Pornography can steal a man’s sex drive.
We’re talking this week about women with the higher sex drive in marriage. On Monday and Tuesday we were looking at women with a high sex drive when there’s nothing wrong with him. After all, sometimes the wife has the higher libido simply because he’s on the lower end of normal and she’s on the higher end!
Increasingly what’s happening, though, is that men have a low sex drive because something is stealing it. And the number one culprit is pornography.
So I’d like to switch gears today, for Wifey Wednesday, and look at how porn can steal a guy’s libido, and what you can do about it.
Some links below are affiliate links.
What can cause a man’s low libido? I deal with all the reasons your husband may not want to make love here, but in general, they are:
- Stress
- Emotional or Sexual Issues (like attachment disorder, homosexuality, etc.)
- Medical Conditions or medications
- Relationship Issues
- Pornography
If you look back on studies from the 1970s and 1980s, about 15% of women in marriages had the higher sex drives. Today it’s around 30%.
So why has it doubled? Well, if you look at that list, only one thing has significantly changed, and that’s access to internet pornography.
If you have a higher sex drive than your husband, it absolutely does not mean that he’s using porn. But if he honestly never wants sex, and if he isn’t overweight, depressed, or on medications, I’d certainly look into it. I don’t mean a guy who just has a lower sex drive than you, as J explained in her post on high drive wives on Monday. I mean a guy who truly never wants to make love. That’s just not normal, it’s a major red flag in marriage, and what I’ve seen, over and over again, is that porn is the culprit.
I’ve actually written quite a lot about pornography on this blog, because it’s one of the most common questions I get. In fact, just this morning I woke up to this comment on the blog:
[This is] so much like what I experienced for so many years – feelings of rejection from my husband not wanting me physically even after stopping porn several times over the years of our marriage, and hundreds of nights spent crying myself to sleep. And yes, the frustration of your own sexual needs not being met! Eventually he always went back to porn, and I always went back to ignoring it and just staying distant from him…
Here’s another recent one:
I also was so confused on our honeymoon when my new husband seemed to have little interest in me! I kept waiting for the whole “newlywed stage” to happen and it never did. Lingerie means little to him still. Sex has been the one ongoing marriage issue that we have had. Sometimes I feel like it was all a waste, my whole twenties were spent begging for and waiting for my husband to show an interest in me. Ultimately I found out porn was an issue for my husband, he has been three years free of it now. The hard thing right now is that after marriage counselling , my husband has rededicated his life to Christ and is a completely different man than he was six months ago. he is loving and kind to me and affectionate, but still has little sex drive and some ED and it’s just heart breaking that as good as everything else is right now , that we just can’t get that part of our marriage right.
Porn kills a sex drive, because it associates sexual arousal and sexual response with an image rather than a person, and then you can’t get aroused by a person. It also trains a man to need really intense stimulation to orgasm (because he’s masturbating at the time). Finally, perhaps more importantly, it teaches him to run away from his feelings, and since it’s emotional vulnerability that builds closeness and often sexual desire in marriage, he doesn’t have a chance to build desire because he doesn’t know how to build closeness.
I thought rather than write more about it I’d share it here:
Here are other posts that I’ve written on pornography and a guy’s sex drive, and how to recover from it:
- The Effects of Pornography: What porn does to your marriage, your brain, and your sex life
- Why Doesn’t My Husband Want to Make Love? (A 4-part series)
- 4 Things You Must Do When Your Husband Uses Porn (with links to other posts in that series as well)
- Recovery After a Porn Addiction–How to rebuild intimacy
Finally, here’s another comment that I received from a woman recently:
We recently unplugged our internet router and sold my husbands iPhone for a flip phone without data. He suffers from internet and pornopraphy addiction. We have come to realize that eliminating internet except on my phone simply to pay bills and check email is our only remaining option. This is a lifelong decision as he will never again own a smart phone or have home access to WiFi and internet. We are one step away from losing our marriage to pornography. I hope the inability to access it will be the breakthrough he needs. The pain this has caused to me is almost unbearable. My self worth has dissipated, I know I’m beautiful because I’ve been told my entire life I am but when i look in the mirror I don’t see beauty. If I didn’t have two children ages 2 and 4 with him I would already be gone. I can’t bring myself to raise them in poverty and tear them back and forth. This thought only adds to my depression. He wants to quit and he says he loves me. Maybe we have a sick idea of love.
