Pornography and Marriage

I am planning to write a number of articles about pornography and marriage. It is essential to discuss the effects of pornography on marriages. Statistics say that 56% of divorces involve one spouse’s obsessive interest in pornography. Also, in the Catholic Church in the United States, the national average is 50% of annulments involve pornography as one of the grounds being used to argue that the marriage is invalid. 

Pornography is destroying marriages and preventing them from being validly entered into. Pornography is a sin that thrives in shame and secrecy, and the shame and secrecy lead to further acting out. Porn use is always wrong, but if it is a secret being kept in a marriage, then this and any big secret in marriage is a recipe for decreased intimacy, because secrets create emotional distance between spouses. For a couple to experience intimacy, which is what our apostolate is all about, there cannot be secrets between couples. How porn use is disclosed between spouses deserves its own article. When the porn use of one spouse is discovered by the other spouse, trust and the sense of safety go away, and that is an obstacle to intimacy as well. 

It is not just the capacity for emotional intimacy that is damaged by pornography. The ability to experience physical intimacy can be impacted by pornography use as well. First, there is a vast difference between sex in marriage and sex in porn. If pornography is where one spouse gets his/her expectation of what sex in marriage will be like, then those expectations can become unrealistic, but they also can be picked up on by the other spouse when the porn-using spouse wants to do things that were seen in pornography that the other spouse is uncomfortable with.Since pornography is the use of another person, the spouse who views pornography will likely be a spouse who uses his/her spouse, and other people as well.  Also, pornography-induced erectile dysfunction is becoming more common and a growing problem for younger men. A husband with this problem, literally cannot engage in physical intimacy for as long as this problem persists. Pornography can lead to erectile dysfunction by causing the man who uses it frequently enough to be unable to be aroused by a real woman and real sex because only pornography can arouse him. 

For more on pornography in general, and how it affects marriages, read this article that we already wrote. Please stay tuned for more articles related to the impact of pornography on marriages.