This is sad on so many levels

[Sugabee43]

**Allegra, thank you for expressing what I inadequately did not. **

 

[D3USVult]

Thank you for your reply.

Why the separate thread? Why not share your thoughts there, so the ladies with the porn-addicted husbands can see your post more easily?

I decided to make a separate thread because I can easily see this one going off on several different tangents that would not have helped the OP of the original thread.

1. If a healthy marital sex life didn’t keep a husband from falling into porn addiction to begin with, a healthy marital sex life isn’t going to fix him.

As I said, not by itself. However, I don’t think going right to complete and total abstinence is going to do either partner any good.

1. While the average man may have a stronger sex drive than the average woman, there is a substantial minority of women with higher sex drives than their husbands. Also, there are particular times of life when the wife’s drive may be very high (some women in pregnancy and perimenopause) whereas there are other times when the husband’s drive may be particularly low (for instance, because of the effects of aging).

I was just looking here:

healthline.com/health/low-testosterone/testosterone-levels-by-age#Adolescence3

Apparently, men have a 1% drop in testosterone levels every year after 30.

A lot of couples are going to experience a cross-over point in middle age where the husband’s libido is tanking while the wife’s libido is at an all-time high.

I still have a few years to go 'til I hit 30, so I guess I’ll have to take your/their word for it.

While there isn’t a lot of compassion for male onanists, I don’t see anybody pulling out hankies for women with husbands that aren’t meeting their sexual needs.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Their are plenty of married people out there, both male and female, who are not fulfilling their sexual duties to their spouses. I submit to you that such situations are a large contributor to the rise in both porn addiction and extra-marital affairs.

1. Female sexual desire is probably (when it’s “on”) much more powerful and harder to resist than male sexual desire.

That sounds awesome!!!

1. “However, I would think that passionate, steamy sex with the woman to whom he has given his heart would be an effective remedy for any man who truly wanted to quite porn.”

You’re not married, are you?

1. I think one of the things that people are worried about is the tendency for porn to leak into and pollute the marital sexual relationship.

As a matter of fact I am not married. Are you about to tell me that passionate, steamy sex isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?:doh2: It’s true I don’t have marital experience to draw from. All I have is my common sense, what my parents and other married people have told me, and the knowledge that if, God forbid, I ever made a mistake like that I wouldn’t want my wife to give up on me and treat me like some kind of leper.

 

[Allegra]

Right.

I’ve also heard of extreme cases where a porn-addicted husband simply is no longer interested in “real” sex with his wife. Apparently, while it’s a worst case scenario, it isn’t at all uncommon.

This isn’t an extreme case. It’s a pretty standard case. An extreme case involves a ride in either a police car or an ambulance. Or a hearse. Or all three.

 

[Sugabee43]

Thank you for your reply.

I decided to make a separate thread because I can easily see this one going off on several different tangents that would not have helped the OP of the original thread.

As I said, not by itself. However, I don’t think going right to complete and total abstinence is going to do either partner any good.

I still have a few years to go 'til I hit 30, so I guess I’ll have to take your/their word for it.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Their are plenty of married people out there, both male and female, who are not fulfilling their sexual duties to their spouses. I submit to you that such situations are a large contributor to the rise in both porn addiction and extra-marital affairs.

That sounds awesome!!!

As a matter of fact I am not married. Are you about to tell me that passionate, steamy sex isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?:doh2: It’s true I don’t have marital experience to draw from. All I have is my common sense, what my parents and other married people have told me, and the knowledge that if, God forbid, I ever made a mistake like that I wouldn’t want my wife to give up on me and treat me like some kind of leper.

I really think it would be helpful for you to study St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”. The marital bond, and the Sacrament of Marriage, is SO much more involved that you realize. There are so many nuances to it that I don’t think you’re really understanding where we as married women are coming from. I don’t mean that to be dismissive; just saying.

 

[Xantippe]

Since it is me you are quoting, I’m answer you, though I also have no idea why you didn’t just post in the original thread, since your response wouldn’t be changing the subject or “hijacking the thread” at all.

Nowhere in your self-righteous and somewhat passive aggressive post did you acknowledge the possibility that female marital partners might actually have feelings of their own, and that the repeated violation of their marital bond by an unfaithful husband might actually cause them tremendous emotional pain and psychological harm.

