Made for Pillows? Men, Boredom, and Pornography

Pornography is not free speech. Pornography is pernicious. So why do so many men look at pornography? I would like to suggest to you that the reason so many men look at pornography is not only lust, but boredom. Brothers, if you struggle with pornography, it’s time to ask yourself a question: What would Uriah do?
The Story of David and Uriah
The story of David and Uriah is the story of two men and one woman. Even more, it’s the story of two men and one battle—and every man is called to fight a battle. In my book, Mud & Poetry: Love, Sex, and the Sacred, I zoom in on King David as an example of how the listlessness and dissatisfaction that come from not fighting the battles we’re called to fight lead us into sexual snares. It was not lust but boredom that led David down the same path that so many men today have trod. It was a couch. It was a lazy springtime day and too much free time. Listen:
“In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, when David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at home in Jerusalem” (2 Samuel 11:1).
Springtime is when crops are sown, new wells are dug, and “kings go out to battle.” All the vitality of David’s masculinity pounds within him, all the springtime energy to fight battles and defend his kingdom stirs in his heart, and yet…he stays at home. The story continues:
“It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of his house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful” (2 Samuel 11:2).
All the energy,