Tag: pornography

Are Romance Novels Female Porn?

Do women receive unrealistic expectations? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last night I was talking to someone and the topic of pornography came up. We were talking about how men have a hard time with relationships with women because pornography gives unrealistic expectations. However, as a contrast, we discussed women can have unrealistic expectations for men and this could be in the form of romance novels.

Of course, I cannot say if this is the case since no one can read all romance novels, but women can often have expectations of all the men that they want to marry. We are often told men are shallow going solely by looks. This can be true, but women can also go by looks entirely. I remember when I was single not being as attractive to women as the really athletic guys are, which I definitely am not.

Yet it goes beyond that. When I talk to guys about to get married about the wedding night, I tell them to think about what they have seen in movies and on television. I then tell them forget it all. After all, in popular culture, nothing goes wrong. No one puts down a towel. No one makes any inappropriate bodily noises. No one does anything that is displeasing. Everything flows naturally and perfectly.

Real life isn’t like that. Real sex takes work. It takes practice. For most people, their first time will be incredibly awkward. They’re just getting started. Why expect to be a professional?

Real romance also takes work.

Women have been raised with stories of Prince Charming coming for them. He looks perfect so much and he’s a great kisser and he knows how to do everything to sweep a woman off of her feet. What’s absent is the time that Prince Charming wakes up in the morning to kiss her and he has really bad morning breath.

Prince Charming will leave his underwear on the floor sometimes. He will leave a dirty dish out wanting you to clean it. He will ask you to bring him dinner while he watches his football game. He will get snippy with your mother sometime. He will be playing on his iPhone sometimes while he’s on a date with you. He will get gray hair or go bald and he will lose his perfect physique.

In other words, Prince Charming will be like every other man out there. To expect a man like to be like that is as unrealistic as expecting a woman to be like a porn star. (And I suspect a porn star isn’t even really like a porn star in reality.) It will set you up for failure.

Men tend to connect with sight. That’s why there’s such a joke out there about anime girls who seem to have totally unrealistic proportions. Women tend to connect with stories. If the sight of a woman who is unrealistic in porn can damage men, an unrealistic story could do the same for women.

Also, notice how each of these can set us up with a false idea about marriage. We need to find a spouse who is good for us. Now you should hope your spouse is good for you, but the best question to be asking is “Are you being good for your spouse?” For most of us in marriage sadly, we are asking if our spouse is making us happy and if we are not happy, well just get divorced. The real question to ask is more “What can I do to bring happiness to my spouse?” (Or even better, holiness.)

This is not to say you can’t think of what makes you happy. You should because if your spouse wants to make you happy, they need to know from you what does that. The real goal though should be seeking to show love to others in season and out of season and that starts in your own home.

So if you’re reading a romance novel, maybe it doesn’t have anything in it like an explicit sex scene, but that doesn’t mean you’re not having your ideas altered by it. You can marry Prince Charming and wake up one morning to find his dirty socks on the floor. In reality though, he probably had expectations of you that you fell short of, and that’s okay, because we all come with unrealistic expectations.

This then is the time for grace. Accept people where they are, including your spouse. At the same time, motivate them to be better than they are, not just because of what you want for them, but because of what is good for them themselves.

Guys. Women will not be like porn stars and pornography is wrong anyway so please don’t bother with it. Women. Please be careful about your ideas of romance. Prince Charming will have morning breath sometimes.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why Not Use Porn?

Does porn disgrace a human being? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently, I was on a Facebook thread where someone had been talking about changing their VPN to show being in Italy where apparently, PornHub is giving a free gift to people under quarantine. I jumped in some and was dialoguing and all was going well and seemed to quite down. Later, I saw the thread again and realized Facebook hadn’t notified me that people had replied to me, a problem I seem to be having with Facebook lately. I didn’t want to jump into what looked like a dumpster fire then, so I figured I would now.

I write this from the perspective of a man. I realize that women can struggle with pornography as well. My wife has overcome that addiction so I defer women to talk to her who want some help.

For one thing, porn requires nothing of you. Nothing. In the past, you would have to at least brave up to go to the magazine rack or ask about that one room at the video store. Not so anymore. Hypothetically, if I wanted to, I could access porn from anywhere in the world. I could watch it in the check-out line at the grocery store. No more do little boys have to hide under bedsheets at night with a flashlight. Now they can hide with their iPhones.