Unfaithful partners like to pretend that their extra-marital sexual experiences are in some way completely separate from their marital bond. They LOVE to tell the victimized spouse, “It wasn’t about YOU!” as if the fact that one’s spouse is masturbating to another person has no effect on them whatsoever.

The fact of the matter is, it does. Porn is pervasive and remains in the mind well after the person is done with it. The innocent spouse can’t ever be sure that the unfaithful spouse isn’t fantasizing about other people he or she has made into sexual objects, or that he or she doesn’t prefer the soulless objects to their spouse. Many porn addicts attempt to bring the sick and demeaning sexual acts into the bedroom with their spouse, often asking for their fantasies to be realized by the spouse. This is humiliating and demeaning to the spouse, but he or she feels pressure to go along with it because they are competing with a series of manufactured sex slaves that can never say “no”. Aside from that, there is the constant, and far more devastating stream of lies, deception, bullying, blaming, and manipulations associated with addiction, which wear on the soul of the victimized spouse, destroying trust and making sex completely one-sided and painful. .

After all that, you think the appropriate question is, “How does withholding sex help the poor, testosterone-inflicted husband stop using porn?”

The real question should be, “How does expecting the wife who has already been victimized greatly to jump in bed with the very man who has hurt her help HER to heal?” Does a wife not have a right to self-preservation, or are a man’s supposedly insatiable sexual deviancies more important than her mental and emotional health?

Despite the fact that your question is ridiculous and completely self-centered, (not surprising since addictions tend to be ridiculous and completely self-centered things) I do have an answer for you.

When a person is dealing with an addict, it is important to set up strong boundaries. Addicts’ brains are wired around getting another hit, and they are always looking for a loophole to the “rules”. An addict needs to understand that their actions absolutely will have consequences, and needs to be able to predict exactly what those consequences will be. It is actually helpful to an addict who is legitimately trying to recover to know that if they slip up, there are real and very specific consequences to their actions.

Secondly, an addict generally struggles with the concept that their addictions effect their loved ones and their relationships. This reality is something that an addict’s brain tends to want to ignore, in order to preserve the addiction, however, if the addict is held to personal boundaries it is much harder for them to ignore it. Respect for boundaries is a natural way to rebuild trust, far more so than reluctant, fearful, and painful sex. True reconciliation with loved ones is a strong motivator for many addicts.

So you see, withholding marital sex from a porn addict can, in fact, help them to stop using, in real ways. In addition, since you claim you found my post so un-Catholic, I would remind you that the Church teaches that the conjugal act is created by God for the mutual bonding of the couple. The idea that a daughter of God ought to be expected to offer her body as a sex object to a husband who has repeatedly broken that bond, as a replacement for a more illicit object is pretty foreign to that formula.

Very good.

I’d add that when reading posts by single male CAFers that have a history of struggling with pornography and masturbation, there unfortunately seems to be a lot of continuity with past misbehavior in how they think about their hypothetical future wives. The hypothetical future wife is a sort of thing that is supposed to sate all of their desires. She’s a plush toy that isn’t allowed to have any feelings of her own.

Jumping off of what other people have said in this and the other thread, maybe real recovery means moving on beyond that stage, and realizing that the hypothetical future wife (or the present wife) is a real person with feelings and needs of her own.

 

[Xantippe]

I decided to make a separate thread because I can easily see this one going off on several different tangents that would not have helped the OP of the original thread.

That sounds awesome!!!

As a matter of fact I am not married. Are you about to tell me that passionate, steamy sex isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?:doh2: It’s true I don’t have marital experience to draw from. All I have is my common sense, what my parents and other married people have told me, and the knowledge that if, God forbid, I ever made a mistake like that I wouldn’t want my wife to give up on me and treat me like some kind of leper.

1. That’s a good reason for a new thread.
2. When conditions are favorable, yeah.
3. What people are talking about is not “a mistake” but repeated, habitual episodes of selfish gratification. That’s not a “mistake.”

 

[Allegra]

Very good.

I’d add that when reading posts by single male CAFers that have a history of struggling with pornography and masturbation, there unfortunately seems to be a lot of continuity with past misbehavior in how they think about their hypothetical future wives. The hypothetical future wife is a sort of thing that is supposed to sate all of their desires. She’s a plush toy that isn’t allowed to have any feelings of her own.

Jumping off of what other people have said in this and the other thread, maybe real recovery means moving on beyond that stage, and realizing that the hypothetical future wife (or the present wife) is a real person with feelings and needs of her own.

