Remember that tv show, House? Dr. House and his staff dug deep beyond the obvious to root out the cause for strange medical problems. It’s one of my top 10 all-time favorite tv shows because it (almost) always answers my favorite question, “Why?”
To truly heal a person, you must know the foundational or root cause. The root cause answers, “Why is this happening?” And if you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, you’ll know my favorite question is nearly always, “why?” Because in knowing why, we can start to heal.
(Although, I realize sometimes God calls us to things without our knowing why because, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts,” Isaiah 55:9, NIV.)
There is a difference between cause and symptom.
A symptom is a consequence of the root cause. If you have a bacterial infection, generally, you will run a fever. Symptom management, such as taking ibuprofen to reduce a fever or taking a cough suppressant to reduce coughing, is not the same as tackling what caused the fever or cough, in the first place. Tackling the cause involves antibiotics to kill the invading bacteria.
However, symptom management is sometimes all we can do because we are clueless as to why something is happening, especially when dealing with the trickier things of life, not just physical ailments.
You have to dig deeper.
In regard to my husband’s porn problem, we stumbled along employing symptom management because we had no idea the root cause. He managed his temptation through accountability software and other deterrents.
Internet accountability software is not the answer to healing a marriage from porn addiction, it’s only a deterrent. Clever people know that all you have to do is watch a youtube video to learn out how to beat the system.
Now, HEAR ME, I am not negating the use of accountability software. It has its worth in rebuilding trust after a porn problem has come to light. However, the goal for marriages dealing with porn isn’t just sin management, but true sin annihilation. A healing of that magnitude can happen but, you must dig deeper to figure out how to treat the cause, as well as, calling out and relying upon the Lord.
As you continue reading, know that I’m not justifying the use of pornography. I’m trying to help you unravel the mystery of this sin. You see, as I’ve said often, every porn viewer who sits in church on Sunday knows it’s a sin but continues. Why can’t they easily stop? I hope this partly explains to you why.
One root cause of sexual and porn compulsion.
The root cause of porn viewing is not simplistic, just like most of House’s medical cases were nothing near simple.
One of the root causes of overwhelming lust begins early in childhood. At a time when children should be learning to relate to friends and deal with conflict in relatively healthy ways, some children are just trying to emotionally survive neglect or abuse at home. Possibly, they are being bullied by other children at school and are also trying to navigate that humiliation.
“Pornography is alluring to most of us, but it is particularly devastating to those suffering with unaddressed trauma,” Jay Stringer in his book, Unwanted.
“Nearly always, intimacy avoidant adults have suffered chronic attachment trauma during childhood via repeated physical neglect, psychosocial neglect (emotional and cognitive unavailability), emotional abuse, physical abuse, and/or sexual abuse (overt or covert) perpetrated by parents, siblings, or other relatives. (Chronic early-life attachment trauma can also occur at the hands of teachers, coaches, clergy, bullies, and others.) It is possible for chronic attachment trauma to happen even when the individual is not directly victimized. For example, children who witness domestic violence may not have the abuse directed at them specifically, but they nonetheless suffer by living in a fear-based, unpredictable environment,” Robert Weiss, sex/love/porn addiction specialist (see full article here.)
For those children who are enduring intense emotional upheaval in their lives, stumbling upon pornography is like finding their long lost security blanket. Pornograph, with its intense pleasurable physiological response, becomes a place of secret comfort for these children. It asks nothing in return other than just showing up. In fact, viewing porn results in not only surges of feel good dopamine, but the release of oxytocin, the bonding chemical. So, little children who should learn to bond with special people in their life are bonding with an image (Brain Chemicals and Porn – Covenant Eyes).
This place of deep pain and the use of porn as a mechanism of comfort gets carried into adulthood. In other words, it medicates the pain. But, something else happens, too. Porn wrecks the child’s emotional ability to relate and bond with others. The child grows into an adult whose emotional life isn’t fully formed and brings an intimacy disorder into adulthood.
Porn feels intimate, but in actuality it trains a person’s mind to think that sexual gratification comes with no demands on their emotions according to this study. Dr. Mary Anne Layden states pornography is, “a toxic miseducation of sex and relationships.” Could the idea that no demands are placed on him also carry over into other aspects of his life? Possibly.
Porn’s affects do not have to be permanent. Emotional maturity can be nurtured. Ideas on how to do this deserves its own post. For now, check out, “Sex, God, and Men,” by Douglas Weiss. It’s an older book, but has some great emotional exercises in it. Also by Douglas Weiss, “Emotional Fitness.”
