Peg Streep - What Porn Does to Intimacy

Disclaimer - Not all porn is evil, but frequent use of porn can pose serious issues.

This post from Peg Streep's Psychology Today blog, Tech Support, looks at three recent studies on how pornography impacts intimacy in relationships.

What Porn Does to Intimacy

3 studies find that explicit material can do more harm than most people think.

Published on July 16, 2014 by Peg Streep in Tech Support

The rapid proliferation of pornography is one of the digital age’s legacies; some 40 million people in the United States visit porn websites regularly, many of them emerging or young adults. Popular media have capitalized on cautionary tales about porn addiction and stories of boyfriends objectifying their girlfriends and wanting them to behave like porn stars. But studies confirm that the preponderance of young men—and slightly less than half of women—thinks that watching sexually explicit material is okay.

That’s what Spencer B. Olmstead and his colleagues found when they asked college students about the use of pornography in future romantic relationships: 70.8 percent of men and 45.5 percent of women thought they would watch. In contrast, only 22.3 percent of men and 26.3 percent of women thought pornography had no role in a romantic partnership. Men and women tend to disagree on two issues: How porn is watched (alone, in groups, with a sexual partner); and how often it is watched. As Michael Kimmel reported in his 2008 book Guyland, young men often watch porn with their peers and for different reasons than older men. Kimmel writes that “guys tend to like the extreme stuff, the double penetrations and humiliating scenes. They watch it together with guys and they make fun of the women in the scene.” In contrast, older men with more experience either watch by themselves or with a partner, and with what Kimmel calls “wistfulness” about their younger selves; they tend to prefer material “where the women look like they are filled with desire and experience pleasure.”

The Olmstead study found that women’s concerns had more to do with whether consumption of porn was limited than whom it was watched with. Men tend to think that watching porn has only positive consequences.

As reported by Nathaniel Lambert and others in a review of studies, women whose partners watched porn regularly thought less of those partners and saw porn as more of a threat to the stability of their relationship. On the other hand, other studies have shown that young men and women alike think that sexually explicit material can help them explore their sexuality and adds “spice” to what they do in bed.

Is watching pornography really as benign as people think? The following three studies reveal that it has a greater effect on relationships than those we usually discuss.

1. Porn-free relationships are stronger, with a lower rate of infidelity.

That’s what Amanda Maddox and her colleagues found in a study of men and women, ages 18 to 34, who were in romantic relationships. The researchers measured the levels of negative communication, relationship adjustment, dedication or interpersonal commitment, sexual satisfaction, and infidelity. In their study, 76.8 percent of men and 34.6 percent of women looked at sexually explicit material alone; 44.8 percent reported viewing it with partners. They found that people who didn’t view any porn had lower levels of negative communication, were more committed to the relationship, and had higher sexual satisfaction and relationship adjustment. Their rate of infidelity was at least half of those who had watched sexual material alone and with their partners. But people who only watched porn with their partners were more dedicated to the relationship and more sexually satisfied than those who watched alone.

2. Watching porn diminishes relationship commitment.

What these researchers discovered is that watching porn reminds you of all the potential sexual partners out there, which in turn lowers your dedication to the person you’re actually involved with. It also leads you to swap out the person who’s actually lying in bed with you for some fantasy person you’ve never met (and probably never will).

Does that sound healthy?

Nathaniel Lambert, Sesen Negash and others conducted five separate experiments to find out. In the first, they asked participants, age 17 to 26, who were in relationships (as long as three years and as brief as two months) about their porn consumption and measured levels of commitment. They found that porn consumption lowered commitment in both men and women, but with a stronger effect on men.

In their second study, they had independent observers watch videos of couples performing an interactive task—one partner was blind-folded and had to draw something while the other gave instructions. Among the observers, lower commitment was observed among porn users.

The third study only tested participants who had consumed porn. They had half the group give up porn for three weeks. The other half was asked to give up their favorite food, but were allowed to watch porn. The result? Those who had abstained from sexually explicit material showed increased commitment to the relationship at the end of the three weeks.

The last two studies focused on the effect of greater attentiveness to alternatives on potential infidelity and infidelity itself. And yes, people who watched porn were more likely to engage in flirting (and more) outside their relationships in one experiment; and more likely to cheat and hook-up in the other.

3. The fantasy alternative leads to real-world cheating.

In another study, Andrea Mariea Gwinn, Nathaniel Lambert, and others further explored the nature of the other alternatives imaginatively offered up by pornography. They suggested two possibilities: First, that seeing physically attractive and sexually available partners on screen may heighten a person’s perceptions of his own possible partners. And second, that porn may make the idea of multiple sexual partners more appealing—another wound to a committed relationship.

And that’s exactly what they found.

In one study, the researchers found that people who thought about porn they’d watched reported having better alternatives to their current relationship than those who didn’t. A second study showed that, over time, exposure to porn was a robust predictor of infidelity.

More strikingly, the team found that both thinking about possible partners and acting on the impulse to find those alternatives operated separately from dissatisfaction with one's current relationship and partner. In other words, even though one's own pasture may be plenty green enough, just the thought of a greener one can be enough to send one roving.

You might want to keep that in mind if you’ve been watching the hard stuff or if you've become inured to seeing your partner just flip open his laptop "just for fun.”

Pornography is not as benign as you think, especially when it comes to romantic relationships.

1. Olmstead,Spenser B., Sesen N Negash, Kay Pasley, and Frank D. Fincham, “Emerging Adults’ Expectations for Pornography Use in the Context of Future Committed Relationships: A Qualitative Study,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (2013), 42, 625-635.
2. Kimmel, Michael. Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008.
3. Maddox, Amanda, Galena K, Rhoades, and Howard J.Markman,” Viewing Sexually-Explicit Materials Alone and Together: Associations with Relationship Quality,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (April 2011), 40, no. 2, 441-448.
4. Lambert, Nathaniel M. and Sesen Negash, Tyler F.Stillman, Spencer B. Olmstead, and Frank M. Fincham, “A Love That Doesn’t Last: Pornography Consumption and Weakened Commitment to One’s Romantic Partner,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology (2012), vol.31, no.4, 410-438.
5. Gwinn, Andrea Mariea, Nathaniel M. Lambert, Frank D. Fincham, and Jon K,Maner, “Pornography, Relationship Alternatives, and Intimate Extradyadic Behavior,” Social Psychological and Personality Science, (2013), vol.4, no. 6, 699-704.
Copyright© Peg Streep 2014
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Men Who Watch Porn Have Less Grey Matter in Brain Regions Associated with Motivation and Executive Function

Watch porn and your brain may suffer from the intense stimulation of the reward system. One of the results of this can be a lower top-down modulation of prefrontal cortical areas (i.e., a loss of executive function and the ability to associate behaviors with outcomes). Another outcome is that exposure to porn imagery produced reduced activation in parts of brain associated with motivation - suggesting that porn (like other drugs) reduces the desire to do anything other than look at porn.

