“The Other Woman”
“Is Porn Bad?” How can it be? With the mass consumption of millions, the billions of dollars that it provides back into the economy, and the liberation of women’s sexuallity, many ask “how can porn be bad?” Well for relationships, some see it as a bridge to help spice up their lovemaking. But to others, some see porn as the gasoline poured over that bridge burning the whole relationship down to the ground.
But is that porn’s fault? Let’s take a look.
Sex On-Demand
Pornography on the internet is a fantasy world with no real life scenarios to compare it to by normal sexual standards. By the limits of what human beings are capable of, there is no way your partner can compete with an industry that is readily available, infinite variety, and countless possibilities of ways to turn you on instantly at the touch of a button. With much of porn consisting of actors who are just playing their roles with perfect make-up and lighting in well produced sexual scenarios by a team of people whose sole job is to maximize your arousal. What you see in porn can be so far from what a person is able to achieve in their own bedroom that the only word to describe what porn creates is a “fantasy”. With that said, many people who watch porn develop unhealthy expectations that their partner should behave like one of their favorite porn stars in the bed. “Porn is a multi-billion dollar per year industry. It has to be visually exciting and instantly grab your attention to be successful. It’s entertainment performed by actors. Just as your marriage and family life is much different than a 30-minute sitcom, the same applies to your sex life. When we fill our minds with the false images of porn, we naturally take those expectations with us to the bedroom.”
But as these expectations become unreachable through sex, their arousal starts to fade and they usually make less of an effort with their partner to connect emotionally and physically because watching porn is just easier, faster, and produces the same sexual release with less work. And that “release” is on par mentally with the some of the most addictive drugs on the street.
PornHub – Your New Drug Dealer
The online porn industry is worth around $15 billion, and in 2018, 100 million people visited Pornhub on a daily basis. As mentioned in the stats from Pornhub itself, “That’s as if the combined populations of Canada, Poland and Australia all visited Pornhub every day!” This is not shocking because a whopping 30 percent of of all the content on the Internet is porn. But to put it in more perspective, Pornhub states that “Every minute, 63,992 new visitors arrive at Pornhub, 207,405 videos are watched and 57,750 searches are performed.”
But what effect is all this porn having on people? From the site “Fight The New Drug“, one person speaks on the effect that 20 years of watching porn has had on him:
“Now, 20 years later, I am an addict. I’ve never been addicted to drugs or anything else, but I imagine that this is what it feels like to have that level of addiction. Sometimes the cravings hit me really hard. Sometimes I watch porn because I’m stressed, or hurt, or lonely. A lot of the time I watch simply because I have created a habit of looking. It has changed the way that I think about women, and lowered my self-esteem. I’ve never had sex before, and, despite how badly I want to, I am terrified to do so now. I don’t think I’m “big” enough. I constantly ask myself questions like, what if I can’t please a woman? What if I can’t climax because I’m so used to doing it by myself? What if my expectations are totally wrong and it messes everything up”
Porn can become an addiction that only a handful people understand its side effects. Just like a drug in the league of cocaine, porn floods the brain with chemicals like dopamine. Over time, the brain gets overwhelmed by the constant overload of chemicals and starts to build up a dependency to pornography. As a result, the porn they were looking at in the beginning doesn’t seem as exciting, and many porn users go hunting for more and intense porn to get the same rush which just ends up reinforcing their addiction. Eventually, the chemical release from regular healthy activities aren’t strong enough to register. They need more.
Female Sexual Objectification
Objectification of women is a big and debatable concept; “Is it porn that is objectifying these women or is it these women who are objectifying themselves?” However, looking at it from the consumer of the product point of view, women are the majority of product. They exists only for the fulfillment of the consumer’s sexual desire. The off-line effect is that it increases the chances of men not considering their female partner as a whole person. It has been said that porn also makes it harder for a men to bond with his partner. Because what if someone thought that your only purpose was to fulfill their sexual desires regardless of the circumstance? That would nettle away at you and how you see yourself, because your partner does not consider you as a human being but more so as something to masturbate with. Dr. Barbara Winter, a Psychologist and Certified Sex Therapist in Boca Raton, Florida, believes, “Pornography can lower the sense of self-esteem and self-worth of the wife because she may compare herself to the women that her husband is viewing on the screen.”
Another interesting form of objectification is the one that comes from women to men. “PornSoup”, a YouTube series made by a major porn site, a female actress jokes about trying to cast a male porn star. When describing the male performers she says, “Your entire psyche sort of rests on whether you can get your d— hard, whether you have a bigger d— than everyone else. Having men only being deserved by women based on their stamina and penis size can leave a lot of guys feeling like they are just not men enough. Phrases like “Minute-Man” and “Micro Penis” are terms we might be familiar with even through pop culture. But it is possible that women see these men in porn with ginormous monster size cocks who can go for hours and expect that is what they deserve to have in the bed as well. Obviously this not what the penis of the regular guy looks like since studies have shown the average size penis to be 6 inches long and not 9+ inches. Studies have also shown that the more porn a woman watches, the bigger the penis she imagines in her fantasies along with toys and vibrators. So with these seeds of expectations that a “normal” person won’t be able to live up to, it is easy to see the many unrealistic standards put on both men and women.
