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Making UP with Porn

“What Is Porn Addiction? [therecoveryvillage.com] Porn addiction is a process addiction, or behavioral addiction. These addictions are compulsive behavior patterns in which a person repeatedly engages in an activity despite the negative impact.

While clinicians cannot formally diagnose** porn addiction, they can use similarities between it and other DSM disorders to develop a treatment plan for porn addiction. Talk therapy may be used…”

Porn dependence (PD) may not be an “addiction” like cocaine - yet it is a very real concern for both a man and his partner (male or female or non-binary).

John and Julie Schwartz Gottman write, in The Man’s Guide to Women (Gottman 2016) summarize that porn has a real effect on a man’s ability to be a lover and to be connected. Why?

The problem is that all porn is created around a man's fantasy in the frenzy of a man's masturbatory experience. 

Porn has nothing to do with what real women want. If you make love like a porn star, you are going to leave your partner pretty unsatisfied.  

Signs or symptoms that a man has a PD, which is depending on porn for his turn-on and/or solo self-loving orgasm:

Man is becoming antisocial. 

Man is keeping his porn watching a secret. 

Man loses track of time while watching porn. 

Porn watching interferes with his sex life. 

These points to look out for above are similar to those life effects of any compulsive behavior, e.g. compulsive shopping, drinking, gambling. 

Reliable metrics: is the activity: chronic, progressive (getting worse each week/month/year), and is it negatively affecting one’s life or wellbeing. For example, too much drinking causes an employee to be chronically late to work?

Let’s consider the following context, a heterosexual relationship, to consider some of the more pragmatic effects of PD.

What happens during masturbation / solo erotic practice? 

The man cannot get or maintain an erection without porn

Man cannot climax without the stimulation of porn

Man climaxes within 1-5 minutes between finding a “new” video as It’s ONLY KINKY the first time!

What happens during partnered sex??

Man cannot *connect* with his partner to see her desire

The man cannot get hard with his partner - or is embarrassed about his erection or sustaining this.

As a result, his partner is very frustrated. And if the porn watching is a secret likely quite confused!

SETBACKS in the Erotic Mind

Two other elements of the mind (besides cratering one’s intimate relationship), in my experience, that porn use, over time, destroys: 

Erotic imagination of the consumer/user of porn. This is due to fantasies, which the person had or has had, being replaced by images from porn films or video.

Intimacy tolerance (Schnarch, 2011) of the consumer/user and his ability to connect to current and future partners emotionally and in the bedroom.

Sharing a rich erotic imagination/ fantasy life is crucial to closeness in partnered sexual relationships. This is also documented in (Morin, 2010).

The damage to one’s intimacy tolerance is due to the continued objectification of the other thru porn. One might argue, distance is needed for desire but not the kind of distance wherein the male’s partner feels "it’s like I’m not even there” this was so tenderly covered in the film - Don Jon (imdb.com)

TOWARDS A RESET The idea that years of porn watching can be reset or erased through some kind of process is nonsense. This is like wiping one’s dreamscape or subconscious with a hypnotist.  Yet, a solid first step is to make a go at “going without” or at least trying to masturbate without porn, if still an active/daily consumer. 

As Eric Clapton sang in the 1980s “it’s in the way / that you use it!” not the content itself that has value.

Using and enjoying porn together as a couple no matter what the genre can lead to new ideas and new dimensions to learning about turn-on for a partner and can lead to a fuller, more satisfying experiences of partnered sex. Porn geared toward homosexual or bi-sexual audiences can be a massive turn-on.  Exploring BDSM, role plays, sex magick, or moresomes can, too… 

to be continued!