge on junk. Gorging yourself on healthy food doesn’t fix the gluttony, it just redirects it.

The same is true here. Even if the unhealthy thing is gone, taking out your gluttonous desire for sexual pleasure on your wife doesn’t help. That’s just replacing one problem with another.

What actually works

I have two friends who run a group called The Freedom Group. They help men overcome pornography addiction by eliminating the craving for pornography. And none of those triggers are purely a desire for sex. They’re things like: Hunger, anger, loneliness, tiredness, etc.

Rejection from your spouse might be a trigger, but you have to learn how to deal with that. Because you can’t wait for another person to be perfect to fix yourself. Your wife will reject you sometimes. You can’t rely on her always having sex with you to stop pornography use; that’s absurd.

They also look for the root of the desire. What are you looking for when you seek out pornography? Once you know the answer to that question, you can find a way to fulfill that desire without pornography.

The only way a man can actually overcome porn use is if he reduces the craving altogether. Just like a glutton can’t get rid of his gluttony by eating tons of healthy food, you can’t satisfy this craving by redirecting it. You have to eliminate it at the source.

Stop blaming external factors

I think a lot of men want an external reason to blame for their porn use. But really, it’s an internal issue.

The solution isn’t more sex. It’s addressing the root cause: sensuality and the compulsive craving for visual stimulation.

If you’re struggling with pornography, recognize where it actually comes from. Stop waiting for your circumstances to change or for someone else to save you.