My heart breaks for her. It really does. She’s just decimated by this, and I hope that men reading this article understand what porn use does to women. Many wives of porn users actually have characteristics of PTSD!
But let me also say this: I truly believe that in her situation, things can get better. First, they have installed controls on their computer. An internet filer won’t cure a porn addiction, but what it does do is provide the foundation so that now you can actually start looking at a cure! It’s like when an alcoholic pours out all the bottles that are left in the house. That doesn’t cure the alcoholism, but it is a necessary precondition for them to get better. So this step is a good first one! (And everyone with a porn addiction really does need controls on their computer. And everyone with teens in the house does as well. Let’s stop addictions before they start!)
Then, once the temptation is a little further removed, get into a recovery group so that you can talk about what drew you to porn and see the repercussions it’s had.
But the final one is really what I was talking about in the video, and it’s likely the most important one: learn how to be real about your emotions. So many porn users don’t deal with emotions because they run to porn instead. When guys start being able to be emotionally vulnerable–that’s when real spiritual healing takes place, and that’s when the libido will return.
I just want to say, too, I am so sorry for those of you who are walking through this with an addicted spouse. Truly sorry. My heart honestly breaks for all the pain that this is causing. And I pray that you can get to the point where there is a real breakthrough soon.
Have you ever had to walk through a porn addiction? Does this idea of hiding one’s real emotions resonate with you? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 27 years and happily married for 22! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
Great video, Sheila.
I didn’t reach the point of PIED and porn escalation (probably because even before I stopped I was almost constantly trying to stop, unsuccessfully), but I definitely had a lot of suppressed feelings, inability to express feelings, irritability, anxiety, which were caused or maintained by the porn habit. Also, in my case porn was correlated with just general laziness: I was overweight, didn’t move much.
That’s a great point about getting out of shape. I think the draw to do nothing but porn can really do that to you!
I echo Dean’s comment—I was hampered by an array of self-worthiness and anxiety issues and an inability to express feelings. A variety of factors coalesced as I made my final push to shed my addiction, but one of the biggest, tangible tools that helped me moved forward was Milan & Kay Yerkovitch’s book HOW WE LOVE, which gave me the assets to quantify and qualify my emotions, and instructions on how to properly express them in a way that wasn’t accusatory. That was a big step in reducing my anxiety and being able to make myself vulnerable to my wife, which greatly abated and quashed the cravings, draw me to her, and insulate me from the outside world.
What stopped my addiction was when I got home from work each day I started talking to my wife and started kissing her and having more desire for her and it leads to sex. A person has to be creative on to stop something.
That’s so true. It’s like the parable Jesus tells in Matthew 12 about casting out the demon and sweeping the house clean, and then the demon comes back, finds the house nice and empty and neat, and invites more friends in.
The moral of the story? It’s not just about quitting something or getting rid of something. You have to replace it with something else, too. A vacuum doesn’t help anyone, and will ultimately fail.
Hey there Sheila – how could I not comment here? Here is what I would add. Often folks havent got a clue they are using porn to numb out their feelings. For me I just liked it. Or so I thought. They also often dont have a clue that porn is creating bigger problems than they already have. Some think they are actually resolving there issues and so on. With regard to not more just different I will say different is more. Thats the progression you speak of. The internet makes that much easier than it used to be because you can go wherever you want even unintentionally with the click of a button. Dr Patrick Carnes has many books on the pyscology of sex addiction and one specifically on how internet porn effects the brain. I would also add just like I usually do when I comment on your porn use articles. Recovery is very hard work. The longer you are engrossed in porn or sexual dysfunction the harder it is to get out of it. I really don’t want to scare people off but that’s the truth. Infact I want to encourage them get out now! If you do the work: physical emotional and spiritual you can overcome and have a great life And a great marriage. I am so grateful for where I am today. For anyone who wants help I am willing to direct you to help or even dialogue. Funphilled38 at yahoo. Prayers for all who suffer. Thanks Sheila.
Great points, Phil! And I want to pick up on what you said about how porn users often think that they are resolving issues. I know many men who turn to porn when they’re sexually frustrated thinking that this will help them not bug their wives. Big mistake! Or guys who turn to porn because they don’t want to have sex before they’re married. Another big mistake! Then there’s people who are depressed and turn to porn to lift their mood.