The researchers point out, rightly, that they cannot say that porn reduces grey matter - only that those who watch more porn has less grey matter. It may be the later that leads to the former.

By the way, the average porn consumption for the 64 men was 4 hours a week.

Below is a summary of the research from Science Alert, followed by the abstract of the full article (which is sequestered behind a pay wall).

Men who watch porn have less brain grey matter

Porn consumption has been linked to differences in the structure and function of male brains

Felicity Nelson | Saturday, 31 May 2014 

Image: PornHub

Men who watch porn have significantly less grey matter in their brains, a new study shows. MRI brain scans of 64 men between 21 and 45 years of age were taken while participants were shown images of porn and people exercising.

The participants were later requested to provide information about weekly porn consumption via a phone interview. Every person in the study volunteered to answer these questions, even though they were not told that this information would be needed before commencing. The men had a wide range of porn consumption averaging 4 hours a week.

Men with higher porn consumption had lower grey matter volumes. Interestingly, when men were shown sexually explicit material during the MRI scan, the region of the brain associated with motivation showed reduced activity.

"Our findings indicated that grey matter volume of the right caudate of the striatum is smaller with higher pornography use," researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany told ABC Science.

The study could not show that porn caused men's brains to lose grey matter. "Future studies should investigate the effects of pornography longitudinally or expose naive participants to pornography and investigate the causal effects over time", researchers told ABC Science.

This research was published this week in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

Full Citation:
Kühn, S; Gallinat, J. (2014, May 28). Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated With Pornography Consumption. JAMA Psychiatry. Online First. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.93

Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated With Pornography Consumption

The Brain on Porn ONLINE FIRST

Simone Kühn, PhD; Jürgen Gallinat, PhD

ABSTRACT

Importance Since pornography appeared on the Internet, the accessibility, affordability, and anonymity of consuming visual sexual stimuli have increased and attracted millions of users. Based on the assumption that pornography consumption bears resemblance with reward-seeking behavior, novelty-seeking behavior, and addictive behavior, we hypothesized alterations of the frontostriatal network in frequent users.

Objective To determine whether frequent pornography consumption is associated with the frontostriatal network.

Design, Setting, and Participants Sixty-four healthy male adults with a broad range of pornography consumption at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany, reported hours of pornography consumption per week. Pornography consumption was associated with neural structure, task-related activation, and functional resting-state connectivity.

Main Outcomes and Measures Gray matter volume of the brain was measured by voxel-based morphometry and resting state functional connectivity was measured on 3-T magnetic resonance imaging scans.

Results We found a significant negative association between reported pornography hours per week and gray matter volume in the right caudate (P < .001, corrected for multiple comparisons) as well as with functional activity during a sexual cue–reactivity paradigm in the left putamen (P< .001). Functional connectivity of the right caudate to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was negatively associated with hours of pornography consumption.

Conclusions and Relevance The negative association of self-reported pornography consumption with the right striatum (caudate) volume, left striatum (putamen) activation during cue reactivity, and lower functional connectivity of the right caudate to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex could reflect change in neural plasticity as a consequence of an intense stimulation of the reward system, together with a lower top-down modulation of prefrontal cortical areas. Alternatively, it could be a precondition that makes pornography consumption more rewarding.

10 Ways Porn Perpetuates Myths About Men and Sex

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Anna Pulley - 10 Things Porn Gets Horribly Wrong About Men

From Role/Reboot, Anna Pulley exposes 10 things about men that porn gets "horribly wrong." And my first thought was, "Only 10?"

This is a good article - with a little humor to lighten things up. The only one I really did not know was that gay male porn stars make 3x as much as straight porn guys. Good for them.

10 Things Porn Gets Horribly Wrong About Men 

By Anna Pulley
January 07, 2014


This originally appeared on Alternet.org. Republished here with permission.
Here are the biggest male myths we find hardest to swallow.

We recently told you our biggest grievances involving women in mainstream porn. Making a comparable list for men, however, proved to be harder (sorry) than it initially seemed. Partially because, in mainstream straight porn, which is produced, funded, run, and directed by men, the focus is almost entirely on the porn actresses. Rarely do we get sweeping slow pans of pectoral physiques, zoomed in facial grimaces, or the come-hither eyes that women make at the camera. While we do often glimpse extreme penetration closeups, with its accompanying, and at times mesmerizing, ball pendulums, little attention is paid to much else.

Further complicating our attempts is that very few scientific studies on porn have been done (except in the realm of addiction and why no one will think of the children). But! A peer-reviewed Porn Studies Journal is slated to come (sorry again) in 2014, so perhaps this will change soon. In the meantime, some of our stats come from self-proclaimed “idea detective” Jon Millward, who crunched numbers from the Internet Adult Film Database (like IMDB, but for smut) which boasts data on 151,946 titles and 129,831 performers/directors, but as is to be expected, much of Millward’s data focuses on the ladeez.

Despite these obstacles, when it comes to the topic of men, porn still gets a lot wrong. Here are the 10 biggest male myths we find hardest to swallow (not sorry about that one, actually).

1. Only one erogenous zone exists.

In mainstream and especially hardcore porn, men are often reduced to little more than walking, grunting penises who experience no other pleasure except from their deep-V diver. Like RoboCop, but for sexual purposes only. Again, since the onus is on the women in porn, some disregard of male bodies is to be expected. While we don’t expect to be regaled with the pleasures of their watercolors hobby or anything, a little attention could be paid to other erogenous zones, like nipples, necks, thighs, asses, and even balls, which are largely ignored, in porn as in life.

