Confessions Of A Porn Star

Shaun Groves pornAfter the concert she introduces herself and piles on the compliments. “You’re so… I love that you…”

And then, sometimes, things get weird: “I wish my husband was more…”

And sometimes they get weirder, like when her husband is standing right there. “He’s just not as…”

This is more than weird. This is pornography.

Pornography is the substitution of reality for a more pleasurable fantasy. (<--click to tweet this quote)

The fantasy is that a better man exists: A man who always puts effort into his appearance, who’s always compassionate, who’s full of pithy anecdotes and inspiring stories, who always listens to her, who’s always funny, who cleans bathrooms and does dishes, who always loves children and his wife and Jesus more than anything else, who always leads his family to follow God.

Her reality is life with a man who leaves wet towels on the floor, who wants sex or television more than conversation, who doesn’t dress up and take her out often enough, who zones out when she’s talking, who loses his patience with the kids, who’s too tired to play with them, who has to be asked to do things that a better husband would do naturally.

The porn star’s job is to be sexy. A concert or a blog or a photograph is me at my best.

Shaun-Groves-Family

But when the porn star goes home? He’s not always his best.

I wear t-shirts, jeans, a baseball cap and no shoes most days. I’m a longwinded story teller who runs low on pith. I want sex more often than my wife does. And somedays I retreat to spend way too much time on my computer and call it “work.” I lose my patience with my children. I’ve yelled at them. I’m gone a lot some months. I’m terrible at car maintenance. I’ve been clinically depressed twice. I sometimes zone out when my wife’s talking. I forget what it was she asked me to grab from the store on my way home. Actually, I forget to go by the store at all. After nineteen years together Becky still reminds me to take out the trash about half the time.

There are long seasons when I worry more than I pray. And I pray less than I read the bible. And I read the bible less than my wife does.

These are things a better husband and father wouldn’t do.

But all of life is not a stage. I’m not that better man in reality. Not always. No one is.

I’m just like the guy you live with. Hard to love sometimes. I hope you don’t love me any less for confessing that. But I hope you love him more.

Tell him you do.

In The Sky Ebook by Shaun Groves

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