Porn addiction is a myth.
On numerous occasions, we have come across people in relationships who are struggling with what they believe is an obvious problem. They believe their problem is one partner’s addiction to big bad porn. We commonly find it is not actually the porn addiction that is the the problem. It is a symptom.
In his article “Why we Should Stop Calling Porn Addiction an Addiction”, Sex Psychology 2015, Dr. Justin Lehmiller has measured brain waves of drug addicts and porn users. He found that porn has the opposite effect on brain waves that drug addicts experience This indicated that porn should not be called an addiction, the word addiction should be replaced with something else.
Porn is easy to blame
It is confronting for couples to realise that blaming porn merely shifts the focus away from what is really going on in their relationship. It shifts responsibility to something that is cloaked in shame and conveniently easy to blame.
Anything which is done in secrecy and isolation usually leads to shame. Isolation and shame then make it difficult for those involved to share true intimacy with others. Especially with society turning up the heat by publicly blaming or shaming porn.
Many men are already afflicted by sexual shame, due to unresolved sexual projections from society, religion, the media and even therapists’ unresolved issues about sex. Demonising porn just makes it worse.
We believe that porn itself is not wrong
It’s the behaviours that go on around it that make it so.
Porn targets sexual desire and sexual vulnerability. It’s also reliable, and without fear or rejection, something sex in the real world is definitely not! It gives the watcher a place to indulge their desire for sexual variety without risking going outside their relationship. Porn creates a fantasy of fulfilled sexual desire, enticing with its easy access and its privacy. Particularly when the watcher doesn’t have to deal with any messy emotional crap. It can leave men thinking this is how all sex should be, instant gratification with little effort or emotion.
This pisses most women off, and rightly so.
Many men struggle with the emotional intensity of relationship. Not because they are incapable of feeling. But because they have been shamed about, or indoctrinated not to feel or express their emotions. It is important to understand that, given the opportunity, men are highly capable of emotional work. We see it all the time. Especially with the right motivation – the potential for truly fulfilling sex.
A different perspective
As a woman, you might be feeling the hackles on your neck standing up at this image of a man taking the easy way out. Take a moment to see things from his perspective, through an example a bit closer to home. The romance industry, widely available through movies, books, advertising and chats with your girlfriends is like porn. It exerts an equally manipulative effect on a woman, similar to the impact that porn has on men. Stories of instant attraction to a perfect man offering a woman everything her heart desires with very little real effort on her part is the female flip side of porn. These romantic fantasies have a similar 
“passive making” impact on women. They create many false expectations for men to live up to, and leave women frustrated when they don’t.
The difference is, romance has general society’s support and its effects slip beneath the radar. While men carry the worlds’ unconscious judgment and shaming of their desires for sex and porn. This adds even more intensity to their feelings of sexual shame and emotional inadequacy. Shaming any man about his porn habit is shaming the man deep into his core. This shame accumulates and can eventually shut him down, both sexually and emotionally. Leaving women frustrated at his increasing lack of availability.
Whether we like it or not, porn is spreading
According to Pornhub, women are the fastest growing demographic of porn consumers, especially younger women. Women are reported to watch porn out of curiosity, to spice up their sex lives and learn new techniques. Some women, like men, watch it to satisfy their lust. Children as well are becoming exposed to porn, and doing so at earlier ages due to its easy availability. This is a concern if they are viewing it without the context of real life sex to balance it with. Yet the vast majority of porn users remain men.
There are some positives with porn, as is it can be way to keep sexuality alive when sex is not available. It can also spice things up in the bedroom for a while… But, by targeting these desires, pornography creates a fantasy experience for the watcher that will still ultimately leave them “high and dry”.
It’s a visual performance, not a reality.
Because that is all porn can ever do is create an illusion of satisfaction.
One that will ultimately end in frustration for the user. This frustration usually results in more porn watching in an unconscious attempt to achieve the fulfilment is truly longed for. This is desensitising, ending in a loss of sexual and emotional feeling. Either numbing it down, making it difficult to get, or maintain an erection, or to ‘come’ without intense stimulation. More and more young men are resorting to use of Viagra to deal with what is essentially, a disconnection from self.
At this point, the issue IS porn
It’s vital to track back to what is behind the need for porn, the need to dissociate from the full spectrum of feelings we are capable of. A something else that makes it so much easier to blame porn and overlook what is really happening.
Each couple are different, unique, so one size does not fit all, but the negative influence of porn can be beaten, all it takes is the right approach and mindset. Each couple must find their own solution. It starts with understanding the solution is ultimately found outside of where they believe the problem lies.
Learning the skills in tantra is a great next step
Porn is something that we watch, it’s focussed on the visual. Where women are effortlessly wet and men are permanently hard. In tantric sex, thrusting doesn’t need to be continually hard for pleasure to be had. In fact, a man does not even need to be hard at all to experience full bodied orgasm.
Truly satisfying sex, as in Tantric sex, comes from how it feels rather than how it looks. In fact, when it’s really good, we don’t give a damn about how it looks! Tantra is actually pretty boring as a visual medium, as the action (and the magic) is more internal…(Tantric sex would never become an Olympic sport..) Tantra teaches us that there is incredible pleasure, and satisfying connection to be found in the slower, deeper moments, as much as the active ones. Especially if you consciously deep breathe, which is not something you’ll see actors doing in mainstream porn…
Great article – thanks Graeme.