2. Size is subjective.

While no hard or even soft data exists on the average penis size of porn stars versus the average Tom’s Harry Dick, the porn-star-penis-as-huge trope is certainly prevalent and used to sell a variety of pumps, pills, and other penis-enlargement doodads, banking on men’s insecurity and Photoshop to hawk their wang wares. But just as technology can make Smurfs three-dimensional, porn cinematography can make a penis appear larger than it is, with lighting, camera angles, makeup, and even the placement of one’s penis next to, say, a diminutive porn actress. Everything looks big when you stand next to a girl who weighs 80 pounds.

3. The everlasting boner.

In typical porn scenes, men are required to bang longer than the Salvation Army drum on the Easter Day parade, i.e. for 30-60 minutes or more. Despite what you may have heard in Boyz II Men songs, non-porn intercourse typically lasts between 3-7 minutes. As Seymore Butts told Forbes: “The most difficult part about being a male porn star is the hard-on. They have to get it up and off on cue essentially and all the while in between maintain [it] for two to three hours. This must be done under the most difficult of circumstances, including not being attracted to their female co-star, having sex in the most uncomfortable settings, i.e. on hard surfaces, cold/hot weather, etc., and/or having to stop frequently for direction or shot setups.” Male porn performers also use Caverject—a drug injected directly into their penis to maintain those impossible erections, bringing new meaning to the phrase “working stiffs.”

4. Mo’ money shots, mo’ problems.

If sex acts in porn were relative, then we’d all be giving and getting a lot more facials. According to Millward’s porn study, 87 percent of porn actresses will “take a facial” at least once in their careers. For comparison, 62 percent will do anal, 31 percent swallow, and a mere 6 percent will be fisted. The money shot is the most common way to end a porn scene. As with all things, of course, there are probably some men and women who enjoy capping off their night with a little sperm in the eye, but it’s also safe to say that the vast majority do not.

5. The jackhammer.

Porn would have us believe that the only tried and true way to fuck a woman is to pound her so hard that the cervical force and momentum spontaneously cause her to travel back to the Triassic period to bring back a tooth from a Therapsid with which to conquer our reptilian overlords in 2057. Really hard, in other words. Of course, a good deep-dicking can be enjoyable (and even preferred!) from time to time, but every time? And for an hour? And no breaks to drink Gatorade laced with speed to keep up the fervent drilling to China? Also, no one ever sweats. Maybe that’s why they keep all the dry ice around.

6. Very little variety of roles for men.
While women can be a wide variety of stereotypes (the randy MILF, the randy sorority girl, the randy babysitter, etc.) the profiles of men in the International Adult Movie Database are sadly bland. They either do boy/girl scenes or they don’t. Even when they do get to play an actual role, it is often the uninspiring pizza delivery guy (“I ordered extra sausage!”), or some kind of repair man. “You know what this sink needs? Twelve inches of reinforced steel pipe. C’mere ladies.”

7. Neither here, nor hair.

Like women in porn, the standard for male porn stars is to partake in bushwhacking (as well as scrotum-shearing, chest-clipping, and rectal-region hair removal). This manscaping, and other body hair removal, is for aesthetic reasons: to make one’s penis appear larger, smoother, and cleaner. While non-porn male deforestation has certainly seen a rise (there are a bevy of articles on the topic, major razor brands have launched all-body shavers for men, salons are offering more male services, etc.), there isn’t much research on its overall prevalence. But, a 2008 study from Australia found that 82 percent of gay men and 66 percent of straight men removed their pubic hair at least once, although the largest percentage of both groups said they did it “rarely.”

8. It pays to be gay.

While there are few cultural rewards for bisexual men, except perhaps in the realm of increased hair products, in porn at least, there are definite financial benefits. Gay porn pays about three times as much as straight porn. For this reason, many straight male porn performers have done gay porn, enough to spawn the term gay-for-pay. We can’t say the same for non-porn dude experimentation, as much as we wanted Brokeback Mountain to become a phenomenon.

9. Porn stars weigh less and have more piercings.

The average male porn star weighs 167.5 lbs, 27 pounds less than the national average for men. It makes sense that porn stars would be in better shape than many, considering the physical demands of say, the Standing 69 or the Lawnmower. Aside from weight, however, attractiveness of male porn stars seems more often than not based largely on...how to put it...the quality of the wood. One time we watched a near-elderly man, who looked like a penis with eyes, nail his hot secretary and the sight was so ghastly it almost turned us off porn indefinitely. Speaking of appearances, male porn stars also are more likely to have at least one tattoo (9.5 percent more than average), and a body piercing (13 percent more than average).

10. Male porn stars really get around.

Male porn stars are far more prolific than your average dude (duh), but also considerably more than female porn stars, when it comes to number of partners. Millward again: “The 10 most prolific male performers, on average, have slept onscreen with 1,013 different women each (45 a year for an average career length of 22.4 years). Whereas the 10 most prolific women on average have slept with 148 different men (eight a year for an average career length of 17.7 years). The most prolific of them all, Tom Byron, has slept with 1,127 different women. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, non-porn men have an average of seven sex partners."

Follow @annapulley on Twitter.

America Is Addicted to Porn

This graphic comes from Buzz Feed - it was shared by some friends on Facebook. Since 72% of the visitors to porn sites are men, this is a male issue.

I don't go so far as to say that all porn is horrible and it must be banned - that's too slippery of a slope for me. And the reality is, as is true in all addictions, that a lot of people can view porn from time to time and it causes no problems in their lives or relationships - and some couples like to view porn together.

But the average age of first exposure now is 11 years old - and again, these are mostly boys. My exposure to Playboy as a young teen resulted in objectification of women, so I can't imagine what hardcore pornography is doing to these young men.

Linda Hatch, PhD - Good Porn, Bad Porn

I am sure that there can be good porn, or at the very least that porn can be educational as well as titillating, but among the several sex addicts I have seen as a coach or therapist, porn is more addictive than most chemicals, and it's free. And if you have ever seen much porn, it's hard to believe any of it can be good.

My greater concern, however, is for the young men who are growing up watching online porn and learning porn-style sex as "normal sex." Porn-style sex is all about the orgasm, especially the man's, but none of it is about emotional intimacy and caring.

It's hard enough to learn about healthy, intimate sexuality as a young man, throwing porn into the mix is a recipe for disaster. Not only will these young men be ignorant of how female sexuality actually works, but they will have been conditioned to quick and easy pay-off of masturbating to porn, which might make the whole process of seduction, foreplay, and mutually pleasurable sexual sharing seem like too much work (I have heard this from sex addicts).