Traditionally, if a man wanted a woman, he would have to risk himself and ask her out and be prepared for rejection. Then he would have to go to the time and effort of wooing her and loving her. The hope in all of this is that physical attraction would become long and lasting love.

In the past, most marriages were arranged. You would literally go to bed with a total stranger on the wedding night. My thinking is that sexual behavior was meant to build the bonds of love and make the man realize that if he wanted the woman, he needed to treat her well. Repeated behavior leads to real love in that case. Sadly, too many men decided to shortcut the process and not stay faithful to their wives just to get what they wanted.

Moving on, I find it interesting that those of us with a more conservative position are actually the ones that seem to treat sex more seriously. Someone can sleep around with several people and say “It’s just sex.” I find it difficult to picture someone who believes in covenant monogamy really saying something like that. “Oh yeah. Doing that sex thing together. No big deal.”

Sexual activity is something different. If I were regularly playing something like Mario Kart with a female other than family, my wife could get concerned, but that would not constitute cheating. If that became a heavily emotional relationship and then a physical one, we would be cheating, but the activity itself does not necessitate that. Somehow, when sex enters the picture, a boundary has been crossed.

A more polyamorous lifestyle might try to say that it is just sex, but what if it isn’t? What if we are bumping against reality? What if it could be that sexual behavior actually means something? What if sex really is reserved for a covenant relationship? Could we be desensitizing ourselves to that?

This is also because what you do with your body means something. I am normally a non-social person so I don’t talk much if I don’t have to. Suppose you see me out across the street somewhere and say hi and I wave back. Okay. All is well. Now suppose in a different universe I just scowl at you or I even give you the finger. You go home that night wondering if you offended me some time or if I’m just having a bad day. You don’t treat those actions as if they’re identical.

Sometimes, non-Christians get amazed that it looks like God cares so much what we do with our genitals. Of course, He does. God cares what we do with our whole body. Much of society cares as well. After all, rape is something illegal and that is very much involving one’s genitals.

If our bodily actions mean something, then what we are telling people sexually is how much honor we give them. Give that honor to just anyone and it doesn’t really become an honor. A woman taking off her clothes for a man is telling him what position he holds in her life. Also ladies, if you are married to a good man, he will never tire of your body and he will love it no matter what happens to it.

One analogy has been made has been to picture dating as a marketplace. Each woman tells what she is worth by how long she withholds sexual intimacy. Is she worth dinner and a movie? A week? A month? A year? Engagement? Or is she worth a lifelong commitment?

We’re not even talking about some other moral implications yet, but they’re worth getting into, such as PornHub’s recent trouble in being connected with sex trafficking. Watch porn and you could be enabling that. You are taking someone’s daughter there and treating her as just an object of your own enjoyment instead of a person in her own right.

Furthermore, I think guys who watch porn are just making it harder for them to get real women. After all, you can tell yourself you will never get a real one, so you might as well watch porn. That’s the only way you’ll see a naked female body in your life. Right?

If you do get married, you want things to be special anyway. When a man takes off his wife’s lingerie for the first time, he shouldn’t be immediately comparing her to countless other women he has seen in pornography. He should be able to enjoy her for her alone. I suspect this is also why so many commercials I hear are about ED and problems like that. Men have been being aroused by fake women and needing more and more for so long that fake women can’t do it anymore.

Pornography is addictive behavior. It will do you no favors and this implies even if married couples think it will spice things up for them to watch together. There might be short-term benefits perhaps, but in the long run, the costs will be greater. It’s just not worth it.

Not only that, but once you as a man have a woman to complete the unit, why would you need more? It’s basically saying your wife is inadequate to meet your needs. Sexual rejection is always painful and one of the worst ways of it is saying either implicitly or explicitly, you don’t meet my needs.

If you are struggling with porn, get some help. Go to a group like Celebrate Recovery. Get a filter on your computer and devices from programs like XXXChurch. You can beat this and it will be worth it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 2/29/2020

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Around the time a young man enters middle school, he starts to go through a physiological change where all of a sudden, those girls who had cooties before immediately become super appealing to him. While he looked at them with disdain before, now he looks at them wanting to know them better. Not only that, their bodies are changing at the same time and a man wants to know what exactly lies underneath all those clothes.

