The New Naked: The Ultimate Sex Education for Grown-Ups (16 page)

Whether porn is good for us as a society isn’t the point. I’m also not going to debate what does or doesn’t qualify as porn. Even if there’s no touching or personal contact (such as on popular sites like
www.mygirlfund.com
, where women post photos of themselves and can engage in video chats for a fee that they negotiate), it’s still porn.

As long as sites like this become profitable, the porn genie can never be crammed back into the bottle (and sealed up, then thrown into the ocean where it should sink down, down, down to the bottom and stay).

When I say that porn is killing America’s sexual behavior, I am not kidding, nor am I exaggerating. I see the detrimental and grave effects of porn on men and women and their relationships every day in my office, and I hear about it every time I go on
the radio. I’m particularly blunt about this topic because I believe porn is the single, largest non-health issue that makes relationships crumble. It’s harming every aspect of sexual health.

Believe me, after all the stories I’ve heard about porn over the years, I’m the last one to judge. I certainly don’t believe that all porn is evil and that anyone who watches it is morally lacking. Porn in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad. My stance is everything in moderation. The occasional use of erotica—whether online, video, or print—is probably harmless.

It may even help spice up your sex life if
both
you and your partner are interested in exploring that option occasionally, and you both agree on what you like and what makes you happy. If your partner can watch porn in moderation—and lots of men and women can because they don’t need it to get aroused—then you can have a lot of fun with it. In fact, it’s often so ridiculous that it’s laughable. Anything that makes a couple laugh together in bed is all right with me!

Note, however, my use of the words “occasional” and “moderation.” If you and your partner don’t watch porn, or watch it once in a while and have a giggle and mutually satisfying sex while stimulating your own libidos, that’s great. You don’t really need to read this section.

But everyone who has to deal with porn more regularly needs to come to grips with the porn epidemic and, more importantly, porn addiction, which is far more common than most people think. I know that some women can get addicted to porn, but I haven’t met any of them. By far, the overwhelming viewers of porn, and those who become addicted, are men.

Sex can become routine for a lot of couples, and men often
see porn as a way to add some spice to the routine. But when men turn to porn for variety and escape, they don’t realize that they’re actually putting their sexual and emotional health at risk.

As you read in
Lesson 1
, a man who masturbates frequently can soon develop erection problems when he’s with his partner. Add porn to the mix, and he can become unable to have sex and then start allowing his fantasies to cloud his judgment. He can, unwittingly or not, start comparing you to the women he’s viewing. Do you have the body of a porn star? (Who would want enormous breast implants?) Do you have the stamina? (Who would want to endure the endless pumping?) Are you willing to have multiple partners at the same time? (I sincerely doubt it!)

I recently read an article discussing the fact that if patients felt that their doctors didn’t really care, their health suffered—even if they weren’t really sick. During their appointments, they see their doctors bent over their laptops, clicking away and stashing health info in electronic medical records. The doctors don’t even bother to lift their heads and lay their hands on the patient to assess what’s really going on. Once that ability to engage the human touch is gone, you’re in trouble as a doctor. It’s the same with relationships. Pornography is the equivalent of electronic medical records. It isn’t hands-on. It isn’t real.

Or, to use a slightly less doctor-driven image, porn is the equivalent of a blow-up doll. She certainly isn’t real. She’s actually rather scary-looking. She can help a man get his rocks off, but who wants to have sex with inflatable latex when a real, live, wonderful woman is ready and willing?

What drives me crazy is that so many teenage boys have their first relationship not with a person, but with what they’re
watching on their computers. In all of recorded history, porn has never been easier to access. It’s there with the click of a mouse, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and into perpetuity. With more than 420 million adult websites on the Internet, the wealth (if you want to call it that) of material is inexhaustible.

So how do you get through to the adolescent boy’s horny, testosterone-filled brain that in porn, women are actresses—and usually badly paid ones at that? These actresses are pretending, and they will always say “Yes” and do whatever the man wants and have “orgasms” (the vast majority of which are fake), no matter what’s done to them. Real teenage girls or women are never that acquiescent, nor should they be! Yet for boys who are just starting to date while trying to decipher the mysteries of the female (and
that
can take a lifetime), and who are shy and fumbling and anxious, porn can make them feel better about their fantasies and inexperience.