Remember, it’s always a good idea to find a Christian Counselor who specializes in porn addictions for guidance.
Another cause of porn viewing
We were made to crave.
We were designed with a deep yearning in the innermost part of our soul, male and female alike. God gave us this deep yearning coupled with free-will. We can freely choose how we satisfy this hunger.
Some people search books for wisdom to satisfy this hunger. Some people skydive and race fast cars because they think adrenaline will satisfy them. Some people view pornography thinking this will fill the void.
The truth is far more holy.
“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées VII(425)
Only God fills the void.
God not only fills the void, but God wants you to seek him.
“…he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us,” Acts. 17:25-27.
There is only one thing that will truly satisfy your deep longing and it is not thrills, or food, or naked bodies.
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,'” Matthew 4:4.
Just knowing the facts and figures and rules of the Bible are not going to fill the void. What fills the void is stepping into the presence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in prayer and asking to be shown how to develop a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.
And of course, I can’t close out this section without mentioning my favorite book on this topic, “Surfing for God,” by Michael Cusick. It’s a must read. Or, listen to one of his podcast episodes at, Restoring the Soul. Although not all the episodes are about porn, they all deal with satisfying the deep spiritual longing.
Now, move forward
You may think he watches porn because he’s highly sexual. What if he’s highly sexual because childhood trauma and soul craving led him to look for healing in that place? Being highly sexual isn’t the problem. The problem is that love was awakened before it’s due time.
“Do not stir up or awaken love until the appropriate time,” Song of Solomon 8:4 (Holman Christian Study Bible).
In knowing some of the root cause, I had greater empathy for my husband and saw that his pornography use was not about me. Knowing this helped us look in the right direction for discovering tools specifically tailored to help conquer my pain of betrayal and his compulsion. Maybe you can find your way to understanding and healing, too, by pondering what your husband’s root cause might be.
Use this info as a starting to point. Here are some helpful resources. Each resource has lots of great articles on recovery and other general info about pornography. All point toward healing through Christ with no shaming.
Books to understand the root cause better
Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way To Healing – by Jay Stringer, a pastor and licensed mental health counselor (LMHC).
Surfing for God: Discovering Divine Desire Beneath Your Sexual Struggle – by Michael Cusick (LMFT), the spiritual battle of pornography.
Sex, God, and Men: A Godly Man’s Roadmap To Sexual Success – Dr. Doug Weiss, GREAT INFO on understanding sex and chemical bonding.
Emotional Fitness: From Challenge to Champion in 60 Days – Dr. Doug Weiss, teaches how to identify emotions and intimacy.
Rethinking Sexuality: God’s Design And Why It Matters – Dr. Juli Slattery, understanding the spiritual nature of sexuality.
Ministries
Be Broken Ministries – This was founded for men and has a special resource just for wives.
Strong Wives – Strong wives rise above the plague of pornography
Hope for Spouses – For wives who have suffered betrayal through infidelity or pornography addiction written by Kim Pullen. She does not use the betrayal trauma model but is a very good resource for support.
FROM THE PODCAST (Sex Chat for Christian Wives): Three Conversations about Porn.
Part 1 – Listen as Bonny shares the complete story of her marriage’s struggle with porn.
Part 2 – Bonny concludes her story
Related Posts
Porn Plagued Us Until This Happened
Finding Courage to Face the Pain of Pornography
First Steps in Battling Pornography
Well done, as always, Bonny! Thank you for showing your readers that digging deeper is vital to healing…
Thank you, Stu! Digging deeper makes you work, but it’s worth it.
Thank you for a great post!
Thank you, Ruth! I hope it helps open dialogue in hurting marriages.
This is such an important post, Bonny. You are so brave and lovely, and your husband is blessed to have you.
Thank you, my dearest friend. If it helps one hurting woman to know how to move forward and to know that there can be something better ahead, my prayers will be answered. (I tell Dave he’s lucky all the time. heehee *SarcasmSortOf* But, I also tell him I’m lucky, too. Lucky = blessed)
Yes, yes I am!!!
Fantastic read. You have clearly articulated an understanding of the soul of man and woman. We are all a broken people in need of redemption. I appreciate you pointing every person to look to the One who satisfies the soul. Keep up the good work you others are doing.
Thank you, Chris. God gets all the glory for compelling me into this ministry and healing our brokenness.
Many dysfunctional behaviors have their roots in childhood hurts. My sister is an alcoholic . While I’m sure our childhood greatly contributed to her disease, she is still responsible for the hurt that she causes others.
