Why Porn Makes Men Bad Lovers
In the future, it may be that what we consider the Internet Era will be known as the Golden Age of Porn. Statistics show that 30% of all Internet bandwidth is used to access porn. YouPorn has more visitors than Hulu and more viewers than Netflix. Think about it.
Of course, some porn viewers are women, and the female consumption of porn is growing - but porn consumption is overwhelmingly male. Unfortunately, the consumption of porn is impacting negatively on men's sex lives in a number of ways.
THE PORN PROBLEM IN YOUR OWN BED
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Most women only become aware of the overwhelming presence of porn in the life of the average man when it manifests in their own bed. For Anna, it happened on the first night she spent with a man she'd been dating for months.
Things heated up after dinner, and instead of calling a halt as she usually did, Anna felt she was ready for the next level. But she was wrong. Instead of continuing the foreplay that had ignited her, her lover wanted to watch porn. And he wanted to watch it because that was how he felt turned on.
Anna put her clothes back on and walked out. She was devastated. Anna's lover had made her feel that she wasn't sexy enough, attractive enough for him to achieve an erection without resorting to porn as a stimulant. The truth, of course, is that the man, like so many others, had become dependant on porn, and a real live woman could not compare.
PORN AND BAD SEX
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Anna walked out before the crunch, but other women have discovered that men who grew up watching porn are terrible lovers. Their idea of what turns women on is based on penis-worship-focused porn, and they have no idea of what women find arousing.
They want to recreate what they see on the screen, and what's on the screen is usually crude, basic, and exploitative, sometimes bizarre. Men believe that women should have instant screaming orgasms on penetration, like porn actresses, whereas in fact, most women don't achieve orgasm easily at all.
WHAT MEN BELIEVE
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Women connect sex to intimacy, to emotion, men who watch porn disconnect their feelings from sex completely. It's particularly frightening when you realize that most boys start watching hard-core porn, some of it disturbing, at a very young age -- statistically around their 12th year.
Instead of experiencing their first stirrings of arousal at the sight of the girl they are crushing on, they are precociously masturbating to the sight of screaming women with giant breast implants being used as literal meat by men presented as virile and dominant.
What possible thrill can such a young man feel at 16 when he has his first kiss, touches his girlfriend's breast for the first time in the back of his first car? He is completely ignorant of lovemaking, but well versed in mechanical porn-style sex which makes the whole scenario the perfect recipe for a disaster.
THE SLUT OR THE SAINT
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While some men demand that their partners recreate the grotesque behavior they've come to believe is the norm, other men, equally raised on porn, demand that their wives be almost asexual in bed.
Cheryl married young and madly in love. She had had a very active sex life with her husband Paul before marriage, but their encounters were usually hot and heady, with little or no foreplay. Cheryl took it as a compliment to her potent sex appeal. Paul was so turned on he just couldn't wait...
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But after their marriage, their sex life continued to be hot, and hasty... Paul would become aroused, and instead of indulging in any type of foreplay, he proceeded immediately to penetration. When Cheryl tried to ask for tender, erotic lovemaking, Paul was infuriated, and told her it was for "sluts."
Cheryl was shocked and hurt, and worse was to come. While browsing for family photos on Paul's computer she found his treasure trove of porn. After she confronted him, Paul admitted that he watched porn almost every night, and always before he had sex with Cheryl. Cheryl was pure, a saint, the mother of his children; porn stars were sluts, and so anything that might stimulate desire in his wife was repugnant to him.
PORN ADDICTION
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Some men have their concept of love and intimacy, of what sensuality and sexuality are distorted by porn, while others become addicted, can't live without it, and it often costs them the women they love.
These men are as dependant on porn as others may be on alcohol, drugs, or gambling. The American Psychological Association defines porn addicts as men (mostly) who try to stop watching porn and find that they can't.
Studies revealed that women who are involved with men who consume porn on a regular basis report a lower level of satisfaction with the sexual as well as the emotional side of the relationship. More importantly, as in Anna's case, the man's obsessive use of porn as a stimulant severely undermines women's self-esteem and sexual confidence.
Porn has become all-pervasive. Most men watch porn, and even though 30% of them admit that porn is often degrading to women, they still like it, will still watch frequently.
WHAT DON'T WOMEN WANT
Porn is having as profound an effect on our society as the Sexual Revolution did in the 60s with the advent of the Pill. But instead of liberating men and women sexually, porn is locking people into dominant and submissive roles, as either aggressors or victims. No, not all porn is violent in content, but the spirit of it is.
As Justice Potter Stewart famously stated in 1973 when attempting to define obscenity and hard-core pornography:
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced ... [b]ut I know it when I see it...."
The toxic and soul-destroying side effects on our society of men who have grown up on porn is everywhere, in our lives and in our beds. And we definitely know it when we see it, we don't like it, and we don't want it.