This article was posted in November of 2012 at the Psych Central blog, The Impact of Sex Addiction by Dr. Linda Hatch.

Good Porn, Bad Porn

By Linda Hatch, PhD

Is there good porn?

Take a look at this statement from an article called The Impact of Internet Pornography on Adolescents: A Review of the Research. 

“Increased access to the Internet by adolescents has created unprecedented opportunities for sexual education, learning and growth.”

(Owens, E. W., Behun, R. J., Manning, J.D. and Reid, R.C. (2012). Journal of Sexual Addiction and Compulsiviy, 19, 99-122)

Writers and researchers seem to feel obligated to acknowledge the potential benefits of pornography when in fact their own research as well as the vast majority of everyone else’s shows no such thing.

The above authors go on to document the damaging effects of internet pornography on adolescents.  For example that youth who view porn develop unrealistic sexual values and beliefs, and that viewing violent porn is related to higher levels of sexually aggressive behavior. Also that viewing porn leads to body image problems with girls and performance fears in boys and so on.

Certainly research on the negative effects of porn is important. But there is always an opposing view out there that porn serves the useful functions of freeing men and women, reducing shame around sex, aiding couples, and educating the young.

The reporting of scientific evidence often seems to be an attempt to escape the good vs. bad debate about porn so as to avoid being seen as moralistic. Just the facts. And indeed that is what science does.

But proving that porn can be a harmful, addictive drug fails to address a larger issue that I think is given less attention.


The two sides of the porn debate

The conservative/religious anti-porn movement is pitted against pro-porn ideology. Supporters of porn can range from freedom of speech advocates to those who argue that porn is liberating and any opposition to porn is a moralistic attempt to impose rigid, outdated norms on everyone.

The pro-porn folks (or at least the porn industry) appear to be winning.  The amount of porn consumed is increasing and the imagery is becoming more extreme in terms of erotic depictions of dominance/submission, degradation and violence against women.

Although women are starting to watch internet porn in increasing numbers, the majority of viewers are men (about 70%) and porn videos are typically depictions of male dominance.

The porn narrative

Professor Robert Jensen of the Austin School of Journalism says that porn typically tells a story.  That story, he says, is that “all women are there for the sexual pleasure of men.”

Further, Jensen argues that porn conveys the message that there are no “good” girls, that all women are “whores,” and that women like pain.  And he believes that part of the porn ideology is that when women play out these roles they will “become fully realized as sexual beings.”

Other writers have tabulated the frequency of the various sex acts  in porn depicting a couple, the relative frequency of receiving oral sex, of male vs. female orgasm etc. and has found that it favors men.

Professor Jensen maintains that this pattern in the stories and the increasing extremity of porn, particularly so-called “gonzo” porn infiltrates the mainstream of visual media. This is referred to as the “pornifying of pop culture.”

The human values question

When the two sides face off in the porn debate it often comes down to values.  So the scientists can prove that porn has any number of bad effects like addiction, erectile dysfunction, and divorce, but that will not convince someone whose sexuality has become fused with sexual objectification.  They will feel attacked at a deep level.

The larger question that I feel is neglected is not whether your porn viewing is consistent with my values, but whether your porn viewing is consistent with your own values.

As Professor Jensen points out, porn as a whole is built around ideas like gender inequality and the comodification of a class of people (women).  Subordinating and dominating any segment of humanity is inconsistent with most people’s value systems.

Along with the scientific data we need to remind ourselves as clinicians and researchers to bring the discussion back around to the values that we and our clients share, like the capacity for empathy and a sense of our common humanity.

~ Linda Hatch is a psychologist and certified sex addiction therapist specializing in the treatment of sex addicts and the partners and families of sex addicts. Linda also blogs on her own website at Sexaddictionscounseling.com

"Manpocalypse" Now - Jared DeFife Reviews Philip Zimbardo's "The Demise of Guys"

From Psychotherapy Networker, Jared DeFife reviews Philip Zimbardo's recent book on the plight of boys and men in this culture, The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It. This is a TED Book, so it's only $2.99, but it's also only available for the Kindle (but you can get a free Kindle app for your Apple or Android device, and for your desktop/laptop).

"Manpocalypse" Now

By Jared DeFife

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo knows a thing or two about tough guys. In 1971, his notorious Stanford prison experiment, originally planned for two weeks, had to be shut down after only six days when college students acting out roles as prison guards started to play a little too rough with their mock inmates. In 2007, he tried to understand the military abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in his book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Now he turns his attention to a different kind of prisoner: the average American male shackled by the constraints and demands of societal expectations.

In a new eBook titled The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do about It, Zimbardo and his coauthor psychologist Nikita Duncan paint a dire picture of dudes in this country, asserting that boys are increasingly failing to measure up academically, socially, and sexually. The blame, they say, lies with the Internet, television, and video games. According to their view, a new Lost Generation has grown up, addicted to arousal and constantly seeking stimulation and novelty through digital means: "The excessive use of video games and online porn in pursuit of the next thing is creating a generation of risk-averse guys who are unable (and unwilling) to navigate the complexities and risks inherent to real-life relationships, school and employment." More young men are supposedly languishing in their parents' basements, aimless, asocial, and out of touch.

The signs of the decline, they say, are everywhere: falling test scores, violent video gaming, and a buxom pornography industry. Zimbardo describes a "social intensity syndrome" in which men are driven to engage in intense, male-dominated social interactions leading to an endorphin rush that the rest of their dull daily lives just can't match. During a popular TED talk, Zimbardo said "Guys would rather be in a bar with strangers, watching a totally overdressed Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers, than Jennifer Lopez totally naked in the bedroom."

Boys aren't the only ones struggling, suggests psychiatrist Boadie Dunlop, director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at Emory University. With the economic downturn's hitting men particularly hard, they're relying more heavily on women as the primary household earners. While traditionally female-populated fields like healthcare and social services are experiencing burgeoning demand, "manly" occupations like construction and manufacturing are being scaled back and reorganized for greater efficiency. Many men are finding themselves outsourced, obsolete, and out of work. "Compared to women, men attach greater importance to their roles as providers and protectors of their families," Dunlop says, "and men's failure to fulfill the role of breadwinner may lead to greater depression and marital conflict."