Now there are a few ways that a man can find this out, other than checking out a book on anatomy. He can either date the girl and seek to marry her and on the wedding night see what that girl looks like underneath, or he can try to seduce her before marriage, or if he doesn’t care about that girl in particular and any girl will do, he can look at porn.

In the past, porn used to be something hard to look at. You had to sneak down to the magazine rack at the store or else go to that hidden room at the video store. A lot of planning would be required in order to get your fix. Well, that was then and this is now.

The age of the internet has brought about pornography so much so that now we have rule 34. If it exists, there is porn of the internet on it somewhere. Pornography is a click away. You can access a woman’s body from any computer in your home.

Or heck, who needs your home? Just take your tablet or phone and you can do the same thing. Teenagers especially now have an easier time getting porn than they ever did before.

It’s had an effect sadly. It’s hard to find a man whose life has not been damaged by porn use. Women have to suffer it too as they are increasingly pressured to match what the young men see in their pornography videos. Not only that, I suspect the reasons I hear so many commercials for ED and see so many products for it is because men have trained themselves to get aroused at pornography videos.

Some men want to help out and in my travels on the internet, I found some of those men. Keep in mind that in saying all of this, I know porn is becoming an increasing problem for women who watch it as well today. I hope many skills can be transferable, but today, it’s looking at men. One such man who wants to help will be my guest this Saturday. His name is Shane O’Neill

So who is he?

According to his bio:

Shane O’Neill has a graduate degree in apologetics from Liberty University’s Rawling School of Divinity and He is the Editorial Director for Proven Ministries. Proven Ministries works with organizations, churches, families, and individuals to see a revival of sexual dignity throughout the entire Bride of Christ. 

We are also working on getting the webcam working so hopefully we can go to YouTube live and Facebook live to do these shows. If you struggle with porn or know someone who does, which is incredibly likely, please be listening to this show. Hope to see you then.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Some Thoughts On PornHub and Sex Trafficking

How should we view women today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A news story is out about the FBI looking into groups like PornHub for sex trafficking. For those of us who know something about the porn industry, that sex trafficking is involved is not news to us. It’s not to say that all women in the industry are victims of sex trafficking, but I have no doubt that some are.

So let’s talk a bit about porn and why it should be shut down.

Now in the past, if you wanted to look at pornography, you had to go somewhere secret and be discrete. You had to go to the magazine stand or to the video store and there was a chance you could be caught. Unfortunately, with the good of the internet came the evil of porn and then rule 34. That states that if it exists, there is porn of it on the internet. No matter how innocent you think something is, there is porn of it out there somewhere.

As I drive around Atlanta, I listen to talk radio. Everyday practically, I will hear a commercial about erectile dysfunction. It’s constant. Why is this? I always tell my wife the same thing. I suspect it happens so much because so many men have watched porn for so long that they can’t easily be aroused by a real woman. They only go with a fake one.

This is not to say that all causes of erectile dysfunction are due to pornography. Saying women in porn videos are fake is not to say they are not real people. It is to say that what is presented is a false idea of what women and sex are meant to be.

As a man in charge of a group for guys on Facebook who are Christian and married, engaged, dating, or hoping to date and marry, when I meet a man about to marry, I ask him if he would like to talk about what to expect. This is something every guy (And every girl) needs if they haven’t had sex before their wedding night. One thing I always tell them is to think back to what you have seen on TV and movies. Think back to all the sex you have experienced on there. Now throw it out because none of it is realistic at all.

In the movies and I am sure in porn, everything works flawlessly. There are no mistakes. There are no accidents. No one has to put down a towel. No one gives a touch that is not liked. The woman and the man have perfect ecstasy together and they both orgasm at exactly the same point and everything is wonderful.

Sorry. Real sex will involve trial and error for some time and you will always be learning.

So men get a false idea of what sex is.

Not only that, it leads to a consumer mentality of women. Women are objects just to be wanted for their bodies. The purpose of a woman is to parade before a man in all her naked self and let him glorify himself in her. On porn, the woman on the other end is irrelevant. You don’t have to know her name or care about her or do anything for her whatsoever. She is your servant entirely.

