Porn and Video Games are the New Coming of Age Ceremony

I’m concerned about the boys.

Many commentators rightly notice the increasing rate of isolation and loneliness among young men today. Myriad causes for their malaise are cited: #MeToo, third-wave feminism, a lack of jobs for the working class man, fatherless homes, alcohol and drug abuse, smartphones, a decline in religion and community, and men’s lack of emotional vulnerability.

These explanations comprise a substantial part of the problem. But one elephant is so glaringly in the room that I cannot help but to mention it. That is, masturbation and pornography use. Porn use and masturbation among young men is an epidemic on par with opioid abuse, and too few in the secular world are talking about it with any sort of gravity.

Whenever women complain about an emotionally immature male partner — one who flies into rages or still plays video games to escape his negative feelings — she often cannot imagine the unimaginable. When she desires to have sex with him, and he seems like he would be just as happy doing taxes, she usually does not think, “My partner may be addicted to porn. He may be masturbating.”

Unfortunately, she may find that her fears are warranted. However, because of the culture, she may feel like she is not allowed to be upset about it. Watching porn is not that bad, and it definitely does not affect your brain, the world says. In fact, masturbation may help ward off prostate cancer, they claim. Even if it is a slightly shameful behavior — and the world will not admit that it is — at least it doesn’t harm anyone. Don’t worry, the porn performers are there willingly!

I used to believe all of this tripe myself. Porn, masturbation, and reading lewd novels (yes, those count) seemed to be a normal part of growing up, and everyone was in on the unspoken secret. It helped porn’s case that we were all exposed to it so early — in my case, I was eleven. More generally, the average age of exposure to pornography is around thirteen and seems to be dropping.¹ Let’s just say that by the time most mothers and fathers get around to the painfully awkward sex talk, it’s already far too late.

A substantial proportion of men (and women) are in thrall to pornography. According to the left-wing NGO Equimundo, 60% of men aged 18-45 visit pornography sites at least weekly. 30% of men admit that they have tried to quit but were unsuccessful. Is it any wonder that 40% of them meet standard diagnostic criteria for depression? There is nothing quite like the self-esteem hit of succumbing to your clamoring self-soothing tactics.

Thankfully, women (even porn-addicted ones) still have a natural coming-of-age ceremony when they get their first menstrual period. Nothing makes you face reality, womanhood, and your own death quicker than bleeding through your pants during a theater performance (ask me how I know). Unfortunately, men do not have the same privilege. Nevertheless, it's clear that men still long for the hallmarks of authentic manhood — conquest, honor, self-sufficiency, and strength — despite the pedagogical efforts of “toxic masculinity” peddlers.

In this day and age, conquest, honor, self-sufficiency, and strength are cultivated virtually through video games and pornography. Young men are busy soothing negative feelings and simulating success, rather than conquering their impulses and growing strong in virtue. And neither the secular “tough guys” nor their sniveling “ally” rivals are helping them much. Infamous “tough guy" Andrew Tate, though he rightly treats men as good, succumbs to his unmasculine desires when he mistreats women, fornicates, and denigrates marriage.

Joe Klein articulated in a recent Substack piece that even modern war has become unmasculine, as technology has made it more brutal than honorable. Sports, while better than nothing, may not be enough in his eyes. Klein worries about the implications of the resentment modern men feel, as gangs can only thrive when men are angry, isolated, and can find no other way to foster bonds with other men. A red-pill Discord group and even a militia might be a good fit, if porn and video games are not enough to give men ties that bind.

Still, the more common coming-of-age ceremony, if boys had one at all, was exposure to pornographic images or videos. The vector may have been an older sibling, a depraved Boy Scout leader, a coach, a stepfather, or a friend. The video was made out to be something secret, just for boys. If you didn’t conquer your disgust and watch it, that made you gay. You would be a gay coward, and that is the last thing you wanted to be. That first exposure left an indelible mark, one that initiated you into a worldwide shame gang.

Eventually, what was a fun communal activity for late night sleepovers usually becomes a solitary sin. After many years of porn addiction, one’s brain is now rewired for escape. Negative human interaction — especially when someone is angry with you or will not do what you want — can be traded for the ultimate dopamine hit. If you feel like a loser who is out of control of his life, enter the (seemingly) perfect anxiety control mechanism. Emotional maturity and facing the music is difficult; ejaculating at your computer is easy and makes you feel like a million bucks.

This status quo, exacerbated by technology, is making both men and women into brutes who use each other to achieve lesser ends — pleasure, power, money, or fame. Further cementing the brute-hood for men is the distance men feel from each other. Men find it “almost impossible to talk to their male peers about anything intimate or express vulnerability,” the New York Times frets. For once, I agree with the Times; many men in my life have shallow male friendships or none at all. Instead of seeking out a brother in times of emotional distress, I find that men around me either turn inward or to women.