Porn allows them to think that if and when they’re with a real woman, they can translate their masturbatory prowess into mind-blowing sex. But this is a short-sighted, erroneous way for these impressionable young men to behave. The only way to learn about women is to spend a lot of time with them. And the only way to get really good at having sex is by having real sex with real women. Porn can set these men up for very warped and hurtful encounters with women who won’t ever play by the totally ludicrous rules of porn.

Watching porn is a passive experience—even if a man is masturbating to it, he is still watching other people on a screen going about whatever they’re moaning about. And as such, porn creates
its own universe. In this realm, sex takes place without any emotional connection because it is wholly a fantasy. It might look real and the actors might be having actual sex, but because they are actors, they are faking their feelings. They are spouting dialogue and doing what their directors and producers told them to do.

When patients discuss their porn viewing with me, I ask, “Which would you and your partner have if you had the choice? Sex with an emotional connection or sex without? Is it about porn, or is it about a real, live person caring about you?” My patients inevitably tell me that, of course, they want sex with emotional connection—but sometimes, in truth, they really don’t. They just want to be alone with their porn and their masturbation.

So, yes, porn is a problem that’s out of control. No data can get super-specific about the numbers and hours spent watching porn, because these statistics would be impossible to collect with any accuracy, especially because men tend to fudge, if not lie, about this topic. I tell my patients and their partners that porn viewing is an addiction when it affects your life or hurts a loved one, or both.

Look at the fallout from the actions of New York State politician Anthony Weiner. He is a sex addict and a narcissist with a compulsion to “sext,” or send explicit photos of himself, to strangers. His problem is so bad that he had to give up his seat in Congress. After a public mea culpa and a decision to run for mayor of New York City in 2013—and just when polls showed he’d basically been forgiven—he was caught yet again, sexting to more women. His compulsion seems to be as intense as his denial that it’s a problem.

Take this quiz and see if your partner might be at risk for porn addiction.

If you answered yes to many of these questions, don’t be in denial. Your partner has a problem with porn. A lot of women suspect their men are addicted to porn but aren’t willing to accept the possibility and seek solutions. If this behavior has been going on for some time, you probably need to know the answers to these questions. Remember that a man is addicted if his behavior is negatively affecting your relationship. Find a neutral third party—an addiction counselor, not just a therapist—to help your partner or show him this book.

Like many other things that are bad for us yet can taste good in the moment—like drugs and alcohol, junk food, and nicotine—pornography can start out as a harmless, once-in-a-while indulgence. But without even knowing it, a lot of men can get sucked into the vortex of a true addiction to porn that will be hazardous to their physical and emotional health.

Countless experts have discussed the shocking amount of porn consumed in this country, but I have yet to hear any of them talk about the overwhelming majority of men who watch a lot of porn and then find themselves with sexual
performance
problems. These are sexual performance problems that can destroy your relationship.

Yes, something that is supposed to stimulate and arouse men (or women) sexually can actually destroy their overall libido and performance. So why isn’t anyone talking about the effect on sexual performance—the ESP—aspect of porn? Probably because they flunked sex ed for grown-ups. They’re discussing
why
a guy watches it—and not
what happens to his penis
when he watches.

I can tell how much porn a man watches as soon as he starts talking candidly about any sexual dysfunction he has. Guys who watch a lot almost always describe the porn they love in glowing terms, like it’s their secret friend or (worse) their mistress. Some men go on and on, describing details about their favorite porn stars or different films and websites. Conversely, I rarely hear about their partner or spouse.

Some of my patients say that they’re only trying to keep their penises healthy by frequently watching porn and masturbating to it. Yes, regular ejaculation is needed to keep the blood flow steady so a penis can function properly. And yes, regular ejaculation is also associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer. But the best kind of ejaculation is with a loving partner, not with a blurry computer screen that’s streaming porn.

When a man chronically watches porn and gets off on it, or watches porn with his hands on himself so he can masturbate at the same time (which is what usually happens), the sensory stimulation he gets from the virtual world makes it much more difficult for him to get aroused, stay aroused, and be happily aroused by the real, live woman in his life. Namely,
you
.

In other words, his frequent, porn-fueled masturbation leads to sexual dysfunction with a partner. If he can only have an orgasm when watching porn, and if he becomes accustomed to having orgasms only in a certain way or while watching a certain thing, he’s in trouble—and so are you. He should always be able to climax with his partner without needing any outside influences. Porn isn’t just risky business; it’s a killer for your sex life.