Now I am not at all knocking the idea that a woman is beautiful. I saved myself for marriage and when I see my wife’s body in all her glory I am utterly amazed and mesmerized. After nearly ten years of marriage, Allie is still the woman out there that totally turns my head. She is my great gift and I will jump at any chance I can to see her body.

That’s the way God made it too.

You see, the beauty then inspires me. If I want to have the joy of Allie’s body, I need to treat her right. I need to love her. I need to honor her. Now even if I don’t feel those things at the start hypothetically, which I think happens in arranged marriages, by doing those actions over and over, I come to love and honor her because it becomes habitual and habits change your thinking. For me, loving Allie is really second nature now.

I don’t go and say “I can’t see Allie’s body now for reason XYZ” and jump on to porn instead. That treats her body like a consumable good. I can say that when I see her body, I do see her physical form and I am amazed, but the beauty I see goes beyond the physical. It is not just her body in a transcendent way. It is as if I am seeing her. I am seeing not just her form, but I am seeing vulnerability and trust. I am seeing her. How she is to be with me and me with her is how we are to be before God.

Pornography will teach you that the purpose of the woman is to serve you. If you are married though, your purpose is to serve your spouse. Women are to seek to please their husbands, as so many husbands like to say, but husbands are to seek to please their wives. It doesn’t just mean doing something on Valentine’s Day or anniversary or birthdays or special events like that. It means doing something every day that you can. Believe it or not guys, it wouldn’t kill you to get out the vacuum cleaner every now and then.

Pornography cheapens the people in your life and will make it harder for you to love. In sexuality, it’s important to know what pleases you or else your spouse won’t know how to bring you the happiness they should want to bring you, but your main goal should be to please your spouse. Many a guy will say that despite the idea that sex is all they want, they are not really pleased with sex if they do not think they have pleased their wives. That is their real goal.

Now I realize that women also struggle with porn. This is not to diminish that, but as a man, it is easier to write to the men. The women can find their own parallels, but if you struggle with porn, please get help. Get an accountability partner. Get some software on your computer and other devices that can hold you accountable. Join a group like Celebrate Recovery and get some help. This will not be an easy battle, but it is worth it.

Remember on those videos also, that girl on there is someone’s daughter as well. She deserves to be treated respectfully and with dignity. Women, for you, please never lower yourself ever to win the heart of a guy. If you have to lower yourself, he is not worth it. You are worth more than that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Wired For Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks The Male Brain

What do I think of William Struthers’s book published by IVP? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Women are beautiful. Seriously. If the only evidence I had for the existence of God was my wife’s beauty, I would say the case is closed. I honestly can understand why some men get obsessed with pornography. We want to see beautiful women and they are such a mystery to us.

Pornography seems like an easy fix then. You get to see women and you get to experience their beauty. You don’t really harm anyone either. Right? What’s the harm.

Struthers writes that there is a great deal of harm. I want to stress at the start that I know pornography is becoming more of a problem for women as well and Struthers would not deny that I’m sure, but his main focus is writing about men. Men are often the ones who are much more the pursuers when it comes to sexual love and men don’t tie sex to emotions as much as women tend to. Men and women on average tend to treat sex very differently.

Struthers writes from a biblical perspective, but also from a psychological perspective. He writes about how men view sex and how pornography is degrading to them as men and degrading to the women. Pornography doesn’t enhance the joy of sexual pleasure. Instead, it winds up diminishing it. This book is ten years old and I think even more now it’s diminished than it was before. Today, there are men who are in their 20’s on viagra because they can’t get an erection watching real women because they’ve been watching women in porn for so long.

Struthers writes about the psychological and chemical effects that pornography has on the brain. He talks about how it is that a man experiences sexuality and how women should be aware of that. He writes about how many men experience shame with pornography and how it affects them. Sadly, there are too few men today who do not have any experience with pornography.

He also helps build up a worldview of sex and how it should properly be exercised in a marriage covenant between a man and a woman. This doesn’t mean that single people don’t have to have a proper worldview of sex. A single person has ways of bringing glory to God in their celibacy that a married person doesn’t. A married person has ways of bringing glory to God in their marriage and sexual intimacy that a single person doesn’t.