Zimbardo and Duncan may be sounding an alarm about masculinity in crisis, but concerns about the death of manhood have been around for decades, if not centuries. Pornography isn't new, even if it's now more accessible on the Internet. Many video gamers would protest that gaming is more interpersonally interactive today than ever, and our wired world is used much more for social networking than social detachment. Are entertainment addictions really a more pervasive societal concern for men than rising housing costs and ballooning student loan bills? Is the fact that men are living with their parents longer and postponing marriage and childrearing a sign of "Arma-guy-ddon" or just a smart social adaptation to an economic "man-cession"? Only time will tell.

Resources:
Manpocalypse: http://www.demiseofguys.com; British Journal of Psychiatry 198, no. 3 (March 2011): 167-68.

Cindy Gallop’s New book, "Make Love Not Porn" - Free for Today Only

Cindy Gallop dates younger men, mostly in their twenties - she has found that a disturbing number of these young men, who have grown up believing pornography is the norm of human sexuality, have no idea what women really desire in a sexual partner, let alone how to have emotionally intimate sex (i.e., making love). She launched MakeLoveNotPorn in a 2009 TED Talk, and it has expanded from there.

MakeLoveNotPorn is a Cindy Gallop production. I date younger men, usually in their 20s, and came up with the idea for MakeLoveNotPorn based on direct personal experience. I launched MakeLoveNotPorn at TED 2009: TED 2009: Make Love not Porn followed by an interview with me on the TEDBlog Here is a talk I gave recently at the L2 GenerationNext Forum that expands on how this is the single biggest impact that technology is having on human behavior today.

I would like to stress the following:

• MakeLoveNotPorn is not about judgement, or what is good vs what is bad. Sex is the area of human experience that embraces the widest possible range of tastes. Everyone should be free to make up their own mind about what they do and don't like.
• MakeLoveNotPorn is not anti-porn. I like porn and watch it regularly myself.
• MakeLoveNotPorn is simply intended to help inspire and stimulate open, healthy conversations about sex and pornography, in order to help inspire and stimulate more open, healthy and thoroughly enjoyable sexual relationships.

If you support what MakeLoveNotPorn is all about, if you want to understand in more detail why this is an issue, if you'd like to learn more about my sex life than you ever wanted to know :) or if you'd just like an interesting, entertaining read - please click here to buy my e-book 'MakeLoveNotPorn: Technology's Hardcore Impact on Human Behavior' for just $2.99 on Amazon, and please do rate and review it after you've read it. It also makes a great gift for anybody you think would enjoy or learn from it. Many thanks for your support!

I think she has a good idea - but the new feature announced below about uploading videos of normal people having sex will turn it into a porn site, exactly what she doesn't want. So many of the sex addicts I know totally dig "amateur" porn - it's probably the 2nd most watched genre after the seriously degrading stuff.

Anyway, as announced by the folks at TED, today you can get the ebook for free - see the links below

Cindy Gallop’s book, Make Love Not Porn, available for free today through the TED Books App

“I date younger men,” Cindy Gallop boldly proclaimed at TED2009. “When I have sex with younger men, I encounter very directly and personally the real ramifications of the creeping ubiquity of hardcore pornography in our culture. … There is an entire generation growing up that believes that what you see in hardcore pornography is the way that you have sex.”

When she spoke at TED2009, Gallop unveiled her website MakeLoveNotPorn.com, a forum for discussion on the topic of real sex. (Read a Q&A with Gallop on the TED Blog from shortly after the launch.) Now, Gallop has launched the next evolution of — MakeLoveNotPorn.tv, a YouTube for real, unperformed sex. Contributors pay $5 to post a video of themselves having sex, and get paid as users shell out $5 a piece to watch their videos. Currently, there are 13 videos on the site and, as The New York Times describes them, “Compared with the harsh lens of mainstream pornography, the videos come across as sweet, earnest, languid, playful and deeply human.” So far, more than 19,000 people have signed up for the site.

To celebrate the launch of MakeLoveNotPorn.tv, Gallop is offering her brilliant TED Book for free through the TED Books app all day today. Head to the iTunes store to download the app or, if you already have it on your iPhone or iPad, pick Gallop’s book off the app shelf to enjoy the free gift, packed with extra photos and videos.

Bookforum Omnivore - Why Sex Matters

An is an interesting collection of links from Bookforum - why sex matters. Interesting articles on transgender and intersexuality.

Why sex matters

Apr 16 2012 

9:00AM

• Adam Rosen (Pratt): Retrieving the Power of the Question: Aristotle's Inquiries Concerning Sexual Difference. 
• Elaine Craig (Dalhousie): Troubling Sex: Towards a Theory of Sexual Integrity. 
• Julie A. Greenberg (Thomas Jefferson): Intersexuality and the Law: Why Sex Matters. 
• From Gender Forum, a special issue on sex(uality), gender and pornography, including Stefan Offermann (Cologne): Dildos and Cyborgs: Feminist Body Politics and Porn from the 1970s to Posthumanism; Johanna Schorn (Cologne): Subverting Pornormativity: Feminist and Queer Interventions; and Samuel Horn (Colgne): Fragments of Fear and Power: On the Pornographic Construction of Masculinity. 
• From the Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies, a special issue on Rae Langton’s Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification. 
• A review of Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality by Gayle Salamon. 
• A review of Sex Before Sexuality: A Premodern History by Kim Phillips and Barry Reay. 
• An interview with Hanne Blank, author of Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Hetrosexuality (and more and more and more).

Maxim: How to Cure a Feminist

The answer appears to be, wait for it . . . drive a Camaro and that will make her strip down to her sexy red underwear because Camaros make her "so hot." The World According to Maxim - is it any wonder they have had to cut staff and scale back the magazine? Are men changing in what they want, or are there just more and free sources for the same material on the internet? I hope for the former and suspect it's the later.

Anyway . . . .

My friend Duff posted this over at Facebook in response to the image from Maxim:

"I think some people equate feminism with negativity because feminist ideas question their latent sexism, something that forces people to confront something negative in themselves. People who refuse to do so sometimes project these negative feelings onto what they perceive to be the source--other people, specifically women. Since feminist ideas frequently critique attacks on women in the first place, rejecting feminism by attacking women is more of the same, and precisely why we need more feminist philosophy, discussion, and activism." —Duff McDuffee

Professor Yesi King shared this response, also at Facebook:

So according to Maxim in order to "cure" a feminist and turn her into a "real girl", you have to feminize and pornographize her...Yes this image was really in Maxim magazine and no thanks Maxim, I'll pass.

