“Men want variety. … If pornography is a substitute for one’s wife, it’s awful. If it’s a substitute for adultery, it’s not awful.”
These words came courtesy of one of the biggest conservative talk show hosts in America, Dennis Prager, in response to a porn question from Jordan Peterson during a discussion of Exodus for The Daily’s Wire’s eponymous series.
This is “not a religious answer,” emphasized Prager — who comes from a Judaic background and claims to be “less interested in the interior person” than in “how you act” — but a “moral and realistic answer.”
That’s where he’s wrong. Not only does pornography as a means of adultery prevention fail the religious test. It miserably fails the moral and realistic test as well. As Todd Friel of Wretched explains, Prager’s message is horrible for both men and women — first because it gives men permission to use porn, providing them an “out,” and second because it essentially tells wives they should be glad their husbands consume it.
Beyond subscribing to the pitfall of utilitarian ethics, in which the ends justify the means, Prager’s view proves a detestable way to stave off adultery. Here are just some of the reasons why.
1. Porn Is Adultery of the Heart
Prager recommends pornography as an antidote to adultery, but the two are one and the same.
In his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talked about lust’s relationship to adultery in graphic terms:
You have heard that it was said,