All of this leads to bigger and bigger problems, and we need to get real with it.
You indicate that “only” one thing has changed since the 70’s that could effect the sex drive of guys. I think another thing has happened, in addition to porn. It’s the strong increase of Soy based foods in our diet. Soy introduces substantial amounts of estrogen like chemicals. I’m not saying porn isn’t an issue. I believe it is – and a much larger issue than soy. But there is also, what feels to me, a “feminization” of men in the past 40 years that could partly be diet based. (in addition to cultural). And that could also have an impact on sex drive.
Clearly, porn is a much, much larger social and relational issue (but I thought I’d toss something else into the mix).
Jim – I was thinking als – Sheila mentioned recently that cultures with more equality have more women with higher sex drives. I would venture a guess that since the 70’s that equality is even more so in wedtern cultures which would impact that number as well
That’s actually a really good point. There’s also a lot of estrogen in the water system because of the pill. I do talk about this for women in my Boost Your Libido course, but you’re right–that could definitely be having an effect, too.
Another change is stress levels. I read somewhere that the average high schooler in America has the same level of anxiety as patients in mental asylums in (I think?) the 1950s. Considering how many people use porn to ‘relax’ or ‘escape’, finding healthy ways to reduce stress might help to stop the draw to porn, especially in our young people.
Because of the emotional vulnerability of a lot of porn users, it is really important that wives who are trying to help their husbands get away from porn use (whether truly addicted or just using), really watch their own emotional reactions when their husbands reach out for help and emotional support. This is so so so difficult to do, and I think a support network that includes an accountability partner other than a spouse for the porn user, and a really trust worthy support person for the non porn using spouse is important. It makes it so much easier to be a safe person for your partner to share things with if you have someone else’s shoulder to cry on when things get really hard! And of course both spouses really need to deepen their relationship with God, and allow Him to be their comforter in hard times.
Great thoughts, E! I totally agree about the spouse not being the accountability partner. And I know it’s hard when your husband uses porn not to be hurt and devastated, but if you can find the strength to fight the porn rather than attack your husband, so much good can be done. If your husband is denying there’s a problem, then yes, you need to deal with it. But once your husband has accountability and is truly trying to fight this, be part of the fight with him!
Thanks for clarifying my point regarding a husband denying the problem! I was also talking about the husband who wants to stop using, but is struggling with the habit/addiction, not the husband who doesn’t see a problem with his porn use. These two attitudes require rather different actions from the wife! I think your book 9 thoughts that can change your marriage is really helpful for people who are dealing with a spouse in denial of a problem.
Thank you for tackling all sorts of difficult issues on your blog, and not shying away from the hard topics. You have provided so much help to so many marriages, and you have given so many women courage to stand up and say ‘something isn’t right here, Jesus would want more for me and for HIM’. ❤️👍🙌
Amen! Absolutely to this especially: “something isn’t right here, Jesus would want more for me and for HIM’”
Soy (a phytoestrogen) isn’t known to cause a drop in testosterone like dairy products are (oestrogens). Dairy consumption has gone way up over the last century due to factory farming and every time you drink a glass of milk you get a big dose of mammalian pregnant cow hormones. I know it’s off topic but just wanted to point that out.
As my husband explained it, his porn addiction is driven by secrecy and the desire to circumvent web filters so I knew this was not something I could help him with. It’s doubly hard for the millennial generation because it’s getting to the point where web filters don’t work anymore for them since they know how to get around them. Fortunately my husband has a sponsor in SA whom he allowed to put passwords in place to block any apps that have a backdoor internet browser, so that my husband can only use the browser with a porn blocker. But if he still wanted to access porn he would find a way. Ultimately it’s a heart issue and is not going to go away as a mere result of internet blockers. I pray often for God to bring about a story of redemption and healing for my marriage as well as for other marriages that are under this grave spiritual oppression.
I’m bothered by something about this week’s series. (No surprise, I know.) Sheila says the amount of higher-drive wives has gone from 15% in the 1960s and 70s to 30% now. What’s wrong with that?? In fact, shouldn’t we want to see it at 50%? I agree that it’s not good that porn has been closing this gap, but is 15% supposed to be a good amount? It is not! It is terrible – it means the world is mostly filled with guys who are miserable!