Also is the need for good masculinity. Today, we hear a lot about toxic masculinity. For many sadly, masculinity is measured by how good a man does in the bedroom. Naturally, a man wants to do good in the bedroom, but his masculinity is measured by far more than that. The measure of a man is really how much he can love, and when it comes to marriage, that will include showing love in the bedroom, but it also includes showing love everywhere else.

Also, men do need intimacy and by that is not just meant sex. There is a myth among women that all a man wants is sexual release when it comes to the act of marriage, which is just wrong. A man really wants to feel close and connected and loved by his wife and sexual intimacy is one of the loudest ways that a man gets the message that he is loved and accepted like that.

Finally, there’s a section on rewiring and restoring. There is hope and redemption for those whose lives have been damaged by pornography. Repentance and forgiveness is available to all who have stumbled.

I really encourage you to get this book and do something to address the problem of pornography. To sit alone looking at a computer screen to get aroused doesn’t require you to be a man. It just requires you to have a male body and a working computer with an internet connection. To go out and be a husband and maybe eventually a father as well, that requires you to be a real man. To have the desires for women but not feed them by viewing porn also requires you to be a real man. Go that route.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Evil Of Sex Trafficking

What harm can visiting that porn site do? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last night, my wife and I watched an Indian movie with subtitles called Shivaay about a man going against the sex trafficking industry. It was fictional, but something made along the lines of Taken. Pretty much, you have a one-man wrecking crew going against a sex trafficking industry when his daughter gets kidnapped.

Most of us I hope would never ever want to participate in sex trafficking. While young boys can be the victims, more often than not, I suspect it’s females. After all, sex sells and usually men are in the market to buy. In these cases, young women are ripped away from their safe environments, even here in America, and find themselves in an industry where they are only valued for their bodies.

One such business they can be in is the porn business.

Now I am not saying that everyone who works in the porn industry, even the “performers” are there because they were kidnapped in the sex trafficking industry. However, we don’t know on the outside who was and wasn’t brought into it that way. Statements can be made, but we all know businesses can lie as well.

Readers know I have enough problems with the porn industry as I think it takes something good and beautiful and holy like sex and cheapens it. Many of us married men do indeed value the sex we have with our wives, but we value them for much more than that. If you are a man or a woman one day planning to marry, I recommend you obliterate any porn from your life now. Heck. Even if you’re not planning to, I recommend you do it, because the use of porn will make it easier for you to think of men and women as sex objects only or at least primarily.

When that woman is before that camera, that is someone’s daughter up there. Always remember that. That is a person who is beautiful and special in her own right regardless of what she does or doesn’t do with her body. She is also not just a body. She is a person created in the image of God.

As said at the start, most of us won’t get involved in the sex trafficking industry, but some do or else it wouldn’t be going on today. Many more do get involved in the porn industry. That could be unknowingly leading to the support of the sex trafficking industry. I hope that most who are viewing porn would at least oppose sex trafficking and be willing to give it up at least for that reason.

Please also watch the young people around you. If you suspect someone you know is caught in the industry, get some help from some professionals out there. Every life is precious and no one deserves to be used this way.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Sacredness Of The Human Body

What is it about the body that is sacred? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, I found myself on Facebook in a discussion about pornography. Why was I against it? Talking to atheists in this one, I decided to not just quote Scripture left and right, but to accept real evidence that I thought would be more convincing.

I spoke about how pornography ultimately treats women as objects. (I know there is porn the other way, so just alter the figures as needed) They are there to fulfill a sexual need and that is it. There is no more beyond that. Such a position is degrading to the female and if you degrade one woman, you have degraded all of them.

Later last night, I read about a resort called Temptation that is pretty much a millennial sex orgy. While there is supposed to be no public sex there and no is supposed to mean no, I’m quite sure that at least the first rule is violated several times. The sad thing is, this article was written by a married woman who said while she wasn’t going to be sleeping with other guys, she was happily letting it all go there.

I found it ultimately saddening, as if the human body is simply a display object. For myself, I like knowing that there is something of the body that is reserved for me only by my wife and vice-versa. This isn’t talking about you just going to the gym and if you’re with other men or other women, being undressed around them. After all, unless they’re gay, that’s not an issue for them. This is about things reserved for you and your spouse alone.

