Getting caught with a stash of porn can be a marriage killer. But what about watching porn as a couple? Should married couples watch porn together?
The reasons to watch porn as a couple seem to be noble, well-founded and solid. Couples and even research groups sight reasons to watch porn as couple as:
- Closeness
- Great foreplay
- Lower levels of stress (as compared to individuals viewing porn without their spouse)
- Mutual agreement
- Creativity in the bedroom
- Less feelings of comparison (as compared to individuals viewing porn without their spouse)
With tag lines like “honesty is the best policy” many couples, including Christians, have found watching porn as a couple to be acceptable. I mean, who doesn't want new ideas for the bedroom, mutual agreement, and great foreplay? I can remember reasoning that watching porn with my boyfriend was better than him watching it alone and it did give us new ideas. But there's more to watching porn as a couple than meets the eye….literally.
Porn's Brain Effects
Porn affects the brain in ways you cannot imagine. Repeated use can physically change the number of dopamine receptors in the brain which is why porn use escalates from soft porn to hardcore and beyond. With less dopamine receptors, your brain needs more and more to get the same turn on. Porn physically changes your brain and so over time that innocent porn you are watching together just won't do anything for you or for him.
Where will you draw the line between porn that acceptable to watch and more twisted, hardcore porn? Will you know when enough is enough? And when you draw that line what will happen to your sex life?
To the brain, porn is a drug and has the same addictive properties (1). I know few Christians who would use cocaine or meth recreationally to “spice up their weekend” so why would we use porn to spice up our love life?
What Does The Bible Say?
As Christians, we must always go back to God's word. Even when we hear from the Lord, what He speaks to us in our spirit will never contradict God's word. God is not telling you to use porn to save your sex life. I saw this with 100% confidence because watching porn as a couple do not pass any of the tests to determine if God is agreeable to your bedroom practices.
I've outlined these in detail in the post on God's Permission Slip for Sex but here they are in short:
- Does God expressly say no?
- Is it good for us?
- Is it only us?
If you're unclear about numbers one and two, that's okay. I encourage you to check out the other post and regardless of if you argue the benefits of porn number three will get you every time. Porn invites others into your bedroom.
Hebrews chapter 13 tells us the marriage should be held in high honor and the marriage bed must be undefiled, kept pure. How can we keep our marriage bed pure when we are inviting another person into our most intimate of moments? No, they aren't physically present but they are but you are inviting them to be part of your one-flesh relationship by watching them, visualizing them and hearing them.
Watching porn as a couple may have short-term positive effects in your bedroom but the long-term effects are not beneficial for the bedroom of a married couple. Do not be fooled into think that if porn is so prevalent we might as well get used to it. Would you allow another woman to physically enter your bedroom? From God's perspective, there is no difference. Would you take a hit of cocaine before having sex with your husband? Physiologically, there is no difference.
Our sex lives do need spice, spontaneity, and fun. Just because we are Christians doesn't mean we cannot enjoy sex, in fact, we should have rockin' sex lives because we have God's permission to enjoy the most intimate of acts. Don't let the facade of false intimacy into your bedroom and if it' there, kick it out.
Instead of watching porn as a couple, here are some practical ways you can improve your sex life.
Grab the 10 Tips For Improving Your Sex Life free!
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Citations:
(1) Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books, 106;
Nestler, E. J. (2005). Is There a Common Molecular Pathway for Addiction? Nature Neuroscience 9, 11: 1445–1449.
Get more!
5 Things Erotica Can Do For You
He Won't Stop Watching Porn, Now What? 6 Truths You Need To Know
After Shock: 7 Things You Must Do After You Discover He's Been Using Porn
God's Opinion About Sex
God's Yes's and No's for Sex
God's Green Light On A Sexy Marriage
Is Self-Pleasuring Wrong? Exploring An Intimate Issue
Should Christians Use Sex Toys
Jennifer DeFrates/Heaven Not Harvard says
February 15, 2016 at 12:49 pmThere is no question in my mind that NO WAY is porn acceptable. But I know some Christians use all sorts of arguments to rationalize sinful behavior. I’m sure that I’m still rationalizing behaviors I don’t recognize as sinful yet.
