I’ve noticed a rather commonly held belief among men who flock to porn recovery forums. It seems many of these men, particularly the college-aged variety, regard it as a healthy behaviour and a sure-sign of recovery to hook up with strangers or people they barely know for sex (as an alternative to using porn).
Whenever I come across such posts, I’m always skeptical of two things: one of the author’s authenticity, and two of his sincerity.
I’m being sensible enough on that first point, right? I mean, no one ever lies on the Internet. At the same time, you might find it odd that I would ever doubt the sincerity of a college-aged male claiming to have enjoyed the sexual company of a young woman. Such a claim goes against common sense, sure. But you might be surprised to learn the doubt I’m posing is statistically in my favour.
When researchers administered a questionnaire to 187 college students seeking to know more about their feelings toward hookup culture, only 5% said they felt proud, and 2% said they felt desirable or wanted. 1
There are a few possible interpretations to be made about the poster based on the data:
- The poster is lying about the event happening
- The poster is lying about his feelings
- The poster belongs to the 5%
The first two interpretations would be preferable as, in the case of the third interpretation, it’s statistically likely that his disposable partner belongs to the 98% that felt undesirable and unwanted while he boasts about his conquests to strangers on the Internet.
It seems to me that men who make these posts on recovery forums haven’t recovered at all, but merely moved from one false pleasure to another. The danger is that they seem to truly believe this is a sign of healing.
In my opinion, the primary problem with pornography (and therefore the sine qua non of recovery from its effects) is that, like most sins, it takes a holy desire from God and pursues it in a disordered and false way.
Consider this observation from C.S. Lewis:
“We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he “wants a woman”. Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want. He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus. How much he cares about the woman as such may be gauged by his attitude to her five minutes after fruition (one does not keep the carton after one has smoked the cigarettes). Now Eros makes a man really want, not a woman, but one particular woman. In some mysterious but quite indisputable fashion the lover desires the Beloved herself, not the pleasure she can give.” 2
If a man has trained himself for years to take pleasure from consuming women’s bodies through his computer or phone screen, and if he thinks the fault with this behaviour is not how it’s wrong in the way women are treated, but only wrong in that it causes him erectile dysfunction, it’s a logical progression that he would not find fault in his behaviour towards women by hooking up.
In fact, all he has done is moved from masturbating with his hand to masturbating with a woman’s body.