Maybe porn really does more harm than good for men?

[MrNate]

I actually found an interesting blog on this. It dealt with men, virginity, and why they may struggle with women. I found it a rather interesting read, and the porn section really stuck out to me in particular. Maybe porn really isn't the culprit, but rather more importantly, it doesn't help either.

 

It centered around the question: "How would you be motivated to improve your skills with women, when you can achieve sexual gratification quickly and easily with the click of a mouse?"

 

One could see how that could potentially become a vicious cycle.

 

Maybe women just want men to fuel that sexual energy away from porn, and into improving their skills with them, chasing them, and wooing them?

 

Anyway here's the blog:

 

http://themodernsavage.com/2008/09/30/the-dilemmas-of-male-virgins/

 

What do you think?

[Bejita463]

Hasn't this topic been beaten to death yet?

[Els]

Can't wait til JS gets her hands on this one.

[MrNate]

Hasn't this topic been beaten to death yet?

 

good point. I forgot about the huge thread on this a couple of pages back.

 

Sorry about that. This thread can die quickly in that case.

[TaraMaiden]

beat that monkey, beat it, beat it,

beat it until it phekkin' rolls over and dies.

 

 

So..... what shall we talk about now?

 

Edit.... I swear I never saw the above post before I put this up.....

[Ruby Slippers]

It centered around the question: "How would you be motivated to improve your skills with women, when you can achieve sexual gratification quickly and easily with the click of a mouse?"

Excellent point, which I made a while back:

 

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1940689&postcount=11

 

Imagine there were no porn of any kind, that men had to get all their sexin' from real live women. Maybe I'm overly optimistic and naive, but here's how I see it: men would treat women better overall, because they'd have to if they wanted sex. They'd also have a more holistic view of sex, beyond just the physical. And if men were treating women better and providing the things that women really want, I think women would treat men better, feel happier, and be more willing and ready to have sex. Everybody wins. I imagine this state of being would also encourage greater respect from both sides, which uplifts everyone overall.

 

I had a small test run of this theory in my last relationship. We always had a great sex life, and he claimed to watch porn occasionally. Once we started talking about that and I expressed some sadness about it, he offered to give it up. I said I didn't want to police him and didn't feel right forbidding something like that, but he decided on his own to give it up entirely for a month (I didn't know this until the end of the month). During that month, our sex was even hotter and we were getting along really well and connecting much better emotionally. I was the only naked girl and sex in his radar, so he was focusing a lot of attention on me. It was this pure, undiluted experience. The way he was treating me made me feel happy and appreciated, so I was more expressive of my happiness, appreciation for him, and confidence. It was this continuous loop of good.

 

I know that men are very attached to their porn these days, but I would be VERY curious to hear about the results from a few men in relationships who gave it up for a month. I'd like to know the effect it has on your relationship and sex life. I'd like to see what would happen if the guy complaining he never gets sex diverted all that energy from porn viewing/masturbating back into the relationship. My hypothesis is that he would get more sex and both parties would feel much better about the relationship.

 

Porn can be a drug like any other (food, TV, internet, weed, alcohol), and it has a potent hormonal/chemical reward. I think that a huge number of men really are crippling themselves from having healthy, happy relationships with porn addiction these days.

[Ruby Slippers]

What do you think?

I also think it's very cool that a man brought this up.

[You'reasian]

It centered around the question: "How would you be motivated to improve your skills with women, when you can achieve sexual gratification quickly and easily with the click of a mouse?"

 

How does one define love making skills?

 

This topic, like kissing, is highly subjective depending on the woman. A few women don't like alot of kissing, many women love slow, sucking type kisses with lots of lip contact, others want you to put your tongue deep in their mouth and some want a combination of both...

 

Likewise, there are no hard-fast rules (no pun intended...) for quality love making. Add to it the variability in male attributes such as size, stamina and capacity for foreplay what ends up working for one couple is a very unique permutation.

