Dating with Children

Cary Tennis is Salon’s advice columnist. The key harm of porn, he argues, is that it saps users of their motivation to build human connections. Cary’s critique is also relevant to “sex work” in general. Even if it’s entirely consensual, it’s still problematic to have your sexual needs met by ‘vendors’ instead of a true partner. Some excerpts from “Porn in theory, porn in practice”:

Apr. 11, 2007 | Dear Cary,

…I know it’s common to look at porn. And I like it, too (though I wouldn’t say it’s part of my regular routine). But for some reason, I have this primitive and unenlightened hope somewhere in my subconscious that my boyfriend is only turned on by me. Am I deceiving myself by considering myself open-minded? Am I really a Victorian?…

Vicky Victorian

Dear Vicky Victorian,

I have gotten many, many letters from women over the last year or two with questions similar to yours…

…whether you approve of porn in theory or not, its effect will be to displace you. Like crack, it tends to take over, to push out other hungers that tend to nurture the human community by making us dependent on one another. Since we are dependent on each other we must be civil and loving. If we are not dependent on each other then we needn’t be civil and loving. We needn’t have community and family. That is the way in which any drug breaks down family and community by isolating its user. Porn isolates its users also, meeting their needs outside the social compact. The social compact becomes a commercial compact between anonymous people, while those in the actual human community are relegated to bystander status. It introduces a third party into the erotic economy of a relationship…

See also:

Young New Yorkers Talk about Porn’s Effect on their Relationships (explicit language)
They have since broken up, and have stopped talking. “He was a lot more innocent when he was younger,â€? she says. “He was looking for love and companionship. Now he just wants a good lay. I’m sure he’s looking for some huge-breasted, tight-assed bitch…â€? These days, she feels “very jaded about love and sex,â€? but every so often, she finds her cynicism dissolving… “I think it will be really rare, and hopefully it will happen, that I can meet a guy who will be happy with only me.â€?

Time to Explore the Links Between Porn, Testosterone, Sexual Behavior and Violence
…[T]estosterone is highly susceptible to environment. T levels can rise and fall depending on external circumstances–short term and long term. Testosterone is usually elevated in response to confrontational situations — a street fight, a marital spat, a presidential debate–or in highly charged sexual environments, like a strip bar or a pornographic Web site…

The Psychology of Porn for Men
Morgan’s experience of counselling men addicted to porn has convinced him that “the more time you spend in this fantasy world, the more difficult it becomes to make the transition to reality. Just like drugs, pornography provides a quick fix, a masturbatory universe people can get stuck in. This can result in their not being able to involve anyone else…”

Voice Male: “Intimacy and Porn: A Contradiction in Terms”
Personally, I know using porn never left me feeling particularly proud. It was more likely to bring up feelings of shame after the fact–seldom a good sign. My reflections sparked by the Jensen article inspired a revelation: Jasmin and I strive for intimacy in our relationship. Using porn hinders that. Whether alone or with my wife, viewing porn takes time and energy away from our union and squanders it on a pseudo-relationship. Even using porn as a stimulus for marital sex is problematic because porn rarely reflects healthy modes of connection. Porn is wham, bam, thank you, ma’am–at best–and not reflective of the kind of sex I really want in my own life. No surprise, I find it easier to achieve sexual pleasure and intimacy with my wife when images of models paid to perform male fantasies are not playing in my head.

porn, intimacy, sex, marriage, relationships, porn addiction, fantasy, love