Porn and Marriage: What Sex and Intimacy Are Really For

Porn in marriage is often treated like a sex problem.

He wouldn’t use porn if she had sex with him more.

She wouldn’t care about his porn use if she weren’t so insecure.

If their sex life were better, this wouldn’t be happening.

But I don’t believe any of those explanations get us to the real issue.

Before we can have an honest conversation about how pornography affects a marriage, we need to talk about something even more foundational:

What are sex and intimacy actually for?

Because if we define intimacy as simply having enough sex, we’re going to completely misunderstand both the problem and the solution.

Porn Isn’t Always About a Lack of Sex

When Andy and I were newly married, his life didn’t go the way he expected.

Baseball had been a huge part of his identity, but an injury brought that chapter of his life to a screeching halt. Then, after we moved a thousand miles away so he could attend pharmacy school, his application was denied.

Suddenly, this young man I’d married didn’t know who he was anymore.

He felt lost. Unsuccessful. Not good enough.

And he was carrying feelings he didn’t yet have the tools – or the words – to explain to his new wife.

Porn became an escape.

A way to numb.

A temporary way to feel something other than what he was feeling in real life.

That helps explain what was happening underneath his porn use.

It does not excuse it.

That distinction matters.

While Andy was struggling with his own pain, I was busy trying to figure out what was wrong with me.

I thought maybe I wasn’t attractive enough.

Maybe I wasn’t adventurous enough.

Maybe I wasn’t initiating enough.

Maybe if I were more sexually available, he wouldn’t need porn.

Unfortunately, some of the messages I had absorbed in Christian culture reinforced that belief. I had heard, in one form or another, that part of my responsibility as a wife was to make sure my husband’s sexual needs were met so he wouldn’t be tempted elsewhere.

So I tried.

Here’s the problem:

We were already having a lot of sex.

Eventually I had to understand something that changed the way I saw both pornography and marital intimacy:

I could not have sex with Andy enough to heal something inside him that sex didn’t cause.

Your Spouse Is Not Responsible for Your Sexual Choices

I want to be very clear here, because this is where conversations about porn and marriage can get dangerously distorted.

You are responsible for your sexual choices. Your spouse is not responsible for keeping you from sinning.

“I use porn because my wife won’t have sex with me” is not accountability.

Yes, sexual rejection hurts.

Yes, a sexless marriage deserves attention.

Yes, differences in desire can create real loneliness, frustration, resentment, and pain.

And yes, I believe both spouses should be willing to look honestly at how they are contributing to—or neglecting—the sexual and emotional intimacy in their marriage.

But one spouse’s disengagement does not give the other permission to outsource their sexuality to porn.

The same is true when the genders are reversed.

Porn use can be about far more than sexual release. It can become a way to numb loneliness, stress, shame, rejection, boredom, insecurity, or feelings you simply don’t know how to process.

Understanding what drives the behavior is important.

But understanding why someone uses porn is not the same as removing responsibility for using it.

Both truths have to be allowed in the room.

So What Is Sex Actually For?

After 31 years of marriage, I see sex very differently than I did when I was 19.

And I think this is where we’ve gotten so much wrong.

Sex is not simply intercourse.

It isn’t just an orgasm.

It isn’t a marital obligation.

It isn’t something one spouse provides so the other spouse will behave.

And it certainly isn’t something you owe another human being because you said wedding vows.

The kind of intimacy I want for my marriage—and the kind I help couples rebuild—is so much bigger than that.

I don’t want there to be a secret version of me that my husband isn’t allowed to know.

I want to be able to bring him my fears, desires, insecurities, mistakes, dreams, needs, and questions and know that I am safe enough to be fully known.

And I want him to have that same safety with me.

I want grace and accountability to exist in the same marriage.

I want us to genuinely desire good things for each other.

I want us to be curious when we don’t understand each other instead of immediately becoming defensive.

I want to validate his experience even when it isn’t my experience.

Most of all, I want both of us to know, deep down:

This person is for me.

That is intimacy.

And when physical intimacy grows inside that kind of relationship?

Oh man.

Now we’re talking about something completely different.