Effects on Women
When we talk about pornography, we cannot limit its effect to men. We also have to take into account the effects it has on women as well. Truth be told, women watch porn just a much as guys… if not longer. Some research has even suggested that as many as 17 per cent of women in Germany has described themselves as “addicted” to online porn. In a recent study from Pornhub shows that women do indeed make up a smaller percentage of porn users however they spend more time watching porn videos than men. And what is really interesting is the type of videos women are watching compared to men. As it turns out, women are 113% more likely to search the term “hardcore” than men and are over 105% more likely to seek out genres of porn like “gangbang” and “rough sex”. This is a shocking reveal by Pornhub to many because of the long standing misassumption that women enjoy more intuned softcore story-driven porn, however the evidence show women are actively hunting the site more for “bondage” and “fisting” than you would expect.
Patrick Carnes, states in his book “Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction” that “A girl reads the sexually explicit magazines in her father’s pornography collection and becomes convinced about how to get a man’s attention. As an adult, she acts like the women in those magazines to attract the attention of the opposite sex.” He goes on to remember a girl who was exposed to pornography that developed the idea that taking off as much clothing as possible was the ultimate thrill in being a female. But what is more disturbing is it’s generational effect. “Even as an adult, she considers women with larger breasts to be of more intrinsic value than women with smaller breasts, and that’s what she has indirectly conveyed to her daughters.” Carnes adds.
Porn addiction is not just a Male issue. It appears that there might be a double-standard when it comes to the amount of research that has been done on the issue because of the limited information about Female Addiction. But females are also able to become addicted to porn. In the article by Jessica Harris titled “To the Woman Addicted to Porn – You’re Not Alone” she opens up about her experience being addicted to it. “Porn was interfering with the dreams and plans I had for my life. No matter how hard I tried to break free, I couldn’t. I went into my freshman year of college battling a full-fledged pornography addiction.” Jessica tells. If you are fighting an addiction please do not be afraid to reach out and find a support group. You can even contact ProjectKnow, an America Addiction center for support at 1-877-759-8448.
Male Testosterone Levels
For the first time in human history, male testosterone levels are dropping. This could be the cause of the change in social norms, chemicals in our resources, and the society branding of “Toxic Masculinity”. But regardless, the decreasing testosterone levels can result in reduced sex drive and fertility along with many more side effects. Over the past 30 years, men’s testosterone levels have been steadily decreasing with the average levels of the male hormone dropping 1 percent every year. Craig Cooper from HuffPost declares “our testosterone levels are under siege.” and if you look at the evidence it is not hard to see. Some scientists suggest that the dropping testosterone levels may be closely related to and contributing to reduced sperm counts, which have also been steadily decreasing over the last 40 years. This drop of 59 percent between 1973 to 2011 is something to be alarmed about. But what is also interesting is that during this time at the start of the 1970’s, Porn entered into what is considered “The Golden Age of Porn”. Now this could be a coincidence that the emergence of porn into mainstream and the general public correlates to the drop of testosterone but some people are connecting the dots.
The “NoFap” community, founded in June 2011 by Alexander Rhodes, is a support group for those who wish to avoid porn and masturdation because of their belief of it’s negative impact on the mind, body, and well-being of the individual. Many people who practicipate in NoFap do so to help increase their Testosterone levels. It has been shown that testosterone receptors decline for 3-4 days after ejaculation. In some research from Zhejiang University, scientists checked the testosterone levels of a group of abstaining men for a week. At the start of avoiding masturbation, the testosterone fluctuations were minimal. However, on day 7, the researchers found that testosterone levels rocketed to a massive 145% of their baseline levels. What this study shows us is that when you avoid fapping over porn and masturbating your testosterone levels will shoot through the roof. With testosterone being the driving factor to reproduction, we as a species need to be aware of its importance and alarmed by its rocket decline. If not, we could be seeing the end of men as we know it.
The Future
So what will the future hold for us? “Thirty years ago ‘hardcore’ pornography usually meant the explicit depiction of sexual intercourse,” Dr. Norman Doidge wrote in his book, The Brain That Changes Itself. “Hardcore pornography now explores the world of perversion, while softcore is now what hardcore was a few decades ago …. The comparatively tame softcore pictures of yesteryear … now show up on mainstream media all day long, in the pornification of everything, including television, rock videos, soap operas, advertisements, and so on.”
Unfortunately the negative effects of porn are infinite and we cannot discuss all of them here, things like sexdolls, virtual reality, and prostitution, but maybe with sites like nterestin we can start. Porn is not only an addiction, it is a disease that can be treated with proper actions. Let us start that conversation now. I will end this article with another quote from the anonymous poster named “T” at FightTheNewDrug.com, I find it to be heartbreaking and a brutally honest reflection of what people who are struggling with this addiction may feel. As we move towards the future, my hope and prayers go out to anyone fighting this and thank you to those brave enough to share their struggle.
“I couldn’t say no to porn. I’ve tried to say no over and over. I’ve tried to fight it before. I’ve been to addiction recovery meetings, I’ve had accountability partners, I’ve read books, I’ve used porn blockers and accountability software. I’ve tried through sheer force of will, I’ve been brought to my knees in tears trying to rid myself of this addiction. Nothing has worked. Nothing has helped. Here I am, worse off than I’ve ever been.” – T
entermind 