What do you expect when the only women they’ve ever known are soulless images on a page or in a video? Those women don’t have feelings or needs so why should a real woman? I have to wonder half the time if any of these fellows have sisters, or mothers, or grandmothers? Would they dare to tell them that they ought to just suck it up and give their man what he needs so he doesn’t go for it somewhere else? If they found out that someone was doing this to their own daughter, would they tell her it’s her fault because obviously she wasn’t giving him enough at home?

 

[Kateri92]

There was a recent thread posted on the forum discussing porn addiction within marriage. More specifically the OP was a married woman who was asking whether she could/should continue to be intimate with her husband after discovering that he had an addiction to porn. First off I want to say that my heart and my prayers go out to both the OP and her husband. There were a number of very good responses to her question, but there was one response which, as a man, I found very disheartening. Rather than hijack the thread I thought I’d respond by starting a new one.

The response in question was as follows:

I’m actually really surprised at the responses already in this thread. If I found out that my husband was being unfaithful to me by using porn, I really don’t think I could go there. I know enough about addictive behavior from my family life that I know better. It’s not a wife’s job to be “good enough” in bed so as to dissuade her husband from infidelity. If the man is unfaithful, it’s NOT the woman’s fault, nor does the woman have it in her power to fix HIS brain and HIS habits. It’s a repulsive and unrealistic expectation for a woman to put on herself, in my opinion.

This attitude among women is very prevalent in our society, so I can’t say that I was all that surprised. Nonetheless, the fact that someone expressed such an opinion on a Catholic website saddens me greatly. Is porn addiction a problem for a lot of men, including Catholic men? Yes! Is porn ever permissible under Catholic teaching? Absolutely not! Now that my opinion on the moral quality of pornography has been submitted for the record I have a few questions of my own: How does denying a man healthy sex with his wife help lessen the temptation to view pornographic material? Won’t such measures only serve to make him feel depressed and isolated, and thus *increase *the allure of pornography?

It’s no secret that men have much higher testosterone levels than women. This disparity manifests itself in several ways one of which is a much stronger sex drive amongst men. We didn’t ask for it, it’s just the way *God *made us. Sadly Christianity and by extension the Church, has come to regard male sexuality as some kind of disease that needs to be cured. Thus, if a man desires intercourse with a woman then there’s something wrong with him. And if he succumbs to one of the many temptations that are readily available everywhere in our society, then we should punish and ostracize him as if he were already damned.

It is true that you never want to be an enabler, but I fail to see how intimacy between a man with a porn addiction and his wife is enabling the addiction. Comparing love-making between a married couple to porn consumption is like comparing wild raspberries to old raisins. There is no comparison. Will actual sex fix the problem? Not by itself. He will have to make some kind of resolution to beat the addiction and take steps towards achieving that goal. However, I would think that passionate, steamy sex with the woman to whom he has given his heart would be an effective remedy for any man who truly wanted to quite porn.

The post above saddens me because it not only demonstrates a very callous attitude towards a very real struggle, but it will serve to do nothing except compound the problem. The battle against impurity is a battle that we men will spend most of our lives fighting. The really sad part is that we are expected to carry our crosses in solitude and silence. Moreover, there is no reward if we overcome our demons, only condemnation if we fail.

Pax vobiscum

I think that the wife is right. If she is being disrespected by her husband in such a way, she has every right to draw boundaries until he decides to take his problem seriously. It is an act of love to do so. Anything less would be cooperation with evil.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Thank you for your reply. I am sorry that your husband was unable to overcome his problems and I am sorry for the heartache it must have caused you. It is not my desire to offend anyone. On that note, here is my response.

You are grossly twisting the issue.

And it is quite disturbing.

 

[D3USVult]

Nowhere in your self-righteous and somewhat passive aggressive post did you acknowledge the possibility that female marital partners might actually have feelings of their own, and that the repeated violation of their marital bond by an unfaithful husband might actually cause them tremendous emotional pain and psychological harm.

Unfaithful partners like to pretend that their extra-marital sexual experiences are in some way completely separate from their marital bond. They LOVE to tell the victimized spouse, “It wasn’t about YOU!” as if the fact that one’s spouse is masturbating to another person has no effect on them whatsoever.

If you bother to read some of my responses to the other people on this thread you will see that I am not trying to deny basic human dignity to women.

After all that, you think the appropriate question is, “How does withholding sex help the poor, testosterone-inflicted husband stop using porn?”

