Should Married Couples Use Pornography?

On occasion a person will explain that he and his wife watch pornography together to sexually arouse one another. He vigorously defends his position. Because we at Family Dynamics Institute believe this is a damaging practice to marriages, the person will ask why we are so against what he so enjoys.

Watching pornography usually desensitizes the viewer to his or her own spouse.

Porn stars are young, agile, and “super-sized.” Once captured on film, they never grow old. They gain no weight, develop no wrinkles, and lose no muscle tone. They can get in sexual positions only an experienced contortionist would find possible and seemingly enjoy whatever the other wants to do with or to them. Very few spouses can complete with such a fantasy at any age, but once past 30, the spouse begins to fade quickly in comparison. Fill your mind with such fantasies and eventually, arousal by your own spouse becomes difficult. As a result, the person you should love, adore, and be aroused by becomes an aging, imperfect, “has been” of a lover. The ultimate conclusion to such logic involves seeking another young person to enjoy. All too often, men make such a jump. Women are beginning to make this leap as well in increasing numbers.

Pornography usually decimates the self-esteem of your spouse.

More often than not, the husband uses pornography to arouse himself once his wife fails to meet this need due to his sexual desensitization. In most cases, the wife endures the pornography to please her husband. Many wives, however, are crushed that their husbands no longer look at them with desire. They wonder what is wrong with them that they can no longer excite their husbands. The self-esteem issues that arise can and often do decimate a wife’s sense of self-esteem. No caring husband will ever want to do this to his wife.

Could the roles be reversed? Anything is possible in life! While a man might initially think he had the wife every man longs for, the ultimate loss of self-esteem in a man would be just as devastating - if not more so – should his wife only be able to become aroused by watching porn, not by being with him.

Pornography often causes the viewer to sin.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:27-28, "You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Can a woman watching porn avoid sinning? If she finds the porn degrading or disgusting in some way to her but watches it with her husband at his request, perhaps she doesn’t sin. On the other hand, maybe she sins anyway. If she thinks watching porn in any context is sin and does it anyway just to please her husband, then for her, it is sin. (Romans 14:14) Or, if watching porn defiles her mind, she leaves the door to her heart open to sin.

Anyone who watches porn to become aroused, however, observes it in order to lust. An argument might be made that the person is not lusting for the porn start, but for his or her own spouse. If this is the case, however, what is the point of the porn star? If such cases, the person addicted to porn probably needs professional help, whether or not he or she brought the addiction into the marriage.

Consequently, in answer to the question of married couples using pornography to spice up their sex lives, our recommendation at Family Dynamics Institute is to avoid pornography and learn to enjoy your spouse instead, as God intended.

If you or someone you know is having trouble in their marriage you may want to learn more about the A New Beginning workshop, presented by Family Dynamics Institute.