Folks if you are looking for any kind of advice on romantic relationships, stay as far away as you can from MSNBC.com. Every now and then I come across an article that after I read it I just have to look at it and say to myself, “Oh Lord, this is bad on so many levels.” I had that experience yesterday when I found an article posted on MSNBC’s website from the Today Show. Apparently a Today Show contributor named Dr Gail Saltz serves as a sort of Ann Landers for couples: individuals write to her and she gives them advice (if you can call it that—more on that later).
So yesterday as I said I found this article entitled: “My partner prefers watching porn to having sex.” The subhead directly beneath it reads, “A woman wants to know if she should leave her boyfriend. Dr Gail Saltz says she should find out more about his obsession – and then decide.”
Poor diluted “widow”
That by itself made me want to take a baseball bat to my computer monitor. But I calmed myself and read on. Here is what the lady seeking advice had to say to Dr Gail. (NOTE: I have reworded a couple of phrases from her original letter in order to make it sound less crude or irreverent. Reworded phrases are placed in brackets [like so.])
Dear Gail: My boyfriend and I have been dating for a rocky two years, and things were finally starting to mellow out. But now we have this porn issue! He has watched porn occasionally over the years, but it never [decreased our tendency to have premarital sexual intercourse.] So using the pick-your-battles theory, I’ve dropped it. But now that we’re living together, I find it increasingly hard to accept his obsession and I'm tempted to end our relationship.He only watches porn alone, and he has refused my offers to watch it with him. Every time he’s home alone, he watches it. Then when I come home [hoping to have premarital sexual intercourse], he’s not interested. He has started lying and sneaking around. He basically told me, “I’m going to do this. I can either lie about it or you can leave me alone about it.” Can you give me some insight? —Weary Porn Widow
Shoddy advice
And this is the part where I said to myself, “Oh my dear woman, this is bad on so many levels!” But even more astonishing was the ineptitude of Dr Saltz’s advice. Now I’m not a counselor or a PhD or anything. But I know shoddy advice when I see it. And this is textbook shoddy advice. I’ll just take it line by line.
The first thing she says about the whole situation is: “If your boyfriend feels driven to do something — whatever it is — behind your back, your relationship is in trouble.” In other words, the fact that he’s watching pornography and not playing low-stakes poker with his buddies isn’t that big of a deal.
“Another concern is that you’ve been together for all of two years and he is no longer interested in having sex with you.” Why is this such a surprise? They’re not married. They’re having sex. The guy has lost interest. I’ve heard this story a million times and usually it takes a lot less time than two years. It’s called using a person, which is the opposite of love and which Karol Cardinal Wojtyla discussed at length in his book Love and Responsibility. Study after study has shown that the couples with the most fulfilling relationships—sexually and emotionally—are the ones who practice complete heterosexual monogamous fidelity in marriage. Surely Dr Saltz has familiarized herself with these studies? Or does she just watch Friends?
Next she says: “Keep in mind that I am not addressing the social or moral issues of pornography, which generate great controversy and which people have strong feelings about.” So she tries to straddle the fence, even though her remarks throughout the article indicate a distinct lack of consideration for the point of view of those who think pornography is what it is—a festering tumor on the face of the media industry. “Whether a couple includes pornography in their sex life is a personal choice.” Of course, what would a column like this be without paying homage to the false sense of moral autonomy?
But nothing could have prepared me for this: “Asking to be included in his porn watching was a good move.” Um, um, what? A good move? It’s the worst thing she could possibly do! Get down in the gutter and roll around in the filth with him? What is the widow supposed to say? “Now that you’re exploiting the people on the TV, won’t you exploit me as well”? This is absurd! How can Dr Saltz possibly claim to be morally neutral in her approach to pornography if she’s telling her client that it was a good idea to try to watch it with her poor excuse for a boyfriend? These are the people who think that it would be a good idea to teach our kids how to use condoms. I am the definition of incredulous right now.
“Porn can be an enhancement to your sex life, but it shouldn't be a substitute for it.” But that’s what it is. Pornography by definition is a substitute for the intimacy that takes place in any sexual relationship. Even in situations where the viewing of pornography leads to a “normal” act of marital intercourse, where is the arousal coming from? It’s not coming from the two persons. It’s coming from the images on the screen. And again, anyone who has done serious counseling work with married couples knows that pornography does not enhance the sexual life of a couple; it stagnates it. Why? Because just like contraception, it cuts off communication between the two persons. And I didn’t even learn this from the Church. I learned it from my interpersonal communications professor at UT. What leads to satisfaction in the sexual life of a couple is communication. Equally important are commitment and openness to life. Pornography destroys all three of those.
The myth of "empowerment"
But in a “morally neutral” society, where sexuality has been made into this sort of judgment free zone, even this plainest common sense is lost on people who should be the most educated and wise among us. The argument has been made in some circles of feminism that pornography is not about female subjugation or exploitation but rather female empowerment—that the woman is able to use her feminine wiles as a means to power. But what we see here is that the opposite happens in real life. Pornography reduces women to pathetic states of life, as in this story of a woman who hopes at best to share a man, who obviously does not care for her in the least, with a television screen, and is encouraged to do so by the closest thing our friends at MSNBC can find to a voice of reason.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to spend my Memorial Day Weekend thinking about happy things, and I hope you will too.
Leave a comment