 

One's ability to know their own body benefits their sexual abilities. Getting off alone, whether looking at porn or using toys for instance, may help them discover what turns them on and more importantly, keep their sex drive at a level that will allow them to be more compatable with others.

 

One could see how that could potentially become a vicious cycle.

 

Maybe women just want men to fuel that sexual energy away from porn, and into improving their skills with them, chasing them, and wooing them?

 

Anyway here's the blog:

 

http://themodernsavage.com/2008/09/30/the-dilemmas-of-male-virgins/

 

What do you think?

 

Women ultimately they want to be with a man they respect and can feel safe with. If not that, they atleast want good sex.

 

Women who say they want to be chased and wooed are very particular about the kind of men who they want to be chased and wooed by and therefore pull themselves out of the dating pool. Without dating, you have no starting point and hope of getting involved in a relationship.

[Scottdmw]

I think there is truth to this argument.

 

The human brain has a pretty simple decision-making process for deciding which activities to pursue. Basically, the higher the pleasure and the lower the risk/pain the more attractive an activity is. Porn is very pleasurable and very low risk, so it is immensely attractive to men. Relationships on the other hand, while just as pleasurable in different ways, carry a fair amount of risk. You can definitely get your heart broken or face rejection. So, I think it's absolutely true that men can sometimes be more attracted to porn than to a relationship.

 

In recent months there has been news about a couple of dozen Securities and Exchange Commission employees who were caught looking at porn on the job. One man was caught doing it as much as eight hours a day.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/sec-pornography-employees-spent-hours-surfing-porn-sites/story?id=10452544

 

These are the people that are supposed to be protecting us from the Bernie Madeoffs of the world and preventing financial problems at the national level. Yet, porn is so attractive to them that they are willing to risk losing their jobs in order to look at it, willing to risk letting the whole country's financial system slide into the abyss. Don't even try to tell me that there is no harm or it's not addictive. Maybe some people can control the addiction, just like some people can smoke one cigarette a day and never get lung cancer, but that doesn't mean there's no risk.

 

And, if women desire a man who is capable and successful at building things in the world, clearly men who look at porn while they are supposed to be at work are not going to be too attractive to women. The same holds for a man who spends a lot of time looking at porn on his free time rather than working out, having interesting hobbies, making friends in the real world, et cetera.

 

For any man on this board that wants to say he watches but is not addicted to porn, I would challenge him to give it up cold turkey for four months and prove it. If he can do that I'll listen to what he has to say about it not being addictive. Otherwise he is just another potential alcoholic saying he can stop drinking any time.

 

And, for the record, all men do not look at porn. I have at times in the past, but it's been over a year for me.

 

Scott

[Romance]

I'm glad my boyfriend watches porn. We're long distance so we don't walways get to have sex of course, so Id MUCH rather him watch some people having sex than going out and finding some girl to take care of his needs.

[MrNate]

I also think it's very cool that a man brought this up.

 

Thanks. That blog really made me think. I just felt kind of bad bringing up a topic that was already heavily discussed.

[You'reasian]

Thanks. That blog really made me think. I just felt kind of bad bringing up a topic that was already heavily discussed.

 

Porn may actually be beneficial for some folks. Its not a moral high ground, but I'm just sayin.

[Bejita463]

I just felt kind of bad bringing up a topic that was already heavily discussed.

 

I was mostly teasing you buddy, even though I did die a little inside when I saw another porn thread.

[You'reasian]

I think there is truth to this argument.

 

The human brain has a pretty simple decision-making process for deciding which activities to pursue. Basically, the higher the pleasure and the lower the risk/pain the more attractive an activity is. Porn is very pleasurable and very low risk, so it is immensely attractive to men. Relationships on the other hand, while just as pleasurable in different ways, carry a fair amount of risk. You can definitely get your heart broken or face rejection. So, I think it's absolutely true that men can sometimes be more attracted to porn than to a relationship.

