I have not mentioned the effect of lust on my marriage. It did not destroy my marriage, did not push me out find more sexual excitation in an adulterous affair, or with prostitutes, did not ever impel me to place unrealistic demands on my wife's sexual performance. The effect was far more subtle...
I stare at a Playboy centerfold. Miss October has such a warm, inviting smile. She is with me alone, in my living room. She removes her clothes, just for me, and lets me see all of her. She tells me about her favorite books and what she likes in a man.
Because I have... gone over every inch of Miss October as well as the throng of beauties that Madison Avenue and Hollywood recruit to tantalize the masses, I start to view my own wife in that light.... I begin to focus on my wife's minor flaws. I lose sight of the fact that she is a charming, warm, attractive woman and that I am fortunate to have found her.- "The War Within", Anonymous, Leadership Magazine, Fall 1992
Beyond that, lust affected my marriage in an even more subtle and pernicious way. Over time, I began to view sex schizophrenically. Sex in marriage was one thing. We performed OK, though not as often as I liked, and accompanied by typical misunderstandings. But passion, Ah, that was something different. Passion I never felt in my marriage.
If anything, sex within marriage served as an overflow valve, an outlet for the passion that mounted inside me, fed by sources kept hidden from my wife. We never talked about this, yet I am sure she sensed it. I think she began to view herself as a sex object - not in the feminist sense of being the object of a husband's selfish greed, but in the deprived sense of being only the object of my physical necessity and not of romance and passion.
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1 comment:
I appreciate your willingness to address this issue in men. I always find that posting things such as this inspires much silence in the comment section.
Our generation of men is THE porn generation. The internet awakened during our adolescence and sexual peak. Parents from the baby boomer gen looked at the computer and internet as a glorified video game, harmless, turning a blind eye, while MILLIONS of young men developed ravenous appetites for pornography and the control that it gave them. Gone are the days of sweating it at out the gas station to buy something filthy in public. Magazines? Miss October? Old hat.
In my opinion, it is time for the church to truly address and meet the internet porn industry head-on. The promise keepers started *something* and the isles were full to the alter during confession time at the end. But that's not enough. There needs to be not "a", but "THE GREAT" concerted, across the world effort and CHURCH offensive to ban and utterly filter pornography in the homes. Every church should pay and supply filters for every household to begin with. Free of charge. No pressure on the government, or political coalitions. This is a distraction. There we will find no help. This is the church addressing the church. Christian to Christian. Setting the standard. This will also take the understanding and support of just about every wife in the church. God will have to grant a special grace to this generation of women to help us stand together against it. There is no excusing it, however, they should understand that they married addicts, on some level or another. Aside from that, it has turned sex in marriage into just sex. Birth control is through the roof. There is nothing procreative about it. In fact, that is seen as an absolute annoyance and a bad side effect to sex by most marriages (now). More control.
Porn is the silent cancer eating away at marriage in my generation today. The church is doing a thing or two, but nothing on the scale that it needs to be.
I would venture to say that there isn't a 20-40 year old male living in this country who does not struggle or has struggled in this area.
It is as if a mental cocaine was introduced into every home in the country and the church is on the whole oddly and embarrassingly silent about it.
I'm serious when I say that I haven't met a man, not one, married or unmarried, who hasn't struggled with internet pornography. Not. One.
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