If it is the dirty element that gives pleasure to the act of lust, then the dirtier it is, the more pleasurable it is bound to be.
MARQUIS DE SADE
Growing up, the conventional wisdom among my young peers was that pornography was for those unable to find a sex partner. If you couldn't find a woman, you had to rely upon Playboy or Penthouse for relief. But make no mistake about it. The real thing was always preferable to the pages of a dirty magazine. So, it was with some curiosity to learn that many men especially married men still turn to porn which is ubiquitous thanks to the internet. Not only do these men supplement their sex lives with pornography, but they actually substitute them with pornography preferring the fantasy to the real thing. This just blows my mind.
This addiction to pornography is a serious matter. Many admit and confess to it. I suspect that it also explains the popularity of smartphones especially the ones with larger screens because it makes the porn portable. (I also recommend not ever touching another man's smartphone because you never know where it has been.) Now, if you have access to real sex, why would anyone want to watch others doing it?
The pleasure of pornography is very simple. It isn't sexual. Granted, there is sex involved, and there may be some hot chicks and all that. But that is not what makes porn pleasurable. What makes porn pleasurable is the utter depravity of it all. Pornography is the degradation of another human being for the sake of personal pleasure. It is fundamentally an evil thing. The Marquis de Sade knew this which is why he went to ever increasing levels of depravity in his imagination and his writings. In the end, it wasn't even sexual but just horror and butchery.
The Saw franchise represents Sade's final descent into depravity. No one sees such splattering horror as being the same as pornography, but that is what it is. Pornography and slasher style horror films both do violence and degradation to the imago Dei or the image of God in human beings. This is the pleasure of depravity. This is why many married men prefer the filth of their fantasies to the pleasures of a loving relationship with their spouses. It also explains why pornography must descend into ever lower levels of sickness.
No one ever considers this spiritual dimension to the issue. If they did, they would no longer find pornography to be so pleasurable. This sickness also extends into real life as people try and turn the fantasy into reality. This would be the wives that dress up like porn stars or couples who engage in open relationships. This does all sorts of damage to what should be a loving relationship. People literally trade happiness for misery when they do this.
Pornography is not harmless. It turns people into monsters. The only difference is the size of those monsters. Men either see the utter emptiness of pornography and turn from it. Or, they pursue it ever more strongly seeking more and more pleasure which requires greater and greater depravity. Pornography is a sickness of the mind and damnation of the soul. Men would do well to turn from it.
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