It’s not that it’s wrong for the wife to be higher drive, but if the reason the wife is higher drive is because the mans sex drive is non existent, or diminished, or not being driven by sex within marriage, but rather by pornography, then that is terrible! I doubt whether the men who are addicted to pornography would describe themselves as ‘happy’, I’m pretty sure that they are actually more miserable than men who are in a happy marriage, where there is rehular sex, even if it is not happening every single time he has the slightest desire for it.
Like in Monday’s post, where J was describing a marriage where the wife had the higher drive, but the marriage is happy and healthy even though she does almost all of the initiating, I’m sure there are plenty of marriages where men are higher drive, but could hardly be described as ‘miserable’.
Yes, I’d agree. And I’d also point to the cross-cultural studies that all show that universally a man does tend to have a higher libido. He just does. Considering how much I talk on this blog about how to boost a woman’s libido, I hope that Bryan will permit a week where we look at the other side. Bryan, there are women who really do have this problem, and I’d appreciate it if you’d consider that and not see everything through one lens. Different people have different issues, and so I have to spend time talking about different people’s issues. Thank you.
Sheila, what is your thought on the commenters and the idea by many men (mostly christian) that men have been feminized or that society has been feminized? I do not think it is good that people are now trying to say that there is no difference between men and women, because they often have different strengths and weaknesses, but I honestly don’t like when they say society is “feminized”. I feel like that is saying that the bad parts of society are feminine so therefore femininity is bad or shouldn’t be allowed in leadership. Also, what is so wrong with men getting in touch with their feelings and not being so obsessed with sex that it becomes all about them. No, it is not wrong for a man to have a strong sex drive, and it is not good if that dwindles because he does not feel like a man, but considering society was so male dominated for so long, and it was not what God intended, why is it so bad that it is not a man’s world anymore? Aren’t there a lot of traditionally “feminine” qualities that are good for all to have? After all, Jesus was fully man but he was also fully God, which means he had all of the female characteristics that we reflect from God. He isn’t just the male role model, he is all of our role model, which means he exemplifies what it is to be a woman as well in a lot of his characteristics. The only male-only characteristic he has is being a leader, because we are supposed to be like the church. I am just wondering your thoughts because I hate that expression because even if society is feminized and bad, it used to be masculinized and bad. And while I want my husband to want sex, I don’t mind if he is sensitive enough and controlled enough to meet my emotional needs and not be all about sex. If that makes him feminine, then fine by me.
Jess,
I think the reason some men, including christian ones are complaining about the ‘feminization’ of society is because they feel attacked. Feminists talk about ‘toxic masculinity’ and what some men hear is basically that masculinity is toxic. There are feminists who talk as if all the basic traditional male traits are in and of themselves bad and the future is ‘female’. They want a matriarchy. God created a world where both male and female are needed and important. Imbalance in either direction is bad for humanity. I agree that the role model for all Christians is Jesus. Just like it was wrong in the past to portray masculine traits as superior to feminine ones, it is equally bad in the present to portray female ones as superior to male ones. Men do have emotions and the way they have sometimes been taught culturally to repress them is not healthy but being told they have to express them in a feminine way is also unhealthy.
Jess, I think you’re really onto something. Male control was never what was intended. We are all to be priests, and we are all made in the image of God. I think it is wrong when one sex is demonized–when we talk about men as if they’re bad, or talk about women as if they can’t do things. I think in the broader society and culture women really struggle, but in school men really do, which is really quite disastrous if you look long term. Schools are oriented around girls these days, and boys just don’t do well. I do think that’s a problem. Any time we try to deny sex differences or make one sex act like the other it’s not going to work. We have to respect both genders. And, yes, if men were more in touch with what they were feeling on the whole, that would definitely be good. And if women learned to be more confident and forthright, and less impacted by what our culture says about self-worth, body image, etc., that would all be good, too!
I see this so much in my husband. He is an outgoing, energetic guy on the outside but when I try to get close and ask him about his feelings and emotions, he is closed off. At first I thought he was just shoving me out but in the past year of counseling, I’m seeing that he doesn’t want to talk about it because he really doesn’t even know what his thoughts and emotions are. It’s like he doesn’t even know how to process certain thoughts and emotions.
