The Porn Conversations
The wife walks in. Her husband is masturbating to porn on his laptop. He slams it shut, face flushed with shame, his shoulders slump, and his heart drops. She stands frozen in shock in the doorway, face torn between shock, anger, and disbelief.
What happens next determines whether the marriage survives.
In evangelical culture, I’ve watched the following scenario destroy marriages repeatedly. The wife calls her small group leader, who calls the pastor, who recommends a Christian counselor—let’s call him Dave, because every evangelical counselor seems to be named Dave or Mark. Dave has a checklist: Covenant Eyes software, an assigned accountability partner, memorization of Philippians 4:8, and a public confession to your men’s group.
The church labels it adultery. The wife feels betrayed.
Jung called this the shadow—the parts of ourselves we exile into darkness because they’re too threatening to acknowledge. Evangelicalism weaponizes the shadow, teaching people to bury sexual curiosity so deep that when it surfaces, it feels monstrous.
What couples therapy research shows repeatedly: curiosity about your partner’s inner world predicts relationship satisfaction better than sexual compatibility. But you can’t be curious about what you’ve decided is evil.
I personally know a great young couple that when this happened; she issued an ultimatum: if it happens again, she is gone and she taking the children with her. They have two beautiful children, and he is a kind and wonderful father. It would kill him to lose his children.
His wife decided never to wear makeup again, nor dress sensually, because she did not want to “provoke” him. There has been a vacuum between them ever since. She, with the approval of her church counselor, shamed and judged him as a pervert like his father, who had also been caught repeatedly jerking off to porn—exactly the opposite of what he needed.
This is attachment trauma compounding sexual shame. His wife became unsafe—the person who should offer comfort became the source of threat. John Bowlby’s attachment theory explains why: when your primary bond person responds to vulnerability with rejection, you learn to hide everything. The counselor missed this completely, focused on behavior management instead of understanding the psychology driving it.
Imagine a different response. The wife sits down. Takes a breath. Says, “I want to understand. What were you watching? What about it turns you on? Can we talk about this?”
Radical compassion instead of instant condemnation.
Another friend, a married man, was watching gay porn. Instead of volcanic repudiation, instead of feeling threatened, his wife asked: “Why does that attract you? Are you curious about men? Are you bisexual? Have you always wondered? Let’s talk about this.”
This conversation saved their marriage. It revealed curiosity, fluidity, and repressed aspects of his sexuality that deserved exploration rather than shame. He had been attracted to men his whole life and never had permission to acknowledge it. Maybe he’s genuinely bisexual. Maybe it’s a fantasy.
You can’t know unless you ask.
The conversation might be painful. It might require renegotiating the relationship. It might mean opening the marriage or ending it honestly rather than living a lie. Any of those outcomes beats the alternative: decades of secret shame, hidden browsers, sexless marriage, escalating disconnection.
But here’s where it gets more difficult. The husband is watching content that cannot be ethical under any circumstances—images of minors. Child sexual abuse material.
The evangelical playbook is consistent: contact the elders, document everything for the divorce attorney, and perhaps call the police. I’ve seen this pattern in three different church contexts—Baptist, Pentecostal, non-denominational. The response was identical.
“Why are you compelled by this? Were you abused as a child? Are you trying to reclaim your own childhood trauma? What’s happening in your psyche that this is where your sexuality has gone?”
To be absolutely clear: child sexual abuse material is illegal, harmful, and criminal. Viewing it causes ongoing harm to the children depicted. This requires immediate professional intervention—therapists who specialize in this, possibly legal consequences, definitely intensive treatment.
I’m asking whether there’s space for understanding the psychology before jumping straight to condemnation. Could compassionate inquiry alongside professional help address root causes better than shame alone?
Many people drawn to such material were themselves abused. The compulsion is often about unprocessed trauma, about frozen development, about trying to access something lost in childhood. This doesn’t excuse the harm. It does suggest that therapeutic intervention might prevent future harm better than pure punishment.
The conversation I’m proposing isn’t “this is fine.” It’s “let’s understand this so we can get you help before more harm happens.”
Women watch porn too. The dynamics work similarly. The husband who discovers his wife’s browser history could respond with curiosity instead of condemnation. “What attracts you? What are your fantasies? Can we explore this together?” Rather than, “Oh, I’m not enough for you.”
Christians reading this will dismiss it without thought. The “porn is perverse” belief is ingrained so deep that nuance feels like compromise. Any suggestion that porn use might be normal, that attraction might be complicated, that conversation might help—this triggers defensive rejection.
I understand. I lived there for forty years. Hell, I was the guy on stage. Worship leader before thousands, leading the congregation through “Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God” while my own sensuality—which I’d eventually discover was fundamental to who I am, one of my Four Essentials—was buried so deep I couldn’t have accessed it with archaeological equipment.
The cognitive dissonance was spectacular. That psalm was David asking God to integrate his desire, his body, his whole self. The evangelical interpretation turned it into a request for spiritual lobotomy. A clean heart meant an empty heart, scrubbed of anything sensual or embodied. I lived that lie for forty years.
Now, Gina and I watch ethical porn together. We talk about what turns us on. We’re curious about each other’s desires rather than terrified of them. This—this integrated, embodied, honest life—is what a clean heart actually feels like. Not repressed. Clean.
What I know now: shame creates the compulsion. Forbiddenness intensifies desire. Secrets destroy intimacy. Honest conversation—even about uncomfortable attractions—builds trust.
The spouse who can say “I want to understand what attracts you” instead of “you’re disgusting” might actually save their marriage. They might discover bisexuality, submissive fantasies, attraction to bodies different from theirs—information that could enhance their sex life if explored with curiosity rather than shut down with shame.
The conversation won’t always save the marriage. Sometimes what’s discovered is incompatible and too vast to bridge. Sometimes the attractions revealed require relationship restructuring. Sometimes professional help is absolutely necessary.
Any of those outcomes beats the alternative: decades of hiding, cycles of shame and secrecy, intimacy destroyed by unspoken truths.
At sixty-seven, I’m finally learning that curiosity serves relationships better than condemnation. Asking “why does that attract you?” opens possibilities that “you’re disgusting” forever closes.
The questions might be uncomfortable. The answers might be challenging.
Ask anyway.
Your marriage (and happiness) might depend on it.
Photo by DIEGO SÁNCHEZ on Unsplash