It’s AN appropriate question! Is your objective to try and salvage the marriage or to just punish the man? You’re accusing me of trying to justify porn addiction when I explicitly said that porn is immoral.:banghead: If the husband is indeed a misogynistic sicko, who views his wife as nothing more than an object for his own sexual gratification than he does not deserve either her love or the physical expression of that love within the marriage act.

The real question should be, “How does expecting the wife who has already been victimized greatly to jump in bed with the very man who has hurt her help HER to heal?” Does a wife not have a right to self-preservation, or are a man’s supposedly insatiable sexual deviancies more important than her mental and emotional health?

I never said that I expected the wife to just “jump into bed.” As I recall, the original question was whether or not intimacy was possible with a spouse who had a problem with pornography and whether or not such intimacy would help the situation or make it worse. I made my case as to why I believe that *completely *abstaining from intimacy (which is what you seem to advocate) can easily become counterproductive. Now you advocate strict, well-defined consequences as means to helping a person overcome an addiction. Okay, I’ll buy that. Is denying sex the only consequence that the wife can use, and if so then for how long?

Despite the fact that your question is ridiculous and completely self-centered, (not surprising since addictions tend to be ridiculous and completely self-centered things) I do have an answer for you.

So we’re making this about me now? I’ll respond to this one later.

So you see, withholding marital sex from a porn addict can, in fact, help them to stop using, in real ways. In addition, since you claim you found my post so un-Catholic, I would remind you that the Church teaches that the conjugal act is created by God for the mutual bonding of the couple. The idea that a daughter of God ought to be expected to offer her body as a sex object to a husband who has repeatedly broken that bond, as a replacement for a more illicit object is pretty foreign to that formula.

Yes. The conjugal act **is **for the mutual bonding of the couple, which is why I’m skeptical about how effective it would be to cease engaging in it altogether.

 

[D3USVult]

…again you’re assuming that I can turn my desire off and on like a man. Women, generally speaking, don’t operate this way.

Trust me when I say that men *can’t *just turn their desire off and on. It would be much easier for them if they could.

 

[Xantippe]

It’s AN appropriate question! Is your objective to try and salvage the marriage or to just punish the man? You’re accusing me of trying to justify porn addiction when I explicitly said that porn is immoral.:banghead: If the husband is indeed a misogynistic sicko, who views his wife as nothing more than an object for his own sexual gratification than he does not deserve either her love or the physical expression of that love within the marriage act.

With regard to the question of whether it is salvaging the marriage or just punishing the man, there is a third possible objective–namely, protecting the wife from degradation and disrespect.

 

[Ingeniero]

@ D3USVult

Since you are not married, Sugabee43’s invitation that you read and study

St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”.

will help you understand what a sacramental marriage is.

If and when you get married, your number one goal in the marriage is to do everything you can to help your spouse get to heaven.

If you are focused on that then you’ll not have time for a porn addiction.

In a marriage many-times self-sacrifice is more important than self-gratification.

Remember it’s not about what she can do for you rather it’s what you can do for her.

And please contemplate this passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesian’s Ch5

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

 

[LongingSoul]

As I said, not by itself. However, I don’t think going right to complete and total abstinence is going to do either partner any good.

I can see what you would get out of having orgasms to porn and then sex with your wife. That is a lot of avenues of release and pleasure there … but what will your wife get from it? When sex with you is done amid hurt, mistrust, confusion and revulsion… how does that enhance her life? Many women do persist hoping that their sacrifice will be the thing that ‘saves’ her marriage and wins her husbands love and faithfulness… but there isn’t any pleasure in the sense of having fulfillment and intimacy. Any positive is confined to the hope that giving of herself will be rewarded with healing. How long should she wait for that? A year? 10 years? 22 years? Or is that debt a lifetime one never to be satisfied 'til death?

 

[alphawoman]

Wait, the woman’s response saddens you?!

you are kidding right?

What was that Jesus said about adultery and the heart?

Exactly.

Betrayal by the person who is supposed to support you, body and soul, into eternity is a serious problem, morally and relationally.

The porn addicted husband has FREE WILL, which he is choosing to exercise. Perhaps the OP should revisit the Catechism’s commentary on the pernicious effects of pornography and infidelity. Recall, particularly, OP, that the Church allows the separation of spouses in cases of infidelity because it recognizes the grievous psychological, spiritual, and relational repercussions on the loyal spouse and family.