As I’ve grown in my walk with Christ, He has cleaned up so much garbage in my life, I won’t even watch the tiniest bit of nudity and generally cease watching any show that has any, even stuff on network tv. God asks us to be PURE, not kind of less dirty. It is hard to let the things of the world go, AT FIRST, but gets easier and easier as I realize the pain they were causing. I learn to trust that letting them go is best for me. I wrote about a great object lesson for me this last week – http://heavennotharvard.com/2016/02/12/growing-pains/
Also, the people in the porn are real human beings living in a lifestyle and choices that suggest they are truly lost. They don’t know God’s love or salvation. They are someone’s earthly children as well. Watching it supports them and the industry financially. I cannot support that. Once we see people as either saved or needing salvation, nothing else really matters
Danielle says
February 15, 2016 at 2:09 pmI love that “pure, not kind of less dirty.”
And you’re right, the people participating in pornography are just that, people God loves who are really lost and really hurting (despite what we see on the screen).
Angie says
May 5, 2016 at 9:55 amThank you for this article. I wanted to add the seventh commandment is “you shall not commit adultry”. In Mathew 5:27-28 Jesus further expounds on what that means. Even looking with lust is adultey of the heart!!! So if we need to lust to enjoy our partners we have severly defiled the bedroom. So it is clear in the Bible (Gods word) porn in no way is ok. Again thank you for this article!!
Danielle says
May 5, 2016 at 11:01 amYou’re welcome Angie. Thank you for adding your comment!
Mavis says
October 4, 2016 at 4:08 amThanks for writting this.Its so much needed.Like Jennifer Defrates says,these are real people.So when watching g porn even as a couple,it means you are seeing somebody naked and you love it.As a Christian woman one wouldn’t want to see a man that’s not their husband naked & vise versa.
The devil has brought in Port to degrade the essence of marriage and anything morally right.Porn actually brings demons in people’s lives
The world is actually in the process of desensitizing Christians,
Danielle says
October 4, 2016 at 5:43 amYes, the line between living in the world but not of the world is harder and harder to find.
Mike says
October 25, 2016 at 2:28 pmI am in the midst of exploring this “hot” topic. I was raised in the Baptist church, then converted to Catholicism about 10 years ago. I’m well aware that the prevailing belief among Christians is that porn is lascivious and simply wrong, in any form it is used. My wife and I (in our late 40s) have, on occasion, viewed porn together in order to spice things up in the bedroom and get us to that point of erotica that is very, very difficult to achieve on our own these days. We were never to the point we watched any more than once every two weeks or so, and we have watched less and less over the years. We did, however, recently watch some soft porn (you know, the kind on Cinemax), and we were both pleasantly surprised with its rapid effects. We had a great, energetic sexual interlude as a result, but now, being we consider ourselves practicing Christians, are having those feelings of guilt. So, here I am on the internet trying to find commentary to rationalize my secular thoughts. Well, most of what I’m finding, especially from the Christian’s point of view, obviously, emphatically denounces it. One of the primary arguments against it is the fact that by watching porn, although it is consensual between you and your wife in the privacy of your bedroom, perpetuates an unholy industry rampant with abuse (sexual, physical, substance related, etc.) and that it “invites others into your bedroom.” I completely understand that angle and believe it 100%. That being said, I offer this. Have you seen the movie “The Revenant?” There is a scene in the beginning where the primary character is attacked by a grizzly bear. To watch that scene, you get caught up in the belief that Hollywood actually filmed the actor fighting a real grizzly bear. The computer generated bear is something to behold….so lifelike. Well, what if I had the abilities, because the technology obviously exists, to make my own computer generated porn; I mean from scratch, with made up men and women doing whatever my imagination wants them to do. Well, what about that? I’m not promoting anything at that point. I design it, my wife and I watch it in private for our enjoyment, and no one outside our marriage is all the worse for it. Just a thought. Your thoughts?
Danielle says
November 12, 2016 at 5:36 amThank you for commenting Mike! You pose a very interesting question. As you mentioned in the movie, The Revenant, the bear is so life-like, so real our brains get caught up in the idea that the bear/attack were real. I would have to say, although it is not another actual person it could very easily fall into the dependency area. I don’t know that Christian-produced virtual porn makes it okay. Could it lead to feelings of jealousy when you’re creating an image of a woman that doesn’t look like your wife and then getting aroused watching her? Just a thought.