G. K. Chesterton once said that free love was the first and most obvious bribe of a slave master. It turns out that pornography is exactly this–the shackler of real sex. Naomi Wolf writes that porn does “not [make] men into raving beasts. On the contrary: The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as “porn-worthy.” Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention.” Wolf’s entire article is worth reading.

It’s true that porn does sometimes lead men down a path to greater and grosser sexual perversions. Ted Bundy talked about the shaping influence it had on him from an early age. But mostly what we ought to think of when we see pornography is impotence, and this should be a protection to men who are tempted by it.