Whether the behavior is about the spouse or not, it is still okay to feel hurt from it. Perhaps I am misinterpreting your message?
I also feel that parts of the secular and religious world promote many negative messages about women make porn more appealing to men. In particular much talk about modesty at its root views women as objects rather than human beings.
I grew up in a very conservative religious environment with many negative background messages about women. While I did not have a brother, if I did I’m sure it would be quite a struggle to come out of that upbringing believing it is not okay to view material that is often very marginalizing to women.
I’m not sure what the answer is for porn. This might sound contrary, but I don’t see “accountability software” as a necessarily healthy thing either. I think trust is an important element in marriage.
It is absolutely OK to feel hurt because your spouse watches porn. It’s a betrayal of trust. Your spouse is supposed to be the one you can trust the most. In my journey toward healing from the visceral hurt of porn discovery, I found knowledge is power. Understanding the why’s of his porn use helped me understand his motivations. Understanding his motivations, helped me process my hurt.
I agree with you in regards to modesty and to some extent accountability software. The solution to objectifying human bodies is to be overflowing with the Holy Spirit and to know just how much we are loved by Jesus, in spite of all our flaws.
If I may, I would like to post a few critical responses to your article. The first one is that, like practically every other article on “why men watch porn”, no reasons you give are gender-specific. This is flawed because, if no root reasons are gender-specific, then we should see women fall prey to porn roughly as much as men do, but that is far from the case. (I will expand in my other responses.)
Gender specific? This was not meant to be a meta-anlysis. It is an expansion of the two crucial factors we found in our journey of healing. I think in the long run, the only thing that really matters is the pornography is a heinous misrepresentation of what God designed. There are a zillion reasons why guys might watch porn. NONE of them are approved of by God.
But what do women contend with that’s just as hard? Nothing. How is that fair of God? I thought God was a fair God.
You can’t say your pain is any greater than another person’s pain because you haven’t lived their life. I’m sorry you hurt over this particular issue, but you can’t compare your pain with other people’s pain. We live in a broken, fallen world. You have to remember there is another force at play in this world, Satan. Satan’s favorite weapon to distract you from the true nature of God is through sexuality. The one who isn’t fair is Satan. Turn your meditation upon Christ, let the Holy Spirit overflow from within your heart. I know when your flesh is screaming, it’s hard to focus on spiritual things. But, it is only through spiritual meditation and connection with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will you find true satisfaction.
I don’t share your worldview, so I hope you’ll allow me to object. Can you name any “sin” that women are primarily prone to that is this hard for them to overcome? I believe there is no such “sin”. That’s why I’m saying God is unfair. I’m not talking about individual struggles, I’m talking about the class of men. As a class, they struggle with sexual sin much more than women, and there is no sin that I am aware of that primarily afflicts women which they struggle with AS MUCH as this, or which society and the Church condemns as much. This is why I say it’s unfair of God.
And you blame Satan. But who created Lucifer? It was God. And who knew Lucifer would fall and become Satan? Once again, it was God. So God is also responsible for Satan’s works, since God created Lucifer.
Bryan, you cannot unconditionally know other people’s struggles. You are blaming outside things for your struggle with porn and lust. The blame game is never beneficial. Blame God, if you want. Of course, God did not create Lucifer. God created free will. Lucifer used that free will and gave birth to a desire to become like God. You will reach wholeness when you accept personal responsibility for who you are.
Great post, thanks. (And it’s never lupus!)
Thanks, Paul! That means a lot.
It looks like you do not wish to answer my question. Is that correct?
And, as for Lucifer, respectfully you are incorrect. And I’m surprised I have to correct a devout Christian on this point. God certainly created Lucifer. Lucifer was the “angel of light”, created by God. God may not have created Satan/the Devil/Beelzebub/etc., but God certainly created Lucifer.
Bryan, OK, let me rephrase, God did create Lucifer but not originally as AN EVIL ENTITY. Lucifer, due to free will, decided that he would go down the road of power and lust and greed and hate. Bryan, why argue with you? You spent nearly a week over on our facebook page with my podcast sisters discussing this. I do not think anything beneficial is coming from our discourse. In my worldview, it really doesn’t matter what other people struggle with. I can only control myself. You can only control yourself. Why worry what troubles anyone else, men or women? Does it make you feel better to compare? Maybe, but it doesn’t help you heal from what eats at you.
Bryan, years ago I tangled with deep philosophical questions about Christianity, including the idea of where evil came from. That is, if exists, and God created everything that exists…what does that say about God? These are questions theologians certainly ask from time to time, and they can be both intriguing to consider and important to an individual’s faith. My conclusion was that God created everything, and He chose—from His loving kindness and His desire that we reflect His image—to give us free will. The combination of those things meant that we could accept what was, or twist it to our liking.