Most of the people who have commented on the various threads this article/image have created are focused on the degrading image of women - that a vegan feminist is not a real woman, that a real women stands around in her lingerie and gets turned on by a Camaro.

I totally sympathize with women who are seriously offended by that assertion.

I was just as appalled about the depiction of men and what men value and how they are valued. I left this comment on one of the threads at Facebook:

While I totally sympathize with you about the degrading message this crap offers about women, I have to say I find it offensive that they think a man wants a woman who is turned on by a car. At that point she ceases to be a woman, but merely an object to use as a tool of masturbation, and the male becomes a status object whose value is based on his mode of transportation. In both cases, the people involved are dehumanized into objects.

I have seen some people - men - argue that this is satire. Maybe, but having seen copies of Maxim over the years, it fits with their image of women as objects of sexual desire and not as human beings. And it also fits with its marketing of clothes, cars, and gadgets as how men should define themselves.

Just for the sake of reference, here are some standard issue images from Maxim, which I believe reflect how they view women:

Holly Weber

European cover

Actress Grace Park

So - is that piece on curing a feminist really satire? Or is that how they view women? And as men, is that how we want to view and relate to women, as objects?

Maybe I am too serious - or maybe I one of the "white knights" (not the white supremacist group) the Mens' Rights Activists hate on so often (although, to be fair, I have no interest in rescuing these women - they are well-paid). But I prefer to relate to women as complex, interesting, intelligent, four-dimensional human beings. Could be I am just weird that way.

What do you think (about the Maxim thing, not my weirdness)?

Understanding Porn Addiction - A Reply to The Good Men Project

Over at The Good Man Project there is a recent article called, no joke, "Theoretically a man could worry that he’s addicted to porn and it turns out he’s really not. Is there room in the diagnostic system for that possibility?”  Apparently this was a comment someone left on the post "Why Does Porn Seem Hotter Than My Partner?"

Please be aware, there is no diagnostic category for porn addiction - it's not a recognized mental illness, nor is sex addiction. Which is not to say that porn addiction does not exist - it most certainly does, and most porn addicts are not aware that they are addicts, and most of them certainly would not self-refer. 

The Editors, in their article based on this comment, offered their own definition of porn addiction:

Here’s where [the authors of the original post] are on solid ground: there are men who are aware that they have a problem with porn. These men know they have a problem because they feel like their porn habits are out of control. Their sense of being out of control gives them a lot of stress, and a part of each of them wants to change but is not sure how. I have no doubt the testimonials are genuine.

This is often how addiction or other psychological disorders are spotted and treated. Treatment often begins when the subject asks for help or when the subject identifies to himself that he has a problem. A diagnosis of porn addiction is literally “subjective” – based in large part on whether or not the subject thinks he has a problem. If he thinks he has a problem, then he probably does. This is a common threshold for a lot of conditions in the DSM-IV: the difference between a personal quirk and a disorder is how much it bothers the subject. If I have a problem with reliance on the subject’s own viewpoint, then I have a problem with psychiatry as a science in the first place.

So, if a man prefers to masturbate to porn instead of his partner and this bothers him, or if he can only get an erection to porn and this bothers him, then he has a problem.

My question is: if it doesn’t bother him very much, then can we still say that he has a porn problem? Maybe in some cases, maybe not. Maybe he’s addicted and he’s in denial, or maybe he doesn’t have a problem. That’s the tricky part.

Again, porn addiction is not in the DSM-IV, nor will it be in the DSM-5.

This brings me to my next point - porn addiction exists, for sure, but there are no standardized, agreed upon measures for diagnosing addicts. Patrick Carnes teaches counselors how to assess for this problem, but he is still an outsider in the mental health industry (this does not make him wrong, only a trailblazer).

There are differences in the brain scans of sex addicts than those of "normal" people. However, the scans of a sex addict are nearly identical to those of a cocaine addict - pretty much all addiction, with the technology we have today, looks alike in the brain. So a brain scan will not clearly identify a porn addict or a sex addict, largely because sexual addictions are very frequently comorbid with other chemical addictions.

So how do we identify a porn addict?

Obviously, if it is getting in the way of daily activities, or it is destroying an intimate relationship, or if you are acting out (viewing porn and/or masturbating) at work, you have a problem.

In my opinion, all addictions share one common element - the chemical or the activity serves to "self-medicate" our painful or disturbing feelings out of awareness. When we feel the need to engage in our addiction of choice, more than likely there is an uncomfortable feeling just beneath that urge, so we engage in our addiction, the feeling goes away (for now), and then if our addiction is sexual or otherwise troublesome (crack, heroin, meth, alcohol, etc.), then we feel shameful.

Here is how Patrick Carnes conceives of the addiction cycle - it would be the same for porn as it is for sex or drugs:

THE ADDICTION CYCLE 

For sexual addicts an addictive experience progresses through a four-step cycle that intensifies with each repetition: 

1. Preoccupation—the trance or mood wherein the addicts’ minds are completely engrossed with thoughts of sex. This mental state creates an obsessive search for sexual stimulation. 

2. Ritualization—the addicts’ own special routines that lead up to the sexual behavior. The ritual intensifies the preoccupation, adding arousal and excitement.

3. Compulsive sexual behavior—the actual sexual act, which is the end goal of the preoccupation and ritualization. Sexual addicts are unable to control or stop this behavior. 

4. Despair—the feeling of utter hopelessness addicts have about their behavior and their powerlessness. 

The pain the addicts feel at the end of the cycle can be numbed or obscured by sexual preoccupation that reengages the addiction cycle.

[Carnes, Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sex Addiction, 3rd Edition, 2001, Kindle Location 462-470]

From an earlier post I did on this topic, here is more from Carnes on the core beliefs of the sex addict (likely true as well for the porn addict).

Sex addiction, like all other addictions (sex, like gambling, is often considered a process addiction rather than a substance addiction), is generally a response to developmental damage in the child, who is neglected, abused, molested, raped, or otherwise exposed to violence and/or sexuality at a young age. The result is a brain that is wired differently, a brain prone to seeking ways to escape, to numb the psychological pain.

Carnes identifies four primary areas in development that get hijacked and become unhealthy core beliefs, leading to addictive behavior.