I really do think this is something that women especially have to face. After all, even most women would say the female body is objectively far more beautiful than the male is, and that’s even if they’re fully straight women. Women were just made to be beautiful and many women are constantly comparing themselves with other women to see if they have that beauty.

By the way women, just a little tip. What you are so obsessed with, we are not obsessed with. If you are married to a good man, he has no objections to you doing things to beautify yourself more, but he also loves you just the way you are. If anything, he wants you to live like you believe that.

Which gets me back to my objection to pornography. I object to the female body being put on display as an object just to arouse men. Now let me be straight forward and say the human female body does arouse men. I was listening to a news story about Notre Dame burning and how it was the building as it was before the fire was the most beautiful sight someone had ever seen. My thought was, “I am sure it is a beautiful sight, but it sure can’t compare to Allie.”

I definitely mean that. Why? Well, Notre Dame, as beautiful as it was, and hopefully will be again, was still built by man. It can’t compare with a design that was originally made by God. As I sit here typing, I see a picture of my wife here next to me and I look over with amazement. I never truly knew what beauty was until I saw her.

If I am sitting on the couch minding my own business and she tells me she’s going to go take a shower, my ears perk up immediately. If there’s anything that can get me to stop what I’m doing, it’s the affection of my wife. It has been a huge motivator for me to get me to stop doing things I shouldn’t be doing and start doing things that I should be doing.

So yes, I am not at all about to deny that the human female body has that function on us men.

The difference is that we who are happily married men should know that that is not just a human female body. That is a person. There’s an adage for married men that says sex begins at breakfast. No. It doesn’t mean you hoist her on to the breakfast table and get your game on. (Not that many of us would object if she was willing) It means that you start being romantic in the morning and that will increase the odds of her being romantic in the evening.

Pornography removes all of that. There is no romance truly in porn. The story of a movie might have some romance, but the man watching to get his stimulation needs to make no requirement. He does not have to romance a woman. He does not have to treat her with dignity. He’s just seeing a body. That’s all that matters.

Not only that, there are likely some in the porn industry who are there because of sex trafficking. Someone watching porn could unknowingly be supporting sex trafficking then. This is especially relevant for those in the atheistic crowd who want to decry slavery in the Bible so much.

There’s also the case that if you watch movies and TV, most of us know that any sex that takes place there is nothing like it is in real life. Porn will go way beyond that to even more unrealistic ideas. That’s why many women today can struggle with their lovers wanting more and more extreme behavior. I’m also convinced this is why many young men struggle with conditions like erectile dysfunction. They have got so used to fake women that a real woman can’t turn them on anymore.

Guys. If you are struggling with this habit, I really encourage you to go and get help immediately. You are not preparing yourself for a future sex life if you’re still a virgin. You’re doing great damage to your future sex life. If you are not planning to marry, you’re still lowering women everywhere. If you are married, find pleasure in your own wife. You don’t need to look elsewhere for sexual fulfillment.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Married Guy’s Guide To Great Sex

What do I think of Penner and Penner’s book published by Focus on the Family? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Some people might be shocked to find out that a book with this title is written by two Christians. Others might be even more shocked to find out it’s published by Focus on the Family. Yet it has to be asked why should anyone be shocked. Our holy book as Christians contains the Song of Songs, a very sexual text indeed, and our God is the God who made the whole system of sex.

So now let’s get down to the details. This book is written for men and presumably, men in a Christian marriage. The book starts off with dealing with one of the great myths about men and marriage and sex. It is a great myth that most every guy will want to deny, but any married man will know is true.

We men are not sexperts.

Okay? Unless you’ve spent a lot if time in studying this area, you’re really not. We as men think that we have to automatically know everything about sex. We don’t. We grow up and get amazed by the women around us and our culture tells us that men are the people who know how to love a lady and that includes sexually.

Most of us who are married know that movies and TV shows are a sham in how they present sex. The man and the woman get together and it all just flows naturally. (Most men also know it’s a joke to think the woman is just as eager for the sex as the man is constantly.) You never see a movie or a TV show, at least I haven’t, where they say “We should put down a towel first.” You don’t see scenes of reaching for the lubricant. In movies, everything seems to flow perfectly and easily. That’s Hollywood fake sex. It’s not real sex.

