The Case for Porn

Porn is polarizing. Porn is confusing. Porn can be alarming. For therapists, porn can push us out of our comfort zone and trigger negative countertransference. But one thing is for sure: porn is everywhere, and it’s here to stay. Right now, Internet porn accounts for 35 percent of all web traffic in the United States. More people visit porn websites than Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter combined. Twenty-five percent of men admit to accessing porn at work, and 30 percent of all porn users are women. That’s a lot of people watching porn, but it doesn’t mean that we’re being overwhelmed by an epidemic of “porn addiction,” as some people suggest. Studies show that the brain of somebody who identifies as a “porn addict” is very similar to the brain of someone with a high libido who doesn’t self-identify as a “porn addict.” And a libido issue isn’t an addiction issue: it’s not a disease, and it doesn’t require some sort of sex rehab. In fact, the label addiction actually stops the conversation and doesn’t help us get at what may lie beneath someone’s sexual behavior, or the social context within which they’re pursuing their desires.

But if not addiction, then what? Sure, excessive porn use can be a symptom of mental health issues. When someone’s depressed, for example, their use of porn might increase, along with drugs and alcohol. But excessive porn use is the result of these issues, not the cause. Porn use can also be a coping strategy, or means of distracting oneself from stress and anxiety. As a distraction mechanism, there’s nothing wrong with an orgasm. So when we want to talk about problematic porn use, instead of talking about porn as an addiction, let’s talk about it as a symptom of a bigger problem, or a maladaptive coping mechanism, or even an impulsivity disorder, rather than one of compulsivity.

Okay, so let’s play a game. What do these five phrases have in common: teen, lesbian, ebony, big dick, and MILF? They’re the five most commonly searched keywords across all age groups, with one exception: in the 54+ category, ebony is replaced with mature. No wonder the biggest complaint about porn is how boring it is! The average duration of a porn visit is 9.45 minutes, but many men spend way more time searching for something interesting to watch. As one of my clients said recently, “When I look at porn, I just want something real. It’s a wasteland of artifice. Watch any heterosexual porn video and there’s always a moment when the woman getting fucked looks at the camera and smiles or holds the gaze of the viewer. That moment is supposed to make you feel special, like you’re the one she really wants, but all it makes me think of is how phony the whole thing is!”

This makes me think of a quote by social historian John Berger: “To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude. . . . Nudity is a form of dress. The nude is condemned to never being naked.” And what are we condemned to as spectators? Perhaps a world of nudity without nakedness, an endless pageant of search-engine optimization: teen, lesbian, ebony, MILF, big dick. It’s no wonder there’s concern about whether porn is warping the sexuality of young people today, especially teenage boys. In Denmark, a sex-ed program is underway in which teachers actually show pornography and talk about differences between porn sex versus real lovemaking to help kids deconstruct what’s fantasy and what’s fact. While this may seem controversial, it addresses an uncomfortable but undeniable reality: 99 percent of boys and 86 percent of girls have already seen porn by the time they reach age the age of 16. It’s a pornified world. Shouldn’t we help our children live in it?

I’ve done studies with men in which I asked them to stop masturbating for a period of time to Internet porn. (They could continue masturbating, just not to Internet porn.) One of the first things that happens is that they start to go back through their own erotic databases and fantasies instead of relying on external stimulation. They start remembering previous romances, things that they haven’t thought about in years, because they’ve been so focused on porn. But for the younger generation of porn users, what will happen? Recently, a researcher from the University of Montreal set out to study whether pornography had an impact on guys’ sex lives. He searched for men in their 20s who’d never consumed porn, and guess what? He couldn’t find a single one.

Some therapists report seeing a new category of erectile disorder emerging among a group of young men that’s linked not to performance anxiety, but to what might be called an idiosyncratic masturbatory style. Because of Internet porn, some young men are masturbating maybe 300 to 500 percent more than they otherwise would. As a result, the nerve endings in their penises literally get habituated to a kind of a friction and pressure that’s not easily replicable by a vagina during intercourse. So they’re losing their erections during sex.

We’re also seeing young male clients who are so used to the novelty and visual stimulation of Internet porn that it’s harder for them to sustain prolonged lovemaking and stay connected to an actual flesh-and-blood partner. The term I’ve coined to describe all that is Sexual Attention Deficit Disorder (SADD). Men with SADD tend to find themselves getting bored or impatient during sex and suffering from mechanical “male-functions”: they may be physiologically aroused and even have an erection, but they’re not at peak mental arousal. Guys with SADD may simply lack the mojo for real sex because they’re depleted from masturbation. They’re not running on a full tank, physically, mentally, and certainly not sexually.

The number-one problem that I see with couples and porn isn’t related to the content of the porn itself, but to the far larger issue of the secrecy around porn use. It’s common for a woman to come in and say, “I found this porn on my husband’s computer. What does it mean about us?” Studies have shown that when couples are open about their masturbation and porn habits, they’re much less distressed. In fact, women whose partners were honest about porn use reported higher levels of relationship satisfaction and lower levels of distress. Honesty about porn is equivalent to comfort with sexuality, communication, possibilities for sexual creativity, and expansion of sex scripts. Female participants whose partners were deceitful about porn reported more relationship dissatisfaction and personal distress. In short, dishonesty about porn is equivalent to a sense of betrayal, distrust, lower self-esteem, and sex ruts.

Of course, for couples who watch porn together, it’s not an issue at all. It may just be that they need more psychogenic stimulation and novelty in their relationship to get aroused. One of the most useful things that a therapist can do is to help a wife go from seeing porn as her husband’s secret fetish and addiction to normalizing it as something that lots of people are interested in. Once you take the shame or the secretiveness away from porn, it can become one of the most powerful tools a couple has to expand their erotic life together. Sometimes I’ll do a sort of porn tour with couples, where I’ll show them the range of porn sites on the Internet. We’ll look at everything from some soft-core hetero porn to some really extreme fetish stuff and talk about what’s comfortable, what’s uncomfortable, and what was a little arousing. Doing that with couples can be useful in helping them expand their experience of sexuality.

There have always been three types of sex: procreational, relational, and recreational. Procreational sex is all about, obviously, making a baby; relational sex is about experiencing an emotional, intimate loving connection with your partner; and recreational sex is about sex for the sake of sex and the pursuit of pleasure in its own right. Unless we’re consciously trying to procreate, more than likely we’re either in the relational or the recreational category—and rarely do the two categories intersect, especially in long-term relationships. For most of us who are partnered in committed relationships, we’re usually having sex with our partners or with ourselves. And in an age of high-velocity porn and turbo-charged sex toys, recreational sex with ourselves can make relational sex with our partners seem boring by comparison. Most of the couples who come to therapy are looking to integrate the relational and recreational in the context of a secure long-term attachment—what I term “rec-relational” lovemaking. Porn can play a big role in achieving that fusion, and it doesn’t have to take away from a secure attachment. In fact, with the right kind of guidance, it can deepen it.

Illustration © Adam Niklewicz