I talk a lot about men and their lust problems on this blog, but we women can be just as guilty. Here’s a great post by the Botkin sisters of Visionary Daughters about Twilight specifically, and romance novels in general, and why they can be such a bad thing for women. Here are a couple of favorite quotes:

For this discussion, we would like to set aside the dark paranormal element of Twilight, though that is a concern on its own. We believe what ultimately draws women into this series and other romance novels in millions-strong droves is the same thing that lures men into an estimated $3-4 billion-a-year pornography industry.

Journalist Alisa Harris explains: “It’s called emotional porn. When men glut their physical lust with pictures of airbrushed girls pumped full of silicone, they become dissatisfied with real women’s bodies. When women plug their emotional caverns with chick flicks and chick lit, they become dissatisfied with the real men they know because they can’t measure up to the guys from The Notebook or Pride and Prejudice or Walk to Remember.” (Alisa Harris, “Beating Darcy Down”, Kritik Magazine)

Pornography is not simply about pictures. At its core, pornography starts with:

1. A desire to use people as self-gratification machines
2. A preference for man-made reality and man-made people over the real thing.

These hold as much temptation for women as for men, though romance novels often feed their fire better than pictures. (It has been found, however, that pictures of Robert Pattinson don’t put a damper on anything.) [4]

R.J. Rushdoony asks, “Why should an unreal female be exciting, and a far better and real woman not be so? The key is the essence of imagination: the fantasy woman is totally the creation and creature of man, whereas the real woman is God’s creation and creature. It is essential to imagination to create a man-made world and a man-ordained decree of predestination. It is the essence of sin to demand such a world.” [5]

Why should Edward, Mr. Darcy and other romantic heroes be more interesting than “far better and real” men? Because these men are the creations of women, tailor-made just the way we want them… rather than the way God made them.

Though some may profess immunity to teen-vampire-horror-romance, everyone tainted by sin faces this temptation to escape to another world. A different “reality,” where what is impossible in real life is possible in our minds – where we can indulge in desires we would never fulfill in the real world. It’s about more than going batty for vampires. It’s about a chance to take a “time off” from law and consequences.

R.J. Rushdoony points out, “Because ours is an age with a will to fiction, the role of imagination is extremely important. Men who will not be governed by God’s word will not be governed by reality, because reality is not of their making. God having created all things, reality reflects the mind of God, not man. Hence, it is the essence of sin to resort to imagination to escape God’s law world.”[8]

We who feel “the urge to escape sometimes” should ask ourselves why a world apart from God’s character, God’s laws, and God’s created order would be a world a Christian would desire to live in? [9] What would make us want to run, like Jonah, from God and His presence? “Escapism is only medicine to one who views the reality of God and His creation as a disease.” [10] The answer for those in need of “escape” from life’s hardships is running to God – not away from Him.

You can read the rest here.

Editor’s Note: Several commenters seem to have mistaken the above quotations as having been written by me. They are quotations from a blog post written by the Botkins. They are not written by me.

A lot of men don’t seem to understand why women get so upset about pornography. They know it’s a sin, but they sort of see it like any other sin and can’t comprehend why their wives should feel so devastated. So, for the sakes of our future daughters-in-law, here’s something we can all teach our sons:

If you want your wife to be beautiful for you, then you understand how she feels about your eyes being just for her.

Why on earth would that be? It goes like this.

Men desire the sight of women’s bodies. They actually derive emotional comfort and meaning out of looking at a hot, sexy woman.

And, in just the same way, women desire to be desired. They actually derive emotional comfort and meaning out of being cherished as their husband’s one and only source of passion.

When a man disregards one of his wife’s most fundamental longings and places his desire in any woman besides his wife, his wife feels exactly the same way a man would feel if his wife were to disregard his fundamental longing for enjoyment of her body and become frumpy and frigid, rebuffing him every time he asks for sex, and going around all day in an old stained bathrobe, with unkempt hair, picking her nose, and passing gas.

The disgust is the same.

The disappointment is the same.

The feelings of being cheated, unloved, and unvalidated are the same.

Men don’t understand how much porn hurts women because they think about porn in relation to masculine needs not feminine needs. They imagine how they would feel if their wives were into it, and it doesn’t sound all that bad. But that’s because it doesn’t threaten men. Porn has no effect on how beautiful their wives are, and therefore men’s deepest desires are not put in jeopardy. A porn problem seems no worse than an anger problem or a problem with lying. And since it demonstrates an interest in sex, it can almost seem like a sign of something positive.

But for a woman, it is a betrayal of the one thing she wants most in an intimate relationship.

Our sons need to understand this. Before they get involved.

When I talk to people about pornography, I am frequently amazed (and saddened) by the number of people who just don’t get it. They don’t see porn as a big deal, don’t understand why it upsets women so much, and figure that anyone who is opposed to it must be a Victorian prude. Naomi Wolf has written a great piece that busts right to the heart of the matter, The Porn Myth. The fact is, porn makes men want real women less.

For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn….

…The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy. The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman. Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don’t know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face.

What’s her solution? Wolf can’t bring herself to actually recommend modesty, but she does a pretty good job of praising the wisdom behind it and shares a powerful vignette from a visit with an Orthodox Jewish friend in Jerusalem.

When she showed me her little house in a settlement on a hill, and I saw the bedroom, draped in Middle Eastern embroideries, that she shares only with her husband—the kids are not allowed—the sexual intensity in the air was archaic, overwhelming. It was private. It was a feeling of erotic intensity deeper than any I have ever picked up between secular couples in the liberated West. And I thought: Our husbands see naked women all day—in Times Square if not on the Net. Her husband never even sees another woman’s hair.

She must feel, I thought, so hot.

Due to the nature of the subject matter, I’m definitely not recommending this to younger readers, and I do suggest that you exercise discernment. However, given how pornography has swept our society, it would behoove us (especially those of us with sons to raise) to understand its true effects so that we can adequately warn our children. It all reminds me of what C.S. Lewis wrote in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,

Nothing spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food.

If you want to appreciate fresh fish and potatoes, stay away from the Witch’s Turkish delight. If you want a steamy sex life, stay away from porn.

It works.

Read the full article here.