Many women, however, have the same visceral abhorrence of porn that you have. If they found their husbands looking at porn it might be like finding them with a needle in their arms — or, more to the point, with a hooker in their arms, as the porn experience is a kind of disembodied adultery carried out in a fleshless world of signs and symbols. Women’s revulsion at porn also seems strangely autonomic, like a shiver out of the amygdala, uncontrollable, ancient, immune to secular society, powerful yet irrational, like a fear of spiders.

But in a physical sense, porn is no more dangerous than spiders. What if a husband covered his face with spiders? Why would he do that? He wouldn’t do it just to freak out his wife, would he? What would be the point? He’d only do it if it felt really, really good to cover his face with spiders — so good that he’s willing to risk losing his wife. Again, that sounds like addiction — why would a guy drink and ruin his life unless he just couldn’t stop?