There are four factors in a child’s development that ultimately become part of the sexual addiction:

1. self-image—how children perceive themselves

2. relationships—how children perceive their relationships with others

3. needs—how children perceive their own needs

4. sexuality—how children perceive their own sexual feelings and needs

These perceptions ultimately become “core beliefs” central to the addictive system. They are conclusions that can govern choices and behaviors during the child’s adult life.

[Carnes, 2009, Out of the Shadows, Kindle Locations 1432-1437]

In the addict, each of these areas develops into an unhealthy core belief. In examining how these beliefs comes about, Carnes offers a series of examples, including a man named Morris. Here is a brief summary of this man's childhood:

First, there is alcoholism in the family. Second, physical and emotional abuse accompany sexual abuse. Third, sexual experience is both humiliating and comforting. And fourth, the reality of the child is denied when the child’s accounts of abuse are not taken seriously. All of these are potent contributors to the addiction, as we shall see. 

By far the most important factor, however, is a sense of having been abandoned. From a child’s point of view, “you can abuse me, humiliate me, exploit me, and even not believe me, but by far the worst is if you don’t even want me.” Fear of abandonment is a constant theme in all addictions, including alcoholism. Within the sexual addiction, it is especially powerful.

[Carnes, 1454-1459]

Abandonment, in some form or another, whether literal, emotional, physical, or otherwise, is a foundational wound for addicts, but especially for sex addicts.

The sexual addiction receives its power from a fundamental concern for survival.

The first core belief of the addict is “I am basically a bad, unworthy person.” Abandonment means being unwanted. The child can only conclude that being unwanted means being unworthy and bad.

[Carnes, 1467-1469]

Abandonment does take many forms, and aside from the versions mentioned above, attachment psychology recognizes poor attachment as a form of abandonment, especially the absence of "mirroring" for the infant as a way to develop affect regulation (see Allan Schore). Schore refers to this as relational trauma, and the results includes inability to regulate affect (thus the 4th core belief in some form another as shown below), a sense of worthlessness, feeling fundamentally flawed, and a variety of other issues, mostly stemming from the right brain's emotional centers.

Here are the other three core beliefs and how they play out:

A second core belief comes from the first core belief about the child being a bad person. Because of personal unworthiness, the child believes, “No one would love me as I am.” Relationships with others become more tenuous the deeper this belief is. Children grow up believing that no one will accept them unconditionally. People will not be there; they cannot be trusted or depended on. If they do want a relationship, it is because they want something—not because they care. There will always be a price to pay. Minimally, there will be something that must be overlooked, ignored, or denied. To be close will mean to lose reality or integrity somehow. So intimacy is avoided.

[Carnes, 1483-1488]

***

[I]n the lonely search for something or someone to depend on—which has already excluded parents—a child can start to find those things which always comfort, which always feel good, which always are there, and which always do what they promise. For some, alcohol and drugs are the answer. For others it is food. And there is always sex, which usually costs nothing and nobody else can regulate.

This choice stems from the addict’s third core belief that is about needs: “My needs are never going to be met if I have to depend upon others.” In healthy families, children have a deep sense that their parents care for them as opposed to abandoning them.

Healthy parenting includes touching, loving, affirming, and guiding. The child feels cared for even when struggling with rules and limits. Trust in one’s self, as well as trust of others, emerges in that relationship.

When a child’s exploration of sexuality goes beyond discovery to routine self-comforting because of the lack of human care, there is potential for addiction. Sex becomes confused with comforting and nurturing. Moreover, the assumption is made that everyone else feels and acts the same. Therefore, to feel secure means to be sexual.

Consequently, the child’s relationships with people have the potential for being replaced with an addictive relationship with sexuality. Addiction is a relationship—a pathological relationship in which sexual obsession replaces people. And it can start very early. The final core belief of the addict emerges clearly: “Sex is my most important need.”

The kinds of childhood situations described here are further complicated when the children are surrounded by negative rules, messages, and judgments about sex. When addicts and their spouses study their families of origin, they are flooded with memories of events where they were told that being sexual was bad or, worse, that they were bad for being sexual.

When children’s primary source of comfort is sex and yet they are told by those whose judgments count the most that to be sexual is perverse, the conclusions they make about themselves are clear. They are unlikable. They need to hide that central part of themselves, which others will despise. Rather than repressing the sexual behaviors, they hide them or keep them secret. Needing to keep that central part of themselves secret adds to the pain and loneliness—which, in turn, creates a need for comfort, making the sexual fix that much more necessary.

[Carnes, 1494-1512]

In summary, here are the four core beliefs held by most sex addicts in one form or another (and if you substitute something else for sex in the fourth one, like cocaine, heroin, or food, these may apply to all addicts).

1. I am basically a bad, unworthy person
2. No one would love me as I am
3. My needs are never going to be met if I have to depend upon others
4. Sex is my most important need

These core beliefs were the foundation of the child's life as s/he grew up (can also be a she) become the axis of the addict's adult life - with each belief adding to the disconnect between the addict's interiority (the "world the addict experiences, with its pain and shame") and the addict's exterior persona or image that is projected to protect his secret and keep his inner life hidden. 

To cope with this disconnect, to cope with the belief that "I am a bad, unworthy person," some addicts feel that any degradation or humiliation that comes their way is justified - it reinforces their sense of failure and inadequacy.

Other addicts develop a grandiose or detached  persona (mask) that they show to the world hide their foundational guilt and shame.

Addicts create a front of “normalcy” to hide their sense of inadequacy. They may even appear grandiose and full of exaggerated self-importance. The front contrasts with actions that appear degrading or self-defeating or both. Others see decisions or behaviors as irrational, unfathomable, or even self-destructive, but not “normal.” 

Close friends and family members become angry and frustrated with the addict’s egocentric quality, especially when there is insensitivity to others. They are troubled at what looks like destructive or curious behavior that does not fit the image the addict projects. 

The belief “No one would love me as I am” also sustains the secret world. Addicts continue to believe that everyone would abandon them if the truth were known. Consequently, they have a constant fear of being vulnerable or dependent on others.

[Carnes, 1568-1574]

A lot of sexual addicts proclaim extreme sexual propriety, or in some circles, "postconventional moral development" - the results of this can be moral self-righteousness around sexual activity, with those who call them on their behavior being dismissed as morally underdeveloped or morally rigid.

