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.
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.Area Man Finally Sees Enough Images Of Bare Breasts For Entire Lifetime
98,344th Pair Leaves 32-Year-Old Man Entirely Sated
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.
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:
Keep reading.
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.
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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.
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.Keep reading.
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.
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.
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