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Joe Coleman's avatar

That logic is a little too close to the "priests touch children because they're celibate, so celibacy is the problem" line of thinking for my liking. "If my wife was hotter and more open to my sexual whims, I wouldn't watch porn." I can't imagine any man with a shred of respect for his wife would say that to her

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Patrick Neve's avatar

It’s very similar

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Herod’s Herald's avatar

“The solution to porn addiction is to blame your wife” — “masculinity” influencers

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John Losoya's avatar

As a recovered sex lust porn addict, I can totally agree with your assessment. It's right on the money. Pope John Paul's Love and Responsibility provides much-needed light on the subject.

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John Losoya's avatar

"Pornography is about gorging yourself on visual stimulation." I'd would go a bit deeper and suggest that the addiction is more about the neurochemistry produced by the interaction with images...dopamine, adrenaline, epinephrine, serotonin, etc. The same chemicals are produced by real sex and other process addictions like gambling.

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Patrick Neve's avatar

Thanks!

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Vita Plena's avatar

This is legitimately a very insightful article. From my experience of dealing with this addiction, I had never thought of it this way, but it’s absolutely more accurate to call it gluttony rather than lust. Thank you very much for sharing this; it helps more than you know!

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Patrick Neve's avatar

Thank you that means a lot!

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Eric S's avatar

Porn is an “I want something for nothing” problem.

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Lumen Edl's avatar

I think you are very much on point here. The issue with porn is really: 'being able to have anything you want, at any time you crave it, without consequences'. I've meditated quite a lot on King David and his sin with married woman Bathsheba in recent weeks. It was not that David didn't have the opportunity to sleep with a woman. He was polygamous and had plenty of women to choose from. Heck, he could even add any other woman in the kingdom to his harem as long as she was not married! But he wanted to have something (I'd rather say something than someone at this point in the story) that he was not allowed to have: sex with a married woman. But - and that brings us back to the issue of pornography - at this point in his life he thought he could have anything because he was God's chosen King and terribly successful. His sin was actually not lust, vut the sins of presumption, pride and avarice. He succumbed to the same temptation Satan presented to Christ when he told Him: 'You can have all this if you fall down and worship me.' (I actually wrote a short story about this, also highlighting the David parallel: https://biblicaltales.wordpress.com/2025/11/08/the-temptation-of-the-son-of-god/ ). If we want to battle porn addiction, we have to take all these aspects into account.

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poetryveen's avatar

this is so true. as hard as it may be to overcome, especially after becoming so normalised, the blame needs to be taken off the wife. a relationship can overcome this if a man is willing to give it up from the source, and if the woman is willing to support him emotionally. it has nothing to do with their sex life, and everything to do with controlling the desire.

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Acetic Romantic's avatar

I think this is just a petty war against male sex drive. Once they got the porn they'll go for our imaginations, as long as it's still possible for the guy to madturbate between multi-month streaks of no sex they will never be happy. Men will have to qear chastity belts and only take them off when their dumb wife wants to do kinky femdom spaghetti role play.

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Patrick Neve's avatar

You seem troubled

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Acetic Romantic's avatar

Defend your views coward.

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Dronom!'s avatar

The opposite is true. Porn neuters a man's ability to channel his sex drive into force, power, and productivity.

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Crimson's avatar

Anyone that says "porn" instead of pornography is suspect.

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Origen Adamantius's avatar

I would disagree with ‘wanting someone else’ automatically being a good thing. Prostitution, “one-night stands,” and ghosting spring to mind as indulgences that disprove the universal goodness that such a 'want' is supposed to signify.

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mike g's avatar
5dEdited

Good thoughts here. Also: in some cases, it arises out of a disordered desire to control/own/use/dominate/take, etc. Libido Dominandi, if I'm not mistaken.

That's also a good Latin phrase for JD Vance's next attempt to justify administration policies with Aquinas.

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