 

No two brains are alike, Scott. The brain is immensley complex and not as simple as we think. Consider how much of our brain we actually use and how little scientists know about it.

 

Porn is not a substitute for relationships. These activities are not mutually exclusive. There are posts here about women complaining about men who are in fact involved in relationships AND looking at porn. Add to it, there are probably couples who both use porn.

 

These are the people that are supposed to be protecting us from the Bernie Madeoffs of the world and preventing financial problems at the national level. Yet, porn is so attractive to them that they are willing to risk losing their jobs in order to look at it, willing to risk letting the whole country's financial system slide into the abyss. Don't even try to tell me that there is no harm or it's not addictive. Maybe some people can control the addiction, just like some people can smoke one cigarette a day and never get lung cancer, but that doesn't mean there's no risk..

 

Anyone who spends their entire 8 hour working day looking at porn has a problem with self-discipline. Your argument follows those who support gun control and as you and I know, guns don't kill people, Scott. People do. Most workplaces have IT controls that ban porn sites; I'm suprised that the firms charged with managing the SEC don't utilize them...

 

if they can't manage who can view porn on work computers, their cyber security manager has much more to worry about than porn.

 

 

And, if women desire a man who is capable and successful at building things in the world, clearly men who look at porn while they are supposed to be at work are not going to be too attractive to women. The same holds for a man who spends a lot of time looking at porn on his free time rather than working out, having interesting hobbies, making friends in the real world, et cetera.

 

For any man on this board that wants to say he watches but is not addicted to porn, I would challenge him to give it up cold turkey for four months and prove it. If he can do that I'll listen to what he has to say about it not being addictive. Otherwise he is just another potential alcoholic saying he can stop drinking any time.

 

And, for the record, all men do not look at porn. I have at times in the past, but it's been over a year for me.

 

Scott

 

I bet there are guys and even a few women who are more athletic than you or I, Scott who probably look at porn from time to time. For the record, not all men are addicted to it either.

 

Occasional porn use is safer than sex.

Edited April 25, 2010 by You'reasian

[MrNate]

Porn may actually be beneficial for some folks. Its not a moral high ground' date=' but I'm just sayin.[/quote']

 

No doubt, which is why I said it's not necessarily a bad thing either, but that it could maybe inhibit a normal man from learning about, and forming relationships with wome.

[ADF]

What I think is that all of this is utterly irrelevant. As long as male homo sapiens walk the earth, there will be a huge demand for porn. People can debate whether porn is good or bad, harmless or harmful all they want. It won't make a bit of difference.

[Ruby Slippers]

I think it's really interesting that when people bring this up, most posters take the side of defending porn, rather than acknowledging there's any merit to the argument that it can be a problem.

 

Scott, that article is pretty staggering! I'm not surprised, though.

 

In college, I worked a temp job as a phone operator at a large company. Pretty much daily, we'd get phone sex calls that employees had placed on hold bounced back to the switchboard. Senior employees making large salaries were spending hours and hours of their work time and lots of the company's money, I'm sure, calling phone sex lines.

[Engadget]

Porn may negatively affect a small percentage of men and women, but for most it's an OUTLET for sexual desires. Instead of going and sleeping around while single, I can watch porn, take care of it and avoid the problems and possible STD's that could come with spreading my seed.

 

Some are "addicted" to a behavior like porn, or gambling(I use " " because to me it's not the same as say a drug addiction, there are differences).

[sweetjasmine]

The thing about porn is that it conditions a sexual response to certain stimuli. When a person watches something like porn and gets off to it, it affects them, and their mind creates a link between those stimuli and sexual gratification. It's not just a passive experience.