That means that you can end up with an angel twisting free will into evil pride. Indeed, the name “Lucifer” is simply the Latin word for “morning star,” and it comes from Isaiah 14:12-15 — in which the Bible makes it clear that this fallen angel CHOSE his fate:
How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
to the depths of the pit.
Likewise, if a man says in his heart that he wants sex on his time, in his way, for his own selfish ends, and without real regard to the other…then he can watch porn. But as Bonny well points out here, men with wounded hearts are far more likely to be pursuing that selfish view of sexuality — especially if it arose in childhood as a twisted approach to soothing those wounds.
Are women likewise tempted? No, we are not. But we do have own temptations, including nagging, worrying, and laziness. (Yes, I’ll cop to all of those for various women, and they are all in the Bible.)
Regardless, I get a real kick out of men thinking it’s some day-in-day-out joyride to be female. How about I shove a wrench into your groin area, crank whatever organs are inside there, and see how that feels? Welcome to my period for 30 years. So stop grousing, and figure out how to be the best man you can be!
Truly, honestly wishing you all the best. Blessings.
J, you mention women’s temptations, like nagging, worrying, and laziness. I would say that men are tempted toward laziness as much as women, but I’ll give you the other two. It’s just that society and the Church doesn’t harp on these sins like it harps on the sexual sins of men. Tell me, how many books can you find on nagging? Now tell me how many you can find on sexual sin?
And your talking about periods are talking about physical pain, not about disappointing God. I could also mention how men live 7 years less than women, get injured on the job more, etc. That’s not my point – my point is that, for those who believe strongly in God, they believe in a God (or at least a Church) who considers men more sinful than women. That is patently unfair.
I’m not trying to just be contrary and annoying. I just am trying to get you women to realize how things aren’t equal from a sin/shame perspective, and that I don’t see how that could point to a just God.
Sin has brought a great deal of inequality into the lives of men and women–but it has never occurred to me to think that God is looking at one group as more or less sinful than the other. We both have our challenges, and God knows what is in our hearts. The measure of God’s fairness and justice is not found on bookshelves. God gave us Jesus.
Bonny’s blog post is to help wives understand and support their husbands in clinging to Jesus as a way out of this sin. What is your end goal in stating that she left out gender-specific reasons for porn use? Let’s say that you were to convince us of that. So what? How does that help wives? Why is it so important to you that we agree with you on this?
Chris, I think it is very important that people understand why guys are so allured by porn. I feel it is vital to understand that there are several reasons why GUYS like porn so much, reasons which are relevant to them being guys, and not just people. I don’t see how a wife can find healing of her pain if she doesn’t know why GUYS like porn. I just don’t see how.
I do not believe in an unfair God. I do believe in imperfect churches, so I will give you that we talk about porn and lust (which husbands seem to struggle with more) more often than sexual refusal (which wives seem to struggle with more). But here’s the thing: You’re commenting on a blog dedicated to helping women work through their issues, including how to lovingly help a husband who has fallen into the sin of porn. How on earth does it help your case to argue in this atmosphere about how unfair God is to men? What do you think wives reading this will take away from your approach? And I’m a blogger who has called talked about women’s temptations. For instance, I encourage you to go read this post (http://hotholyhumorous.com/2017/06/qa-with-j-how-does-satan-target-women/). Maybe you could use your frustration better to challenge others who actually do what you think is unfair. Because this is one post from Bonny in a slew of posts designed to help women, not to right all the wrongs between men and women (real or perceived).
Regardless, I am a person of faith. I believe deeply in a just and merciful God. And His Son said it’s a poor idea to make an argument for your life by comparing it to someone else’s:
Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”
Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?” (John 21:20-23).
So does it matter who has it harder? (I don’t accept your proposition that men have it harder, but I don’t think it matters if they do or we do.) As my young adult son often says, “You do you.” And let God worry about everyone else.
J, you’re right in that my complaining that I feel God is unfair to men isn’t going to help women with their pain and issues. That’s my frustration coming out. I’m sorry – it’s hard for me to keep that hidden. But as I said to Chris, I think it’s essential for a woman trying to understand why a man is so pulled by porn to understand why a MAN is so pulled by porn. Bonny’s article is about WHY a husband likes porn, and I can’t say strongly enough that any answer that doesn’t highlight what’s so specifically MALE about porn use misses the boat so much.