So once we get past that idea, we can get to the work of learning about what it is we’re supposed to do. The Penners work on what kind of lover a man is. A great mistake that can be easily made is asking your wife how she likes a certain touch or activity. Stop it. It turns you into a spectator and makes you focus on a performance instead of an activity. If you talk, talk about what you yourself are feeling in touching and experiencing your wife and she will take the praise and enjoy it.

Ultimately, men need to let the woman lead. She is the star of the show. We’re just the supporting actors. Let her guide and don’t rush things which will make it even better because then, it’s not what you’re wanting but what she’s wanting. The women in our lives already know we want them. Let us show them how they want us to want them.

Remember also, your goal is to give her a good time. Give her a good experience and you will have a good experience. If you don’t think so, then you are just doing things wrong. By the way, ladies reading this. Want to make your husband really happy? Let him know if he does a really good job in the bedroom. (Or whatever room you happen to be in)

Also guys, remember sex doesn’t just take place in that room. Sex is an all-day thing. No. Not the way you’re thinking. It’s in romancing your wife constantly. If I go to the grocery store and Allie is just waiting in the parking lot while I shop, I’m busy sending her text messages and love songs on YouTube. Too many guys come home, show no affection to their wives, ask for dinner and a TV remote, and then expect their wives to be ready for a romantic evening.

Not happening.

Definitely included is to get rid of any pornography. Pornography will not enhance your marriage. Any benefits that are gained will be short-term. The long-term costs are far more serious.

Overall, the Penners would want you to remember that this is God’s gift for you. Sex should be enjoyable, but it will take work. You’re not naturally a sexpert, but you can learn.

And ladies, there’s a chapter at the end for you. This is a little not and guys can be benefitted by reading it. If you ladies want to read this book with your husbands, go ahead. You can say what you agree with and don’t agree with and if you desire, put it into practice, perhaps immediately.

This is a good book for married guys to read and not too long to read. The chapters are short and the lessons are easily learned. It could also be a good book for guys about to get married so they can learn what mistakes to not make ahead of time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Is Pornography Beautiful?

If the human body is beautiful, why isn’t porn? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last week was my debate. While I am pleased with it, I will leave it up to you to decide what you think about it whenever I get a link to it. Yesterday at church, someone who was there mentioned an atheist couple he was sitting near during the debate and when I made a remark about the problems of pornography one person of the couple said to the other, “That shows he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Pornography is beautiful.”

It might be easy to make a connection. The human body is a beautiful thing. Pornography is a display of the human body. Therefore, pornography would be beautiful. This makes sense. Right?

It does, but there are some distinctions to make.

Let’s start with the first point. The human body is a beautiful thing. Yes, indeed. I am married to my wife of nearly nine years and I can assure any guy out there that I am amazed by the beauty of the female body and think God did an excellent job when He fashioned the human female form.

So surely, if I am a great lover of the female body, wouldn’t I want more of that body? Wouldn’t I want to see more women like that? Wouldn’t it be a good thing to see more women like that?

That’s where we get to the differences.

For you guys out there who struggle with pornography (And I know women struggle, but I can’t speak from the experience of a woman), you’re really robbing yourself. To click a button on your mouse and bring up an image really requires nothing of yourself. There is no work in wooing a woman and winning her heart and earning her trust.

In a marriage relationship though, there is work. If one wants to have intimacy with the Mrs., one needs to be on good terms. This requires that you rise up and actually be the man and treat her the way she deserves to be treated as your one and only spouse. When that woman then shares her glory with you, there is really nothing like it. It is a message to her of not just showing you her body, but showing you her body is showing you how much she loves and trusts you and desires you.

Porn will also show you lies about sexuality. When I talk to guys who aren’t married and are about to marry and the question of sex comes up, I tell them to think to what they have seen in movies and television. Then forget every bit of it, because it just isn’t accurate. Most of the time, sex won’t take place like it will on the big screen. There will be mistakes and confusion and you can often put down a towel first. Watch a TV show and the only point of the dating relationship of a couple seems to be that they can have sex. Sex is a hugely important part of a married couple connecting, but it is not the only part.

It also won’t show you what a woman really wants because every woman is different. What will excite a woman one day might not excite her the next. Learning to love a woman involves adapting to change and coming to know each other better. In porn, there is no love involved.