Healthy Sexual Intimacy Is About More Than an Orgasm

Making love can be playful and passionate.

It can be tender, adventurous, and vulnerable.

It can be a place where you give and receive pleasure without shame.

It can be a place where the noise of work, kids, bills, aging parents, health problems, and everything else demanding your attention disappears for a little while and you remember:

There you are.

There we are.

There is something profoundly beautiful about being known by another human being for decades.

You watch their body change. You watch your own body change. You survive hard things together. You forgive each other. You grow up together.

And somehow, you can still look at each other and say:

I choose you. I want you. Come closer.

Sex can be found almost anywhere.

That’s not what we’re after.

We’re after something deeper.

Something connected.

Something safe.

Something spiritual and life-giving within marriage.

My faith absolutely informs the way I understand this.

I believe God’s design for sexual intimacy is far richer than simply giving us rules about what we can and cannot do with our bodies.

I believe He gave us an incredible way to know one another, serve one another, delight in one another, experience pleasure together, and keep returning to each other in a world constantly trying to pull us apart.

That kind of intimacy cannot be reduced to sexual frequency.

Where Porn Gets in the Way of Intimacy

This is why I believe pornography is incompatible with the kind of intimacy we’re talking about.

The question isn’t only:

“Is porn allowed in our marriage?”

I think we need to ask a much better question:

“Is porn helping us build the kind of intimacy we actually want?”

Is it helping you become more present with your spouse?

More curious about them?

More fascinated by their real body?

More emotionally available?

More transparent?

More capable of giving and receiving pleasure with the imperfect, aging human being you chose?

Or is it directing sexual attention toward an endless supply of other bodies, fantasy, novelty, and experiences created for consumption?

Porn offers sexual stimulation without requiring many of the things real intimacy asks of us.

You don’t have to risk rejection.

You don’t have to communicate.

You don’t have to be vulnerable.

You don’t have to learn another person’s body.

You don’t have to navigate different desires.

You don’t have to repair hurt.

You don’t even have to be known.

Real intimacy asks more of us.

But it gives us so much more in return.

Rebuilding Intimacy After Porn

If pornography has become part of your marriage story, I don’t believe the answer is shame.

But I also don’t believe the answer is minimizing it.

Healing requires responsibility.

Honesty.

Transparency.

A willingness to understand what is happening underneath the behavior.

A willingness to rebuild a trustworthy track record when trust has been broken.

And eventually, it means learning how to direct your sexual energy back toward the actual human being you chose.

If you’re the spouse who has been hurt by porn, hear me:

Your partner’s porn use is not evidence that you weren’t enough.

Not attractive enough.

Not thin enough.

Not young enough.

Not sexual enough.

Not adventurous enough.

Not available enough.

I spent years carrying some version of that lie.

You cannot heal something inside another human being by offering them your body.

And if you’re the person using porn, there is hope for you too.

Understanding what is underneath your behavior does not make you irredeemable.

But healing will require you to take ownership of what belongs to you.

Not:

“If my spouse would change, then I could change.”

But:

“This is mine. What do I need to do with it?”

That’s where rebuilding begins.

One Question to Sit With

Before you worry about fixing your entire sex life, give yourself ten quiet minutes and answer this:

What does intimacy mean to me—and where did I learn that definition?

Really think about it.

Did you learn that sex is primarily about performance?

Duty?

Keeping your spouse happy?

Proving you’re desirable?

Preventing infidelity?

Meeting a physical need?

Or do you believe intimacy can become a place where two people are fully known, deeply desired, emotionally safe, sexually free, and continually choosing each other?

Because before we can rebuild intimacy, we need to know what we’re actually trying to build.

Andy and I certainly didn’t understand all of this as newlyweds.

We’ve learned it the hard way.

But 31 years later, I can tell you this:

I’m not interested in simply having a marriage that survives.

I want the friendship.

The trust.

The transparency.

The laughter.

The attraction.

The vulnerability.

The pleasure.

The passion.

The knowing and being known.

I want all of it.

And I don’t believe we have to settle for crumbs when something so much richer is possible.

Next in this series: 5 Ways Porn Quietly Destroys Intimacy

With you,

Jen