Thankfully, there are solutions to this — and some of them are ancient. One answer is monkhood. But before you shave your head and don a habit (unless you feel so called), what I really mean is that any man (secular or religious) should attempt to order his life to the threefold vow of a Catholic religious brother: obedience, poverty, and chastity.

Obedience to God and to one’s superior is key in monastic life. The monk in charge of a monastery is elected by his fellow brothers, in a testament to his legitimate leadership ability. After he is elected, any order that comes from his mouth is to be interpreted as coming straight from God and must be obeyed, subject to very limited exceptions. For a secular man, heeding his father, his boss, his coach or any other male leader in this way is key to learning how to subordinate his desires to God’s will.

Addiction of any kind flips this script. The porn addict views himself as the ultimate steward of his life. He wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it, and that includes mistreating his body, on loan to him from His Father. In addition, though the addict may not recognize it, he is rejecting the authority of his current or future wife over his body. As a remedy, obedience to God’s will, as outlined by the rules of His Church, can be an integral step to weakening the hold of addiction.

However, before one can even reach that point, every man must go through the first three steps of the famous 12-Step program. They must admit that they are powerless over their addiction and their lives. On their own, they have to come to believe that God can restore them to wholeness. Third, they must choose to submit their will and their life to God. These steps — especially that last one — are not easy for anyone, but with grace, prayer, and maybe even a few trips to Rock Bottom, they are possible.

The vow of poverty helps monastics to rely on God in everything, in another form of submission to God’s providence. After the vow, all of one’s material possessions are now shared — there is no “mine,” no entitlement. For the secular man, the antithesis of this virtue takes the form of becoming too reliant on earthly treasures to conjure up the illusory feeling of self-sufficiency. A desire for self-reliance can lead to overindulgence or stinginess with one’s finances, talents, and food and drink. The lie of “my body, my choice” can easily generalize to one’s sexuality, and pornography can rear its ugly head once more.

One solution? Giving one’s time, money, and food away. Fasting is a key aspect of the monk’s life for a reason, because — as Jesus so aptly put it — “Whoever is faithful in very little matters is faithful also in great ones; and whoever is dishonest in very little matters is dishonest also in great ones.” Doing something as simple as denying yourself that last scoop of potatoes strengthens one’s will to fight the much larger temptation of pornography. Plus, it gives you confidence in your ability to choose the good and reject evil.

Now, we get to chastity. If one has tackled the prior two vows with all their might, chastity follows with more ease. Contrary to popular notions of this virtue, chastity is not something that solely applies to celibate priests or monks. Married couples, single people, and religious alike are called to be chaste – to see and love the whole person instead of treating them as an instrument, and to harness the unique powers of sexuality for the glory of God. 

A non-pornographic sexuality on display

At our best, our sexualities call us out of ourselves to love and serve another. They call us to an encounter, to know the other as ourselves, and to allow ourselves to be loved too. A porn-addicted sexuality is the opposite. This pseudosexuality draws one inward to serve oneself. There is no love involved, only lust. Instead of the ideal of a total, faithful, and fruitful marital embrace, you have an incomplete, faithless, sterile act of self-abuse that views other people and their bodies as a means to an end.

To redeem chastity, men and women have to seek an authentic charity built on service to others. Serving the homeless, the elderly, and the poor are concrete ways to use humanity’s potent drives to bear good fruit. For those seeking to tackle porn and masturbation addiction itself, more and more methods to beat it are published everyday. A secular one that I like is known as the Easy Peasy method, whereas The Chastity Project and Magdala Ministries (for women) are good Christian options.

I am also a big fan of the secular 12 Step program Sexaholics Anonymous, mostly because the program requires group meetings that are in-person. Because let’s face it — men and women cannot achieve chastity (or any of the virtues) on their own. As one writer said, “The absence of brotherhood kills a man’s spirit, the absence of a common and worthy goal drains his motivation, and the lack of a guide leaves him directionless.” And although nearly half of men say their online lives are more engaging than their real lives, authentic brotherhood cannot be fostered online, where common goals are few and guides are faceless.

Since I am a woman, it is not my calling to create a new fraternal service organization, mentorship program, or professional apprenticeship for men. But men, women, and children would certainly benefit from a revival of these groups, especially in our time of increased fatherlessness. The Catholic Church has these groups in spades and I would welcome any reader to explore Her treasures, but there needs to be more of them everywhere. When these organizations flourish again, obedience, poverty, chastity, and an Authentic Masculinity will be well within reach.

1. British Board of Film Classification. (2020). Young people, pornography & age-verification. BBFC. Retrieved from https://www.bbfc.co.uk/about-classification/research