My husband fell into porn when he was 12 and he is just now working to be free from a 17 year long addiction to porn that he hid from me for 10 years. The porn, the affairs, the lies, the secrecy, it has destroyed our marriage. I cannot begin to convey the pain that my husband’s choices has caused. But a few months ago, my husband truly gave his life to Jesus and now he is learning to live his life for Jesus, not himself. Porn is a hard thing to break free from and we are still so broken and hurting. But I have faith that Jesus is stronger than a porn addiction and that He will set my husband free.
Brokenhearted, that’s amazing that your husband found Christ and that he is changing! How wonderful!
I hope he does get to the point where he can share his feelings with you and the walls come down. That’s great!
I pray that God will tear the walls down. It is so very hard to fight for my husband and marriage when I am so hurt and broken.
I also want to do everything I can to keep porn away from my children and teach them, when they are old enough, that porn kills and destroys. Do you have any resources on how to talk to kids from a young age about the effects of porn?
So this post is directed at wives of porn addicts, but most of the commentary so far is from our brothers who are struggling. I think it’s wonderful that Sheila has created a place where guys are comfortable discussing this, but I wanted to add something for the wives.
Wives – if you are in the midst of the initial discovery, the porn is not the problem you should focus on. The first order of business is getting support for grief and trauma. I don’t consider myself especially “emotional”, I’m not prone to crying, my temper runs cold instead of hot – still, that initial discovery just about knocked me out. The first week my heart was pretty quiet but my body went nuts. I felt unhappy but calm, but I got sent home from work twice because of shaking fits I could not control, I could not sleep for 72 hours straight. After about a week the emotions kicked in and it was an absolute nightmare.
When your husband is in the midst of porn addiction, he is not capable of empathizing with the intense pain he has caused. He will probably be annoyed by it. Up until recently if you went to counseling you were automatically labeled “codependent” – if your grief was addressed at all. Religious people will counsel you to honor your husband and keep it hush hush, and secular people will wonder what on earth is the big deal?
So basically you get stabbed in the chest and then punished for bleeding, told to clean yourself up and make sure no one sees that wound.
I wanted to share this so you know you are not crazy, weak, or unreasonable for feeling heartbreak over this. It is wrong. It is sin. It is not your fault. And while your knee jerk reaction is to somehow get this porn monster out of your relationship, you need to deal with the pain first.
Resources that helped me were:
Your Sexually Addicted Spouse by Barbara Stephens and Marsha Means
When Your Husband is Addicted to Pornography by Vicki Tiede
Partners of Sex Addicts website: http://www.posarcs.com
#1 a really fantastic counselor
Sheila’s books and blog posts on this topic
As a note of encouragement, we are 3.5 years into this fight and doing very well. Our relationship has seen lots of rebuilding and restoration, and God has been faithful to both of us. We have both grown in our dependence on Him so in some regard it has even been a good thing. That isn’t every story, but it is possible.
Hang in there wives, and know that you are worth caring for, and there is a faithful shepherd for your heart – no matter what your husband does.
Wonderful comment, Sarah! Thank you so much. Great words of comfort.
The male ability to repress feelings is a wonderful gift from god. You need to remember that this all goes back to living in caves: when the wildebeests came into the settlement, the men did not sit and talk about the wildebeest. We didn’t take time to think about our feelings about said wildebeest. WE JUST GOT UP AND KILLED THE WILDEBEEST. Men’s ability to repress their emotions is what kept men AND women alive for many millennia. Today, this gift is about balance. Women keep men from being emotionless robots, and the men keep women from being in emotional overload.
I don’t really think the repression of emotions is a good thing or a gift. Yes, setting them aside in moments that require immediate action and total focus is sometimes necessary for both men and women. Though I would argue that men tend to face many more of these types of situations and set their emotions aside more easily.
I remember seeing a documentary on the life of J.R.R. Tolkien where they talked about his experiences during WWI and the letters that he and his friends wrote to one another during the war. Those letters were often filled with emotions. These were men who fought in the Great War. These were men of action and courage and yet they took the time to process what it was that they were going through and what they were feeling. And I believe that is a heck of a lot healthier and more manly than attempting to repress all emotion to appear to everyone else that you are too tough to let your emotions show. Setting emotions aside in the heat of battle is necessary. Repressing them afterwards is totally unhealthy.