Cover-ups, lies, and deceptions are made to conceal personal sexual behavior. The addict’s protestations of high sexual morality are like a smoke screen, obscuring the impact of sexual obsession. Friends and family tend to reject suspicions of sexual compulsivity because of the addict’s “values.” However, as evidence of powerless behavior and unmanageability mounts, these persons are confused because they do not know what to believe. In addition, they do not wish to intervene in something so personal.

[Carnes, 1604-1607]

As this quote shows, people around the addict often dismiss accusations around the addict because they do not match their experience of the addict's professed morality in the sexual realm. Those who are closest to the addict risk becoming co-addicts, according to Carnes:

By definition, the addict replaces normal human relationships with sexual compulsiveness. Loved ones feel the loss, try to deny it, and become angry, feeling despair and sometimes hope. The coaddicts’ efforts to restore the relationship are not only ineffective, they can intensify and deepen the addictive system for the addict. To compound the tragedy, coaddicts will take actions which are self-destructive, degrading, or even profound violations of their own values. Family members, as coaddicts, become part of the problem. Hence, the prefix co-.

[Carnes, 1640-1644]

 I highly recommend Carnes' books as a good foundation for understanding this addiction - he is a recovering sex addict so he knows the terrain. More importantly, however, we can learn a LOT by talking with porn addicts and sex addicts who are will to share their stories so that others might understand their experience.

Porn Humor . . . Porn Pain

First the humor - and this comes from The Onion - because pornography really is not funny, and it is not an innocent diversion for many guys, which is what we will get to below.

Area Man Finally Sees Enough Images Of Bare Breasts For Entire Lifetime

98,344th Pair Leaves 32-Year-Old Man Entirely Sated

February 3, 2012 | ISSUE 48•05

BOISE, ID—With what he described as "a deep sense of satisfaction," local man David Glean closed his laptop Tuesday after viewing his 98,344th pair of naked breasts, telling reporters he had seen enough bare bosoms in his 32 years to last him the rest of his life. "Well, I guess that's that," said Glean, letting out a contented sigh more than two decades in the making. "As soon as I locked eyes on that last set, something clicked in my head and I said to myself, 'Dave, if you don't see another pair of nude breasts again, you'll be fine.' I had never felt that way before." Glean estimated he could still watch another 1,446 ejaculated-upon female faces and at least three more Filipino dwarf fistings.

It was partly luck and partly good timing that I found something about Porn in The Onion. These other two articles have been with me for a while now, and today was the first chance I have had to put together a coherent post.

First, from The Good Men Project, Gary Wilson and Marnia Robinson look at the question of "Why Does Porn Seem Hotter Than My Partner?"

Here is the beginning of that article:

An explanation of the neurological repercussions of  porn and how it can affect your love life off of the Internet. 

Editor’s Note: The quotations (all italicized text), unless otherwise cited, were taken from the comments sections of posts and message board conversations where men were talking about sex.

♦◊♦

It’s really hard to get erections when I’m trying to [have intercourse]. Takes about 20 minutes or so to get it up. Really embarrassing. But if I’m sitting and watching my pornz, it’s almost instant.—Porn user in his 20s


Are you a heavy porn user who, during lovemaking, cannot consistently produce/sustain an erection or penetrate a real partner, feel much sensation, or climax (without difficulty)? If your doctor has ruled out organic causes for your woes, he/she is likely to hand you a trial pack of Viagra and refer you to counseling for your “sexual issues.” The medical assumption is that your issue is psychological (performance anxiety) rather than physiological. After all, if you can get it up for porn, your penile health is fine.

Growing evidence suggests that the problem is indeed in your head, not your penis, but that it is primarily physical. Specifically, overstimulation has produced plastic changes in your brain, which make you less responsive to pleasure—and yet hyper-responsive to Internet porn. These addiction-related changes are called desensitization and sensitization, respectively. Together, they explain why porn does the job and your hot babe doesn’t.

Before you panic, know that these brain changes appear to be reversible—most easily in guys who wired to real sex before highspeed Internet arrived. Guys who stop masturbating to porn generally regain their responsiveness during sex within a few months  (often after a nasty withdrawal and a disconcerting, temporary absence of libido):

(Age 30, 4 months) From the reboot standpoint, I’m doing spectacular! Any time my girlfriend and I make out, caress etc., I get rock hard and it lasts. I really just don’t worry about penile function anymore.

Keep reading.

This last article comes from my comrade in helping men live happier lives, Jayson Gaddis. He recently posted a good article called, The Cost of Porn on Men. Certainly, as the above article shows, porn use can destroy normal arousal patterns and make having sex with a real, live, willing woman difficult or even impossible. But wait, isn't that the goal and porn only a pale substitute for the real thing?

Jayson speaks from a personal level to this issue - and he is clear that unless men can talk to each other about it, the shame and the hiding will persist.

I have nothing against sexuality, masturbation, or sexual aliveness. But porn has co-opted our sexuality and is now dictating the rules of how men and women are supposed to be with each other intimately. And, if I’m not paying attention, porn will teach my son an incredibly narrow form of sexuality.

In my own life, porn was a big distraction. A distraction away from my feelings, my body, and my experience. Along with other “checking out” behaviors, it served to relieve me temporarily from my suffering. Quickly, shame and guilt would settle in, as would more behaviors to hide it all. I was never an “addict.” I never paid for sites or spent hours online. I would get in, get out, then hide. Even still, it felt like shit.

It wasn’t until I was able to talk openly with my male friends about it, that I began to gain some power, control, and choice around the matter.  Through my connections to my male friends, the shame virtually went away and we discovered that nearly 100% of the time, we surfed to avoid something, typically discomfort, pain, or unwanted feelings.

The cost? It took me away from the very thing I wanted — intimacy with Self and other. And that’s what I’d argue it’s doing to the male psyche.

Keep  reading.

I want to add one more paragraph from Jayson, because this sums up precisely what I see in male clients who use porn to self-medicate. It may not have the legal issues of using drugs, or the health risks of drugs and alcohol, but the shame is the same - and shame can destroy us from the inside out.

When men are in pain, disconnected from their bodies, and stressed out in their lives, porn offers instant, easy, ongoing relief. Porn is also one of the most accessible, seductive distractions to take a man out of his center. Men and adolescent boys who have rarely ‘worked on themselves’ hardly stand a chance against porn. With few effective tools to engage this fight, a man will often loose. What will he loose? His center, which is the core of his integrity. Shame will fill the void. He will be run by shame and instead of owning it, will posture over it like Beowulf until he chooses to face it.