The Virtue of Porn

Someone needs to say it: porn has a little slice of virtue in it. And because I'm tired of the ugly feminist raging against men and demanding they ban porn because it's degrading to women, I'm going to try my hand at a more sober analysis on why porn is really dangerous.

Porn Leverages Beauty

"Well of course" I hear you saying, "staring at beautiful women is sort of the whole point of the thing." Right, I know that seems obvious, but stop and consider it for a moment. The drawing power of porn lies in taking a natural desire to appreciate beauty, a delight in woman for her child bearing abilities, and a desire to lead a woman, and twists it. Everyone wants to jump ahead to the twists part of porn but don't just yet--it's important we recognize that porn gets its power from what God created to be natural and glorious.
Set aside its twisting and corrupting effects for a moment and you'll see that the thing is itself paying homage to God, since at creation He created woman to be delightful so that the world would be richer. He made her lovely so that she would be the glory of man, and He made us to naturally be drawn to that beauty. More importantly, He made her so that we could be be able to fulfill the command He gave us (be fruitful and multiply), which means there is inherently an element of reproduction that woman brings to a mans mind. Thirdly, because man was created first and given the tasks and authority, he's the head, and in the position of power, and is well pleased when a woman accepts this. These three things are by design. They are a result of God's plan being what it is. Their existence shows that God created His order both well and beautifully. It is on the basis of this that porn makes it's appeal.
 

So? What's Your Point?

We've gone so far around the bend in our culture in fighting against Gods design for us that porn is now better, more honest, and more decent than we are. We've so filled culture with the trash of man-hate that there is actually now a scent of a far away land about porn, a pinch of the true, noble, and heavenly mixed in with the smell of burning sulfur. We've so warped the idea of a man that porn is now standing nearer to God than culture is. To those who think porn is the problem of our age I propose a more accurate and sobering statement: porn is more virtuous than we are. And that's bad. Very bad.
I suppose proof is in order.

A Hatred for Manish Things

I need to reach no further than some current events. Did you follow the case of Lena Dunham for example? She accused a fraternity of raping her and it eventually came out that she was lying--after the school punished the fraternity. She was rewarded with heaps praise from our culture after that it came out that she lied and ruined peoples lives because she was "raising awareness." Her story isn't uncommon. Men in TV, movies, or books are boorish, brutish, stupid, and useless, which is merely a reflection of our society at large since the welfare state has pushed men out of the role of breadwinner and out of the home. Women are celebrated for having high paying jobs and flipping the men into the role of house-husband.
I've even felt the effects personally. Although I teach the junior high group at AWANA, I'm not allowed to use the bathrooms on campus because I'm a man, and men are by nature child molesters. I took the family out for pizza and told my kindergartener she could go to the bathroom by herself, but the wife objected saying "she'll walk by the mens restroom."
Fundamentally there's no respect for men to be men, and though society still needs us, we've reached the point where we put our heads down, try to pass through places unnoticed and unscolded, and apologize for being born what we are. We try to be women as best we are able and even so society frowns at us. Yes, even you, Christian wives. Your listening to Focus on the Family and K-LOVE isn't helping anything--all those bozos have done is thrown a thin veneer of Christianity over the underlying pop-culture of man hate and pretended it's an upward call.
Except there's still a few voices out there calling us to boldly fight back and say "screw them, embrace your mannishness without apology." The strongest voice doing that right now is porn. Porn says, "Look men, we agree that all these stupid gender roles modern society is pushing are absurd. House dad? Pssh. Just another kid the wife has to take care of? Gay is cool and sexy? Who's fooled by those lies? All that crap was made by people who hate you and who want to see you harmed. But you know what? We don't want that. We want you to be what you are. We're on your side against them. We like it when you act like men. So act like a man and claim your birthright, we find it attractive. Very attractive." Porn acknowledges God's natural order against society, and for that reason its sweeter and more alluring than it otherwise would be. 

The Real Problem of Porn

Don't hear me saying porn is good. It's not. In fact we're now in a position to talk about why it's bad, but first, I ought to mention what the problem with porn isn't. It isn't the angry screed I've often read as, "Porn makes men into adulterous barbarians! If you look at porn you are no better than child kidnappers or a mob boss running a child prostitution ring. It's because of you that young girls are being exploited! Men are the worst!!!" because here again the narrative of "men are bad" is assumed and that's the whole reason porn looks better than it should.
The real problem is that porn feeds your pride. And that's worse. Infinitely worse. Pride is the ultimate sin. The chief sin. It's the father of sin, begetting in some sense all the rest of them. In our fallen state pride is initially pleasurable, even as it numbs you over time, and lulls you into a coma.
That's why porn is addictive--because it's heroin to pride, inflating it faster than almost anything else (except perhaps getting an enormous sum of money right away, like winning the lottery) and that pride makes you feel good, makes you feel powerful. But a man full of pride is ultimately a man full of nothing but himself. He cares nothing for real people, he only cares about how he may use them for his own ends. His own wife or children become nothing more than objects. He can't hold a relationship. It's not the women he looks at that are addictive, it's the need to feed his pride.
Real happiness comes in servitude, born out of humility, and it's because of pride that porn makes for a miserable man.
 

In Sum

I hope you're now seriously considering the idea that the real reason porn has exploded in popularity is not just because it's more accessible (it is), nor that we can do them quietly now (we can), nor even that they're just the right shape to fit the hole designed into us (my first point), but because porn celebrates mannishness when nobody else will. People are running to porn to find a genuine expression of God's goodness, even if it's a perverted form of it.  
But don't take the word of a conservative baptist for it, see for yourself what a secular woman has to say about the popularity of porn.