As I said, setting aside your feelings and emotions for a time is sometimes absolutely necessary. But those feelings eventually MUST be allowed to come to the surface and be dealt with. God expressed His emotions quite a lot throughout the Bible and so did Jesus. Men throughout the Bible cried, tore their clothing in anger or grief and seemed to express emotion pretty regularly and openly.
Men are not naturally emotionless robots. They were not born that way. If they were, my son didn’t get the memo. At some point in history a bunch of unhealthy men must have gotten together and taken it upon themselves to rewrite the requirements of being a “real man” and decided that it wasn’t manly to talk about their feelings and that it was the ultimate crime against manhood to cry.
I believe God gifted men with the ability to set aside their emotions (for a time) more easily than women are able to because of what men often have to deal with (war for example). However, a healthy man eventually needs to be able to acknowledge the feelings he has set aside, allow himself to process those feelings and even talk about them.
Samantha, you have just entered my wheelhouse about WW1. Most of the famous British authors who lived through world war 1 were also gay. Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon etc. (Robert Graves historical fiction novel “I Claudius” set in ancient Rome is an awesome read). But a lot of men who have seen combat will confide in others who have also seen combat and not their wives or families because unless you have been through it you will never understand.
Heres a connection to the WW1 and porn use. Long story short my brother who is a chaplin served in Iraq twice. His assistant was killed right next to him. My brother has some issues and most likely PTSD. I was at a conference a couple years ago and the Keynote Speaker was a former Iraqie spie for th US. He told his story which was from his book. Afterwards I spoke to the guy and he signed 2 copies of his book for me – 1 directly for my brother. They served in very close proximtey to each other in similar time frames. I gave the book to my brother and he called me and said thanks for the memories. It blew me away. Thanks for the memories? Why would you want to remeber that? See – the men who fight are like brothers. They serve together and they stick together. The same is true afterwards. They recover together. It is a special bond unlike no other. The same is true for porn addiction recovery. When we recover together we can help each other because we have been “at war”. I hope this is making sense. I certainly do not compare myself to a soldier by no means. What I am getting at is a porn addict is at war with his spirit. When we find each other in recovery we can relate to each other because we have been through the same experience. Just like the guys who are have fought wars. We choose not to regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. When we work together we will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. Thanks Samantha for going there. I love reading your thoughts
Great thoughts, Phil, and that’s also why I really do believe in recovery groups. It’s important for men to have people to share their stories with and their fears with.
But others like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were not. So just because some British authors turned out to be homosexuals does not mean that there is a connection between their literary interests and their sexuality. And I think it is perfectly reasonable for men who have seen combat to confide in others who have been through the same experience rather than people who have not. Most wives just want to know that their husbands are talking with someone and getting help if they need it rather than trying to tough it out or repress it. What I’m saying is that men do have feelings about situations even if they put those feelings aside in a moment that requires their full attention and that it isn’t healthy to repress those feelings long term because it very often leads to other unhealthy behavior and addictions. Men need to talk too. The way men go about these days pretending that they are just simple blokes who don’t have those icky feelings like the women folk have is totally unhealthy and a flat out lie. As my brother-in-law so eloquently puts it, “men aren’t supposed to have feelings,” and my favorite “real men don’t cry.” I’m sure you can take a wild guess where he got those notions. I’ll give you a hint: not from his Heavenly Father.
Samantha, you are absolutely right. I did not mean to imply that there is a link between writing and being gay. But you do need to remember, those men who became famous writers, they became famous, because they could communicate well through their writing. What about all the other Joe Schmoes in the trenches in world war 1? They probably were not as good at communi ating. It would be like some cultural historian reading sheilas blog in 100 years from now and saying” wow,! Those christian women in 2018 were all sex pots!” No, not at all, even if there were a few like sheila, chris taylor, etc. who did write about it a lot. The same with tolkien in ww1. The good communicators will always communicate, and we will learn the most about the times in which they lived from those few voices. Samantha, i always enjoy our exchanges! 😀.
I see what you are saying, Chris, and I do believe that some people just have a knack for putting their feelings and thoughts into the written word. But people almost view it as an anomaly among men. I’m not saying all men (or even women) have that ability. It is a gift. But when a man isn’t a famous author, he is often criticized, made fun of, or made to feel less than a man if he is sensitive or in touch with his emotions when in reality that man is much healthier than a man who represses his feelings in an attempt to fulfill society’s idea of what makes a man manly. I think it’s doing young boys and men a disservice when we say things like, “men are supposed to be able to repress their emotions by God’s design,” because what are they supposed to think when they can’t repress their feelings? When they find themselves feeling emotions that they don’t understand or know how to process? I believe most young boys fall into the porn trap so easily because it provides a way of soothing their wounds without having to deal with their emotions. And as a bonus it makes them feel like the man they didn’t feel like when they were having those emotions in the first place.
Young women face a lot of issues these days and I think boys fall through the cracks very easily because the world is very focused on making things easier for girls. But at least girls are encouraged to talk about their problems. Young boys on the other hand are getting the message from girls that they are inherently part of the problems that girls face, while at the same time getting the message from other boys that it’s wrong to admit to having feelings, emotions, and vulnerabilities. If young boys aren’t getting emotional support at home and/or lack an emotionally healthy father or father figure, then they aren’t likely to get it anywhere else. The cold hard fact of the matter is that boy and men don’t understand emotions and feelings because they have not been taught. And most boys these days sure as heck don’t grow up in environments where they are encouraged to talk about what they’re feeling because most have fathers who were also raised to not talk about their feelings. It’s a vicious cycle.
Samantha, this is an interesting side discussion you’ve brought up. A prevalent trait in popular culture is the Lone Wolf protagonist—the brooding anti-hero who stoicly “goes it alone.” The elevation of these kinds of Good Guys who don’t need anyone flies in the face of the humanistic, emotionally rich yet clearly flawed people in the Bible. I’m not enough a student of popular culture to say if it’s life imitating art or art reflecting life, but I think there is something that can be said of the effect of these kinds of dramatic characters on developing boys.
I totally agree, Greg. It breaks my heart that young boys grow up to believe that the measure of being a man is how “tough” you are. How any expression of feelings and emotions or vulnerability will compromise the quality of their manhood and destroy their reputation among their peers. The constant fear that they will be labeled as gay. And I do think a lot of sensitive young men do end up assuming they are gay because immature, emotionally repressed teenage boys must certainly be the authority on what makes another guy gay. I think that is why most men are incapable of relating to certain literary characters like Frodo and Sam from The Lord of the Rings and instead make jokes about them being homosexuals. This was a constant “joke” when the movies came out. The fact of the matter is that seeing men who are emotional, vulnerable, and dependant on others makes the “macho” man of today very uncomfortable. And I believe it’s not because it truly seems wrong to them, but because they CAN see glimpses of themselves in those characters and want to protect themselves from being found out by their peers. The jokes are just a ruse. And you’re right. These literary and cinematic characters of today don’t mesh with the men of the Bible AT ALL. The reason. The men of the Bible were real men. Living their lives and responding to their lives naturally before someone came along and decided that real men didn’t have feelings let alone talk about them. And don’t even get me started on the whole lone wolf garbage! Lol God made woman because it was not good for man to be alone. Period. Adam was the original lone wolf and God deemed it the only “not good” thing about his entire creation!
Great thoughts, Greg!
“Adam was the original lone wolf and God deemed it the only “not good” thing about his entire creation!”
BOOM!
Truth. Right.There.
Amen, Samantha. Awesome point.
I just finished reading a book called The Wisdom of Your Heart about how God actually sees emotions as a GOOD thing. If I say, “You’re being emotional today,” that’s an insult. If I say, “you’re being logical today,” that’s a compliment. Yet Jesus showed ALL emotions. The whole spectrum. And the Bible is full of emotions. Emotions are actually signs that we should pay attention to something. I do think we need to develop a new way of talking about emotions that is not so negative.
And for the record, I don’t think too many sane women would sit around and talk about a wildebeest that has wandered into camp. Most women would also kill said wildebeest. Unless they were frozen with fear. But it wouldn’t be because they got caught up in a discussion about how adorable it was, the color of its hide, or how they felt about it.