You just see a girl on a screen. You don’t have to know her name. My concern for many men is it can instill cowardice in them in that they think that this is the best way they can get a woman and won’t go out there and do the work of getting a real woman. It will also instill in them a tendency to treat women like objects in their only purpose is giving them sexual gratification.

The human body is beautiful, but porn takes that sacredness of the human body and reduces them from being a person to being a body. Sexuality is something beautiful and it’s meant for a marriage union where the passion it has can be properly harnessed and used for the good of the couple together. Keep in mind also guys that if you are married and you do use porn, many times you could devastate the woman you’re with if she finds out. No woman likes to get the message that she’s insufficient to please you in the bedroom and you need to go and look at other women. I also suspect that many reasons I hear commercials around here for ED is so many men have got that way because porn has changed their body’s natural response system.

The human body is beautiful. Sex is beautiful in a marriage covenant. Porn is never beautiful. It is treating the human person like an object and degrading to the user and the performer both.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Porn Myth

What do I think of Matt Fradd’s book published by Ignatius? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Pornography is all around us in our world today. Hypothetically, I could make a few clicks right here on my computer and get to porn. In the past, young men would have to hide out in a shed somewhere finding their Dad’s magazines hidden in order to get a peek. No more. Rule 34 is all over the internet.

Many people today have come to accept it as normal. For talking about men who struggle, well boys will be boys. What are you going to do? The reality is that there is no reason this should be normal. Pornography should never be anything tolerated. We should all recognize it for the evil that it is on society.

Matt Fradd does write from a Catholic perspective, but you won’t find Catholicism emphasized in this book. You won’t find Christianity period emphasized. Fradd does not quote a bunch of Bible verses to make his point. He appeals to scientific and sociological data on pornography.

Also, he wants to state that being anti-porn is not anti-sex. If anything, being pro-porn is being anti-sex. Pornography will keep you from having a healthy and normal sexual relationship. As a man who avoided porn, I don’t really have comparisons for my wife’s body. Sex was something I really got to learn through experience and did not have to erase lies from porn about what sex is like, although to be fair, the media sure gives us a lot of lies in movies and television on what it’s like.

He also has lies about the industry. These include lies about porn being a safe industry. Reading stories like these will just chill you when you hear about the horrors that some women go through on the set. There also isn’t really any such thing as nice and friendly porn. All of it is putting women on display as objects.

And no, this is not empowering to women. This allows women to be seen as just objects. I often wonder the same thing when I hear about women having topless marches down the street. Yes. They’re getting the attention of men. Unfortunately, it’s not in the way that they want.

Next is a section on porn and sexuality. These include myths such as women don’t struggle with porn, it’s not addictive, and that anime porn is fine since it doesn’t involve real people. When I drive through our city of Atlanta, I hear several commercials about curing erectile dysfunction. I have a suspicion that many cases of this are due to the use of pornography. There are many men who sadly cannot get aroused by their wives because they have been too busy with fantasy women.

After that, we have a section on porn and other relationships. These include that marriage will cure us of porn obsessions and one I particularly hate, men wouldn’t struggle with porn if their wives were more attractive. There is nothing wrong with a woman wanting to look her best for her man, and she should, but it is not the woman’s fault if the man does something wrong. The woman could provide encouragement for the man unintentionally, but he is responsible for his own choices.

Finally, we get to personal struggles. These are the ideas that we can’t protect kids from porn in our world, a wife will never regain trust after seeing her husband using porn, and someone will always struggle with porn. To be fair, I think the last one properly understood is accurate. When I first took my wife to a Weight Watchers meeting, I was amazed hearing about how all the people who work with the program have gone through it. I said to one of them, “You all struggled with weight loss?” and I got told immediately, “STRUGGLE with weight loss.” That hit home.

If in the sense that one realizes they will always have temptation and have to fight it, it is true. In the sense that they will always be a victim, that is not true. When we meet people struggling with porn and they want to overcome it, we should have sympathy for them and come alongside them and help them.

I have always thought the porn industry is a wicked industry. Fradd’s book really helps to show how problematic it is. Men and women who are struggling with porn need to read this and realize this is an industry they don’t want to support, and as one myth shows, you are supporting it even if you don’t pay money for it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters