more porn ?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-17-2003
more porn ?
34
Fri, 08-13-2004 - 9:36am
afte rreading some of these posts what do you consider is a healthy amount of porn? where do you draw the line? if you answer occassional what do you consider occassional?

do you feel due to porn being at everyones fingertips we are in the midst of an experimental era and really do not know how it touches relationships? i have read that as long as it does not interfere with the relationship it is healthy, but i do not see that as making much sense. just because one is indifferent or accepting of pornography does not alter facts. put another way if one is a porn addict and the partner finds nothing wrong wit ti they are still an addict. i came across this article and it scared me and i am still not sure what is considered excessive or how you determine what is a healthy amount of porn and i would like to hear your opinions.

http://www.time.com/time/2004/sex/article/the_porn_factor_in_the_01a.html

The Porn Factor

In the Internet age, pornography is almost everywhere you look. But what is it doing to real-life relationships?

By Pamela Paul



January 19, 2004 Health



In a Friends episode titled "The One with Free Porn," Chandler and Joey discover to their delight a free pornography TV channel, which they leave on and watch endlessly for fear it will go away. Later, a startled Chandler reports to Joey, "I was just at the bank, and there was this really hot teller, and she didn't ask me to go do it in the vault." Joey describes a similar cold shoulder from the pizza-delivery woman. "You know what?" Chandler concludes. "We have to turn off the porn."

Chandler may be on to something. Call it the porn factor. Whereas pornography was once furtively glimpsed at dimly lighted newsstands or seedy adult theaters, today it is everywhere. It pours in over the Internet, sometimes uninvited, sometimes via eagerly forwarded links (Paris Hilton, anyone?). It titillates 24/7 on steamy adult cable channels and on-demand services (the pay-per-view reality show Can You Be a Porn Star? made its debut this month). It has infiltrated mainstream cable with HBO's forthcoming documentary series Pornucopia: Going Down in the Valley. And in ways that have only begun to be measured, it is coloring relationships, both long-and short-term, reshaping expectations about sex and body image and, most worrisome of all, threatening to alter how young people learn about sex.

In recent years, a number of psychologists and sociologists have joined the chorus of religious and political opponents in warning about the impact of pervasive pornography. They argue that porn is transforming sexuality and relationships—for the worse. Experts say men who frequently view porn may develop unrealistic expectations of women's appearance and behavior, have difficulty forming and sustaining relationships and feeling sexually satisfied. Fueled by a combination of access, anonymity and affordability, online porn has catapulted overall pornography consumption—bringing in new viewers, encouraging more use from existing fans and escalating consumers from soft-core to harder-core material. Cyberporn is even giving rise to a new form of sexual compulsiveness. According to Alvin Cooper, who conducts seminars on cybersex addiction, 15% of online-porn habitues develop sexual behavior that disrupts their lives. "The Internet is the crack cocaine of sexual addiction," says Jennifer Schneider, co-author of Cybersex Exposed: Simple Fantasy or Obsession?

Yet most users say sex online is nothing more than good (if not quite clean) fun. According to a 2001 online survey of 7,037 adults, two-thirds of those who visit websites with sexual content say their Internet activities haven't affected their level of sexual activity with their partners, though three-quarters report masturbating while online. The vast majority of respondents—85% to 90%—according to Cooper, who heads the San Jose Marital and Sexuality Center, which conducted the study, are what he calls "recreational users," people who view pornography as a curiosity or diversion.

The question is, Can even recreational use be unhealthy? A 2003 online study by Texas Christian University found that the more pornography men watch, the more likely they are to describe women in sexualized terms and categorize women in traditional gender roles. Mark Schwartz, director of the Masters and Johnson clinic in St. Louis, Mo., says porn not only causes men to objectify women—seeing them as an assemblage of breasts, legs and buttocks—but also leads to a dependency on visual imagery for arousal. "Men become like computers, unable to be stimulated by the human beings beside them," he says. "The image of a lonely, isolated man masturbating to his computer is the Willy Loman metaphor of our decade."

Other psychologists are more tolerant. Most men use pornography in secret, and as long as it doesn't affect their relationships, some say that's O.K. "If a client is enjoying a healthy use of pornography without his wife's knowledge, I would counsel him not to tell her," says psychiatrist Scott Haltzman, who studies men and relationships. Yet many therapists say such behavior creates a breach of trust. Spouses often view porn as a betrayal or even as adultery. The typical reaction when a woman discovers her husband's habit is shock and "How dare he?" According to therapist Lonnie Barbach, based in Mill Valley, Calif., many such women "feel like they're not good enough. Otherwise, why would their mates be seeking this?"

Sometimes pornography tears couples apart. At the 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two-thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers who attended said the Internet played a significant role in divorces in the past year, with excessive interest in online porn contributing to more than half of such cases. "This is clearly related to the Internet," says Richard Barry, president of the association. "Pornography had an almost nonexistent role in divorce just seven or eight years ago."

Still, couples therapists sometimes suggest pornography as a way to refresh relationships or spark desire. Increasingly, women are game. Sociologist Michael Kimmel has found that each year more of his female college students approve of porn, which may reflect women's increased sexual empowerment. Nonetheless, he says, "their attitude is surprising to those of us who think it an impoverished view of liberation to construct your sex life the way men do." The key, therapists say, is for mutual consumption to be seductive to both partners and for material to be "erotic" rather than "pornographic." Most describe the difference this way: porn is objectifying and derogatory while erotica depicts mutually satisfying sex between equal partners. Others say it's a matter of taste.

Trouble is, often the taste is not shared. Jessica (not her real name), 28, a product manager in New York City, tolerates her boyfriend's pornography habit, but his admiration for bodies like that of porn queen Jenna Jameson has made her insecure, so she plans to get breast implants. "My boyfriend told me lots of his friends' girlfriends have done it," she says. "He said to me, 'Imagine what an awesome body you'll have!' I can't blame him for his preferences." But Jessica isn't sure that surgery will improve their sex life. "He tends to be selfish sexually," she says. "I think pornography has a lot to do with it. For him, porn is easy."

Jessica's experience is pretty typical, says Aline Zoldbrod, a sex therapist in Lexington, Mass. She says men's use of porn for undemanding relief often distracts them from the task of trying to please their real-life partners.

Porn doesn't just give men bad ideas; it can give kids the wrong idea at a formative age. Whereas children used to supplement sex education by tearing through National Geographic in search of naked aboriginals and leafing through the occasional Penthouse they stumbled across in the garage, today many are confronted by pornographic images on a daily basis. In a 2001 poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 70% of 15-to 17-year-olds said they had accidentally come across pornography online. Older teens may be aware of the effects of such images: 59% of 15-to-24-year-olds told the pollsters they believe seeing porn on the Internet encourages young people to have sex before they are ready; 49% said it promotes bad attitudes toward women and encourages viewers to think unprotected sex is O.K. "Pornography is affecting people at an increasingly young age," says sociologist Diana Russell, who has written several books on the subject. "And unfortunately for many kids growing up today, pornography is the only sex education they'll get."

Because children learn sexual cues early, boys may train themselves to respond only to images shaped by porn stars, while girls may learn that submission and Brazilian bikini waxes are the keys to pleasing men. Recent studies show a correlation between increased aggressiveness in boys and exposure to pornography, and a link between childhood use of porn and sexually abusive behavior in adulthood. "It's not easy to shock me," says Judith Coche, a therapist in Philadelphia who has been in practice for 25 years. "But one 11-year-old girl's parents discovered their daughter creating her own pornographic website because it's 'cool' among her friends." As such incidents multiply, more Americans—parents especially—may come to Chandler's conclusion: We have to turn off the porn.





iVillage Member
Registered: 08-09-2004
Fri, 08-13-2004 - 1:55pm
<<< i often use memory recall to masturbate to. i guess my ? is why do you turn immediate to porn? >>>

This is a good question and I don't have an answer.

I love to look at my wife's photos and I'll mb to them sometime.

Masturbating to things in my mind or imagination...? I'm a bit embarassed to say I don't (can't?) because I sure think it would be nice if I could.

Thanks for the post. I never would have thought about that otherwise.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-17-2003
Fri, 08-13-2004 - 2:14pm
i find that odd because as the commdian raymond romano in his stand up routine stated, a man's mind has a minimum of 1,000 images to recall one of which he speaks abou is the newest girl. he goes on as though he is speaking directly to her and asks her if she is bisexual. he then says "well now you are". if a man couldn't recall anything he wouldn't be able to function in life. everything we do is about memory. it is how we learn. imagine if we forgot everything and had no memory? could we even have emotions? something to ponder. thanks for the feedback.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-17-2003
Fri, 08-13-2004 - 2:35pm
<<<<>>>

this is why i was asking questions. you may only have a drink here and there but many many others drink more than that and are not addicts. i was interested in hearing real accounts of how often is consiered normal pornography viewing to get better pespective.



<<<<>>>>

alcohol is physicall addictive. and it is easy to get. even parents who do everythign right won't prevent a kid who wants it from getting it.

<<<>>>>

no matter what you teach them if they see internet porn they will learn from it too.

<<<>>>>

me neither which is why i am asking to get a better idea of how much is too much.

<<<<>>>>

ok but you said occassion porn. would she still have self esteem and insecirity issues if it was more than occasssional?



<<<<>>>

maybe you would feel differently if it he looked at porn more than occasionally

<<<<> No, we don't have to turn porn off. It's not the porn that is a problem, it's the people who take it too seriously that is the problem. If someone doesn't approve of it, then they don't have to watch it. JMHO>>>>

that's what i am trying to figure out what is too seriously and what is not. thanks fo rthe feedback.



iVillage Member
Registered: 07-30-2004
Fri, 08-13-2004 - 3:46pm
I havn't really made up my mind about exactly where I stand on the whole pornography issue. Like most things, I generally take the point of view opposite to whoever I'm talking (read arguing) with. But there have been posts from both ends of the spectrum in this thread, so I can't do that. My natural inclination is to say, hey, porn is fine because a) I like porn, and b) I always want to buck the conservative right wing ideology. I think a lot of people are pro porn just because they're so used to having to fight the religous right on everything else like gender equality, and discrimination based on sexual orientation and censorship in general. However, dogma = bad in my book and no opinion or decision should be made without objectively evaluating the evidence and using reason over emotion. From my own experience, I have to say that porn definately can be addictive, which I know because I have had problems with it in the past. Btw, I do have what I would consider to be an addictive personality. Therefore, I don't think that porn is completely harmless. Also, I have observed a fair amount of blatent objectification and exploitation of women. I don't think that porn inherently does that, but some porn depicts fantasies of women being hurt or treated roughly and this is fairly common. THat bugs me a lot but I can't begin to imagine how that could be regulated. If only there was some way to keep only the tastefull respectful porn, lol.

Regarding people who think that porn is a form of infedelity: I think that is so silly. It's not a person! You can't cheat just by yourself. Men WILL always think about other women or whatever even while in a monagomous relationship. It doesn't just suddenly "switch off" when you decide "hey billy sue, lets go steady". Good partners take care to respect their partner and their feelings and to remain faithful by not having sex with other people behind her back. I used to be really hung up on being mentally faithful. During my only really serious relationship, I thought that "oh my god, I don't really love my girlfriend" if I thought about someone else sexually. I felt guilty about it. Most of my fantasies were about her, and I only thought about her while we had sex, but some fantasies would be about someone else. Then one night, we were talking and it came up. She was a lot more worldly than me at the time, and laughed at me and said that of course she looks at other guys sometimes, and sometimes girls too, but not all the time, and who cares, she's only human. SHe said that she was with me because she wanted to be. I laughed out loud too and; although I felt a little flush of jealousy, I also felt as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Her words felt right to me, and I have no doubt that they are because she has the most intuitive and most wise understanding of human nature that I have ever encountered.