Samantha, i have no doubt that after the cave man killed the wildebeest, the cave women probably did want the hide. His wife probably also gave him grief for not killing the wildebeest properly which got too much blood on the hide.😫
And I really did believe at one point that my husband somehow made me less emotional and that I helped to make him more emotional. And I truly believed that God designed all men and women that way. It wasn’t until it dawned on me that my husband had been emotional all along that I realized that the whole “women are the emotional ones and men are the rational ones and they help to balance each other out” theory was a huge lie. My husband has just as many emotions and feelings as I do. But we feel, process, and carry them out very differently. I believe the real difference between men and women is that women are a lot better at naming their emotions, knowing where they came from and therefore we express them more readily (and more often). We are a lot more sensitive when it comes to other people’s emotions as well and often empathize very easily with others. We are just very in tune with the emotional side of things. Men on the other hand will often find themselves in a bad mood and honestly don’t know what put them in that bad mood because they don’t take the time to connect the dots. My husband has grown a lot in that department. My husband will be moody and tense all evening without seeming to have a reason, go do the dishes, and while we’re laying in bed he’ll say, “this happened at work today and I realized while I was doing the dishes just how mad I was about it. That’s why I’ve been in a bad mood since I got home.” Early on in our marriage he VERY rarely did something like that.
I do believe that men tend to let things go more quickly and require a lot less words to express themselves. “Ok, I’ve talked. I’m all better now.” They are more concise whereas a woman could probably talk for hours on end about their feelings. And we do. Which is why a phone call with my sister is usually hours long but I can usually cut things much shorter when I talk with my husband. Women want to linger and talk our feelings into oblivion where we finally drop them off and move on. I believe my husband has taught me a lot about just letting things go rather than holding onto them. I agonize a lot less over my feelings than I used to. And so to make a long story short: men are emotional too. They just aren’t as in tune with them and have been taught by society to avoid getting tuned in at all cost. Just tune them out, men! When a man truly gets in tune though, he can teach his wife a lot about letting the small things roll off your shoulders in a healthy way and to not let your feelings nag at you even after you’ve talked about them.
Women on the other hand have been made to feel like we are just some overly emotional freaks who will never be fully understood by the opposite sex and it will take a rational man to tame us into something that resembles a rational human being. In reality it’s men pretending to not have feelings that is driving us insane.
Wow, really interesting post! Porn didn’t steal my ex’s sex drive completely, but I was surprised that he was perfectly content with once a week or even less. Emotional intimacy was also a huge issue in our marriage. I craved it, but he wouldn’t let me in. Now you’re mentioning a connection that makes sense, but it never occurred to me.
Yes, emotions of many porn users really have been cut off. And porn users also become angry people because they’re focused on self, but they’re also ill-equipped to handle emotions, which tend to all come out as angry. It’s really sad.
This is my story Sheila – exactly what happened to me. Angry person. The road to recovery with my anger has been long and hard. I have been fighting it since I was 7 after my father died. I am 45 now and it has gotten so much better. This past couple years have been such big improvement for me as well. I still struggle mostly with my mouth around and towards my kids but have gotten to the point where I can manage things so much better and I can look at myself in the mirror and go OK. I am not ashamed of myself or my behavior. I just need improvement. For me they always told me I was angry cuz my father died when I was so young. Which was true. Also though Ofcourse I wasnt running around telling everyone I was looking at porn and masturbating so that never came up as to why Phil was always so angry. Today I beleive that my fathers death was the trigger for my anger but porn and sexual dysfunction which was used as a coping method has been the more prime source of my anger and ofcourse many of my own life problems which where self inflicted punishments of sorts. Truly when I look back the pointer points to porn and sexual dysfuntion as the primary contributor to 99% of all the problems that have occured in my life. I am so grateful that all this is still being removed. Thanks for this Sheila.
Your article hit home. My husband denies having an addiction to porn, but we go over 6 months with no sex. I blame myself. Maybe I’m too fat, too old…I’ve recently been reading about “intimacy anorexia” from Dr. Doug Weiss. Have you heard of it? If so, what are your thoughts on it?
Yes, I definitely think that intimacy anorexia is a thing, and that many people have it (including porn users). If he isn’t a porn user, though, it very much could be that he’s walled himself off from intimacy. This isn’t okay. It’s hurting him (even if he doesn’t think so), it’s hurting your marriage, it’s hurting you. Please go see a counsellor, because it won’t get better on its own.