Men are struggling in the modern era in ways they've never had to struggle before.
We live in a time where pop culture considers men to be afterthoughts, if not problematic. As modern-day feminism rages across society, men have been reduced in terms of importance both in the home and in the workplace. It teaches women to look at men as either tools, a means to an end, or a hurdle to overcome.
A lot of this has left men isolated, either against their will or all too willingly. They don't get out as much as they used to, preferring online interactions. In a TIME article from 2024, young men said their online lives were far more interesting than their actual lives, and this has opened the door for a myriad of other issues, and these issues lead to dangerous ends, including depression, loneliness, and, in too many cases, suicide.
You would think that the urge to get out and interact would become hard to ignore, but it's not, and I think one of the chains men willingly slap on themselves is, in my opinion, their greatest enemy in the modern world.
Men are struggling with lust, and even those fighting against it too often lose the battle.
Pornography, AI companions, and even easy women are very easy to come by in today's society, making it all too easy to fall into patterns that keep a man from getting out and reaching his full potential. What's more, the enemy that is lust is one of the hardest to fight because it already has an advantage over men due to how we're geared to seek sexual gratification.
Being visual creatures puts us at a major disadvantage against lust in the modern world because seeing the things we're naturally driven to want to see doesn't really cost anything anymore, or at the very least, doesn't cost much. Basic pornography is so easy to find and consume that avoiding it is almost impossible. Even the most mundane search for a keyword on X can result in seeing a post containing porn in the results. Forums like Reddit are filthy with it, and apps that are supposed to be safe, like Instagram, aren't safe either.
Read: Instagram Is Unsafe for Young Men As Meta Can't Fight One of the Largest Predators on the Platform
According to a study published on PubMed, a whopping 91.5 percent of adult men admit to consuming pornography. Moreover, it's not just websites like Pornhub dragging men down. Social media websites are breeding grounds for pornographic avenues as women of all stripes use various methods to attract men to their OnlyFans pages. Some use brute force methods of teasing and exposing themselves as much as possible without triggering moderation, but some appeal to men's sympathies and push pro-masculine talking points, endearing themselves to men who then sign up to see more.
These traps are laid for men almost everywhere online, and of course, there's the AI companion issue, which is a problem growing so quickly that it's swiftly becoming one of the most lucrative pornographic industries today. According to PR Newswire, the AI companion issue is becoming more and more prevalent among men of all ages:
AI romantic companion apps — such as Replika, Intimate - AI Girlfriend and Anima — are growing and are being used much more than most people might believe, particularly among young adults. Almost 1 in 5 adults in the United States (19%) report that they have chatted with an AI system meant to simulate a romantic partner. Use rates are particularly high among young adults (defined as 18-30 years old), with nearly 1 in 3 young adult men (31%) and 1 in 4 young adult women (23%) reporting that they have chatted with an AI companion. However, these technologies are increasingly common among older adults (30+ years of age) as well, with 15% of adult men and 10% of adult women reporting that they have chatted with a virtual romantic companion.
Many of these apps are tame compared to some of the other AI companion websites on the market.
As men continue to sink into the world of online lust, their dopamine receptors train on it, eventually leading to a dependence that keeps them tethered to the online world for their dopamine fix. Dopamine is a reward chemical of the brain that usually activates when you accomplish something your lizard brain tells you is good. This can be anything from learning something new to accomplishing a task, but men get a big dopamine hit when the brain believes it has reproduced. The issue is that the lizard part of your brain doesn't know the difference between having actual sex vs. consuming pornography. Men are rewarded either way, and with pornography granting a dopamine hit without any work involved, men teach their brains that pornography is better than even actual sex.
Lust is an overwhelming issue for modern men, and while many men don't even understand they're being preyed on, the ones who do are even losing the fight against it. It defeats even the best of us.
Again, fighting lust is a losing battle for men because our very nature, our own brains, betray us in the fight. As you try to resist, your own system will attempt to make excuses for you to give in.
In the Christian community, you hear a lot about fighting lust. It's an ancient enemy of humanity and considered one of the seven deadly sins for a good reason. It's toppled empires and kingdoms, including David and Solomon, both of whom gave into lust and, as a result, watched as their kingdom was ripped apart. Samson lost his strength because of lust.
Lust has been at the root of men not reaching their full potential for eons.
But it's my honest opinion that men are fighting the battle all wrong.
Whenever men come across an opponent, we often overcome them through strength and willpower. The vast majority of issues are solved by men through those two qualities. It's how we win wars, defend our homes, and keep civilization standing.
However, lust is a different beast because it hijacks parts of your own brain, collapsing your willpower from within. The more you fight lust, the stronger it gets, which is why the solution isn't to fight it at all. In fact, the winning move against lust is to do something that men hate doing when confronted with an enemy.
You have to run away.
It's very interesting that in the Bible, the word "flee" is often used when discussing lust and sexual immorality. It doesn't encourage you to stand firm or puff out your chest and oppose it with willpower. It tells you to run away.
"Flee youthful lusts and pursue righteousness," says 2 Timothy 2:22.
"Flee from sexual immorality," says 1 Corinthians 6:18.
One of the most "abandon ship" verses drives the point home.
"If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away," says Matthew 5:29.
Paul tells us to "Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires," in Romans 13:14.
To translate that into a more modern wording, I'll borrow from the movie "War Games."
"The only winning move is not to play."
There is no cure for lust because sexual desire is, in itself, not a bad thing. In fact, it's a necessary part of our propagation as a species and, I'd dare say, one of the chief pillars that hold our society together.
Read: Men's Sexual Desire Isn't a Bad Thing
But the winning move for men is not to let that natural desire lead them to seek out easy fixes to quiet it down. If you're sitting at your computer or scrolling through your phone, and the desire starts to rise, "resisting" isn't going to work, at least in the long term. You have to get up and literally walk away. Go do something else. Go and find a distraction. Do a chore, accomplish a task, hang out with friends.
Don't think of it as a cowardly retreat. More like a tactical withdrawal.