Another word about exploitation and porn. I am blatently borrowing an analogy from Richard Dawkins and his book the selfish gene. That is an amazing book by the way, its full of insight and is actually an important scientific document in its own right and is also full of original ideas in a way that popular scientific literature almost never is (except for Darwin's The Origin of Species and a few others). I digress. The analogy is about the cuckoos of Europe, which are brood parasites. They don't build their own nests but rather lay eggs in the nest of other birds. THe cuckoo chicks are much larger than the hosts' chicks. THe host parents can't feed all of them and their own chicks starve to death or are pushed out of the nest to die while the cuckoo chick monopolizes the food brought by the parents. WHy do the parents feed the cuckoo instead of their own chicks? One reason is related to the concept of a behavioural release. That is a certain cue that leads to the release of a whole behaviour pattern. Very widespread in the animal kingdom, probably in every animal, including Homo sapiens. A key releaser of brood feeding in parent birds is a gaping red mouth. Of course the birds aren't thinking about it. THey see a red gape, and get a desire to stuff food in it. THen they likely feel satisfied. They probably like to do it, and it probably feels good. The cuckoo has a bigger, redder gape. Its more arousing (in the general sense not the sexual sense) than the smaller paler gapes of the host chicks. So the cuckoos have taken an adaptive behavioural system in birds, and exploited it to their advantage and to the detriment of their hosts. Porn is like that. Porn presents exaggerated images that release sexual behaviour in men and sometimes women. In porn, releasers are exagerated - the smoothness of women's bodies (shaving pits, lips, eyebrow plucking, photoshop skin smoothing etc), their health and youthfullness (photoshopping for whiter teeth and unblemmished skin), secondary sexual characteristics (shaving again, breast implants, collagen injections in the lips, stretching a photo to make legs longer, etc). THe idea (although not formally recognized very often) is to hijack the sexual behaviour patterns to make people spend money. Really when you think of a guy spankin' it to a hustler, you have a person spending lots of energy and some time, as well as an hour's wages for many people, to become sexually aroused to the point of orgasm by a bunch of cellulose obtained from wood fibers. Kind of silly eh? Always makes me feel stupid to think like that. I didn't really want to turn that analogy into a moral judgement, but rather to add a new perspective on exploitation. Who is being exploited, the actors and actresses that are making a fair amount of money (more than most of us make for a normal hour of work), or the buyer, who is spending money and time and energy to get nothing tangable or lasting at all? It is even more clear when you think of a porn addict who is skipping out on taking care of his own chick, while feeding the wider, redder gape that really does him no good at all. Pun intended. I don't mean to say that women in porn are never exploited, just that it goes both ways.

-PG

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-17-2003
Fri, 08-13-2004 - 4:09pm
i don't think that anyone was suggesing that one should be 100% mentall monugumous, but suggesting that one can not use or choses not to use their partner seemed unbeleivible.

<<<<>>>

again you used addict. who says that an addict has to ignor his own chick? some chicks reap all the benefits?

the buyer is being exploited? wierd? no one is forcing the buyer to spend the money and they know exactly what they r buying, a orgasm. look at Kobe Bryant did he not lose the Nike contract? Is an orgasm really worth $40,000,000?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2004
Fri, 08-13-2004 - 4:10pm

this is why i was asking questions. you may only have a drink here and there but many many others drink more than that and are not addicts. i was interested in hearing real accounts of how often is consiered normal pornography viewing to get better pespective.


bounxh0a-1.gif picture by dillbyrd

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-17-2003
Fri, 08-13-2004 - 4:30pm
but you said that more than occasional use is a problem. if a man is viewing porn more than occassionaly but is not an addict and uses it to get aroused most of the time than it can have some afect on his gf's self esteem and even make her insecure. not syaing its right just being understanding. everyone is differant and some may take it eprsonally and some won't does not make one right and one wrong. if its not an addiction but is more than you think is apropiate or its used to arouse a lot for sex than you said yourself it woudl be a problem just you dont take it personaly. if a guy just likes porn does not see a problem with it and uses it for entertanment but whips it out before having sex that might hurt some self esteem.





iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2004
Fri, 08-13-2004 - 4:45pm

I read Bio's post and I didn't take it as if he has his wife on a schedule at all.


bounxh0a-1.gif picture by dillbyrd

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-23-2004
Fri, 08-13-2004 - 4:51pm

I read your post and I didn't see any place that you said you have your wife on a schedule.


bounxh0a-1.gif picture by dillbyrd

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-09-2004
Fri, 08-13-2004 - 5:02pm
Thanks, Tish.

I think you are great on this message board. You gave me some advice the other day that I used with great success.

I have to rate my sex life in the top 5-10% of all sex lives in the world. Even so I have to be the initiator most of the time so it gets a little frustrating, especially if I am a little down for wahtever reason and could use some attention to pick me up. This seems to be the times when my wife is most distant - maybe I look too serious when I'm down and she is turned off or afraid.

Fortunately, I'm not down that much (a day or two a month). As long as I get back to being the initiator, our sex life gets back on track (like it is now thanks to your suggestions and these forums buidling on my desires).