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm

OP, I am concerned, because you seem to lack a basic understanding of what human dignity is, what the purpose of the body and spirit are, and what marriage means as a sacrament. You need to read the Catechism!

 

[Xantippe]

I can see what you would get out of having orgasms to porn and then sex with your wife. That is a lot of avenues of release and pleasure there … but what will your wife get from it? When sex with you is done amid hurt, mistrust, confusion and revulsion… how does that enhance her life? Many women do persist hoping that their sacrifice will be the thing that ‘saves’ her marriage and wins her husbands love and faithfulness… but there isn’t any pleasure in the sense of having fulfillment and intimacy. Any positive is confined to the hope that giving of herself will be rewarded with healing. How long should she wait for that? A year? 10 years? 22 years? Or is that debt a lifetime one never to be satisfied 'til death?

Right.

And it is worth asking, what is the path that leads from the wife experiencing revulsion, doubt and shame in the marriage bed to the couple having a loving, trusting and respectful married life?

You don’t get from here to there.

A pause in marital relations might be the safest thing for that kind of relationship.

One of the oddities of the female condition is that it is possible (and, in fact, common) for a woman to have marital relations with her husband and experience very negative emotions at the same time. I believe this experience is rather less common for men.

 

[LongingSoul]

Right.

And it is worth asking, what is the path that leads from the wife experiencing revulsion, doubt and shame in the marriage bed to the couple having a loving, trusting and respectful married life?

You don’t get from here to there.

A pause in marital relations might be the safest thing for that kind of relationship.

One of the oddities of the female condition is that it is possible (and, in fact, common) for a woman to have marital relations with her husband and experience very negative emotions at the same time. I believe this experience is rather less common for men.

Very true. Women tend to think in terms of how sex builds on the marriage and family in general. In 27 years of marriage I can honestly say that I would have been happy with a quarter of the amount of sex I’ve had but was happy to give for a higher purpose so to speak. For women who come to realise that that higher purpose is not being served by sex with their husbands and that it’s just about satisfying his male need… it becomes a soul destroying drudgery that does more harm than good.

 

[Virga]

However, I would think that passionate, steamy sex with the woman to whom he has given his heart would be an effective remedy for any man who truly wanted to quite porn.

So what should be done if a man has a porn addiction when he isn’t married? Addictions aren’t easy to overcome, but surely he can find a different remedy.

The post above saddens me because it not only demonstrates a very callous attitude towards a very real struggle, but it will serve to do nothing except compound the problem.

A spouse should be willing to forgive and provide support, but sex isn’t the only means to show that support.

The battle against impurity is a battle that we men will spend most of our lives fighting. The really sad part is that we are expected to carry our crosses in solitude and silence. Moreover, there is no reward if we overcome our demons, only condemnation if we fail.

Pax vobiscum

Is it just about getting over the addiction or is that person trying to rebuild his relationship with his spouse? If the latter, he must consider that physical intimacy during that time may cause even more resentment in the marriage if he doesn’t resolve other issues first. After all, it’s not only the addiction that’s a problem but also betrayal and broken trust. Perhaps, he can try to love his wife by understanding her needs and respecting her boundaries.

The reward? Do you think there ought to be rewards for people who stop killing or kidnapping? Yes those are extreme examples, but perhaps you need to remember that pornography is extremely harmful too although in a different way. I hope people seek to overcome addiction because they realize how physically, mentally, and spiritually damaging it is in the first place. I understand addictions are tough, but an addict who recognizes why he should stop would fare better than one who has to be bribed.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Trust me when I say that men *can’t *just turn their desire off and on. It would be much easier for them if they could.

No, can’t just trust you here… You are now crossing the line from being wrong to just plain old bunk. The idea that a man cannot control himself is the justification used for not only porn, but affairs and prostitutes too.

Lets think about what God says about the matter.

Matthew Chapter 5 addresses this specifically.

"You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; 28but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

So, honestly what you are arguing is that if a man is adulterous a woman should have sex with him more. Because the poor man just cannot be chaste you know!

So, what of a man who has to be chaste and abstain while sleeping in the same bed as his NFP practicing wife? Or even go MONTHS because of post partum issues. Is that the woman’s fault too? Should she look the other way? Will God?

Do you think God asks the impossible, or the Holy and Honorable.

Please stop slandering my gender as uncontrollable lust fiends…

 

[alphawoman]

Right on again, Hoosier.