[LucreziaBorgia]

My guy is on the old fashioned side when it comes to stuff like this - he just isn't a porn guy, never was. He was more of a 'classic Playboys' kind of guy, but even that goes when he is in a committed relationship. I would have to say that he's by far the best I've been with - simply because he focuses entirely on 'us'. I've been with someone who actually did the 'one leg up while doing it from behind' (the thing they do for camera angles) and I remember thinking how dumb that was that he didn't realize that stuff like that isn't stuff you do IRL.

 

I'd love to see a 'no porn/mags' experiment with people in relationships. It would be interesting to see how it would turn out.

[Engadget]

The thing about porn is that it conditions a sexual response to certain stimuli. When a person watches something like porn and gets off to it, it affects them, and their mind creates a link between those stimuli and sexual gratification. It's not just a passive experience.

 

So something they're already interested in, sex and orgasm...they watch it, and are then interested in sex and orgasm.

 

Um. It's not like I can go watch beastiality and suddenly enjoy it, so you need to kind of tweak how you're wording it.

[sweetjasmine]

So something they're already interested in, sex and orgasm...they watch it, and are then interested in sex and orgasm.

 

Um. It's not like I can go watch beastiality and suddenly enjoy it, so you need to kind of tweak how you're wording it.

 

There's nothing wrong with how I worded it. Obviously "certain stimuli" doesn't just mean "sex 'n stuff." It means the specific features of whatever it is a person is watching.

 

If you watched bestiality long enough, you could become desensitized to it, and if you then started jerking off to it, you could start a reinforcement loop that would then make your body respond sexually to it. Classic conditioning.

[A O]

It centered around the question: "How would you be motivated to improve your skills with women, when you can achieve sexual gratification quickly and easily with the click of a mouse?"

This is a question designed to appease women at the expense of men. Mr Nate, I thought you might have learnt something by now. You're still looking to placate women at the expense of yourself I see. Here's a question - what will women do to "motivate" men to both improve their skills for them and pull them away from porn altogether?

 

Imagine there were no porn of any kind, that men had to get all their sexin' from real live women. Maybe I'm overly optimistic and naive, but here's how I see it: men would treat women better overall, because they'd have to if they wanted sex.

First off, we all learn how to treat people a long time before we cotton on to porn. Porn is not the major driver of behavior in other words, our upbringing is. Next, your premise upsets the apple cart big time. The amount of pandering we'd have to do, the amount of control you'd all have in the sexual arena is scary beyond belief. Thank goodness for porn when thought about it in this context especially. Porn is simply an outlet, it is not a lever to garner whatever we want. But you'd certainly leverage its absence to garner whatever you want I see.

 

No doubt, which is why I said it's not necessarily a bad thing either, but that it could maybe inhibit a normal man from learning about, and forming relationships with wome.

A normal man - no. Relationships, usually, involve many more aspects than just sex. Your average woman will hammer home that fact and your average man will already know and respect this fact anyway. Your average man, and woman for that matter, knows where porn fits in the greater scheme of things - simply another facet of life, and like every other facet, it'll have its time and place but it won't ever, ever dominate beyond all else!

 

 

.

[sally4sara]

I also think it's very cool that a man brought this up.

 

No doubt. I found a less relationshipy debate forum where gender doesn't come into play. I've talked about subjects on there that have come up on here where is I get told I'm a misandrist for my views. On the other site, they've decided I'm a man.......hmmm.

 

Sometimes folks can't listen if they think you're of the opposite gender.

[MrNate]

This is a question designed to appease women at the expense of men. Mr Nate, I thought you might have learnt something by now. You're still looking to placate women at the expense of yourself I see. Here's a question - what will women do to "motivate" men to both improve their skills for them and pull them away from porn altogether?

 

Woah there, the last thing i am is a people pleaser. The blog was interesting, that is all. But think about this, what is the point of women improving any skills with men if they will just watch porn?

 

I'm still all about the men's movement. I just found the idea rather interesting. I know for me personally, when I stray away from things like porn, etc. I get this primal hunger to be with a woman. I feel alive, and determined to improve my skills with them.