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female
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anonymous
writes:Porn is a big topic in a lot of relationships. For my own opinion, it is quite sad to see so many guys using porn to get satisfaction,despite having willing and loving partners. The argument is often just to have a quick gratification and not to worry about performance. As an experienced woman let me tell you guys out there "just forget about performance". We woman don't jugde you by how long, how big, how juicy, how romantic etc. you can do it. Just let us know what you want! Believe it or not, we are way less complicatad then most of you might think . Of course there are always acceptions. But if you have an open and loving partner, she will feel honered by your trust and honesty. I have nothing against porn in a healthy doses. It can definately relieve some pressure and stress, but don't get brainwashed by it. Science knows, how manipulative our brains are. I just want to give one example; If you walk through a garden with all these roses in red, in yellow, white and pink - one more beautiful than the other and you're having a hard time looking away from them. Then coming home you might not even see the beauty in the bouquet of flowers that you picked with love from the meadows a couple of days before. And that is because your brain is set to find equally beauty that it was flooded with and you enjoyed (or got turned on) so much. Our brains work that way. It constantly makes comparison with all the images it gets to make the best matching choise. How do you think constant use of porn might influence your jugdement?!
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male
reader, Cupid Boy +, writes (29 January 2011):
 "As an experienced woman let me tell you guys out there "just forget about performance". We woman don't jugde you by how long, how big, how juicy, how romantic etc. you can do it."
Yeah... reminds me of women who say guys don't need to learn all those complex pickup artist techniques, that all they need to do is go right up to a girl and say "Hi". Well, if that actually worked, no one would be buying those PUA books, would they?
Yes, guys, women are judging you and doing it constantly. So mind your shoes, your nails, your confidence level, your sexual technique, your body language, etc., etc., because ALL of it is being closely critiqued. If you don't think so, you're deluding yourself. Men just don't have the option of being passive and unskilled in bed. This isn't just a pressure they put on themselves, it's one society places on them. But you make a good point: our culture has gotten too fixated on performance for guys (and appearance for women).
I've noticed that those who make many of the anti-porn arguments below always cast porn stars (ie. women) as the victims and porn watchers (ie. men) as the abusers. But when it comes to gay porn, or porn made for women by other women, porn opponents are silent. Shouldn't they be lecturing women on how porn causes them brain damage and warning how gay porn objectifies men?
I agree with some of what Gamine said. But without trying to defend porn, I will say that it's not true in every single case. An increasing number of porn actresses are self-employed entrepreneurs who own their own production companies and websites. They are treated like royalty at trade shows and awards ceremonies. Some have voluntarily stayed in the business for many years and even vigorously defend it at panel discussions and hearings. They are not all victims of human trafficking and abuse. They show up at auditions on their own, desperately wanting (rightly or wrongly) to become porn stars as though it were their life's dream. The fact they are so physically attractive gives them much value in society. They are VIPs at clubs and will get invited to the kind of parties and meet the kind of people that the rest of us can only dream about. This comes at a high price and I do feel bad for the choices they've made but only to a point. It's hard to pity someone who, materially and socially, is way better off than I am.
Yes, many of them are "broken" people. But then so are many heavy porn users. The porn industry is sometimes like a drug dealer giving out free samples to everyone to lure them in. In that context, it is simply unfair to frame all users as abusers of women. And in the case of a woman who's become rich, famous and powerful through porn, living off the income supplied by addicts, is she really the one being exploited the most?
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (28 January 2011): Women telling men that they try too hard in bed is like men telling women that they try too hard to look sexy. Umm, yeah, but not trying hard enough works a lot worse.
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A
male
reader, Jmtmj  +, writes (28 January 2011):
 "The individual conscience of each human being fuels their choices. Some give up eating meat because they cannot stand the cruelty. Some give up wearing furs. Some won't go near a can of tuna.
Each is held to their personal truth."
That's a good way of looking at it. :)
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reader, anonymous, writes (27 January 2011): I just want to reply to your performance thing. We worry because we care about your pleasure. We want to perform well because we want you to have the most pleasure that we can possibly give.
It's not about the girl judging our performance it's about us providing pleasure to our woman. A good guy will always want to give pleasure, guys that don't are guys that get on, cum get off and then fall asleep. It's about feeling the immense satisfaction, complete power and control that you get as a guy who has just gave his girl an orgasm.
Why the hell would we want to just stick it in, get it over with and fall asleep? My girl isn't a flesh doll, she's not a masturbation tool to me and I never want to use her that way and I never want to equate her with a meaningless sexual act because it never can be meaningless with her. So in that sense having sex with her purely for my own pleasure just isn't the same at all and I feel cheated because the best thing about having sex is the feeling of her orgasms, is knowing that I can blow her mind the greatest pleasure for a guy is knowing that it makes our own orgasms far more intense.
So for a quick meaningless release I do it on my own and use porn to make that process quicker. By the way, for us guys masturbation can be as meaningless as taking a dump and about the same amount of pleasure too as when you really need to take a dump and can't hold it anymore.
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reader, anonymous, writes (27 January 2011): Some people like it, some people don't, some people let it negatively effect their lives some people don't, some people think it's wrong other people don't are ye starting to see the pattern here?
Porn for me is menial but useful, it's part of my sex life and my sex life is very fulfilling. I've even made my own porn because watching myself and my girlfriend together is better than any other type of porn.
My girlfriend watches and uses porn to get off quickly in tandem with her vibrators of which she has a nice little collection to suit whichever type of orgasm she wants (yes there are different types) She does it when I'm there and when I'm not there. Sometimes I will be going to sleep and hear a buzz, does it bother me that she wants to have a quick orgasm on her own? No why would I? Her pussy, her choice what she does with it. Do I get jealous of these male porn stars with ripped bodies and big dicks? No because they don't exist. Do I get jealous of her voice activated rabbit or her strap on butterfly thing? No, it's her sexuality at the end of the day she's free to pleasure herself in any way she pleases and in fact I love for my partner to find pleasure in life, I don't have to be involved every time, she doesn't neglect my sexual needs, I know she lust after and loves me so I feel no need to get jealous of an inanimate (apart from the vibrations of course) object or actors in a porn movie that don't exist.
Look once your sex life is satisfying then there shouldn't be a problem with porn in my opinion but I respect the views of others on this topic and have learned that my opinion is only right to me, because it works for me, if hating porn and being insecure about porn is something that works for others then that's cool. But if it's something that creates conflict in a relationship then that's not good.
Porn does create problems for people and those people need to find a solution to that. If hating it is only bringing misery to your love life then it's better if you try and change that. If porn becomes an addiction that effects your love life then you need to cut back.
You can quote all the studies you want but the most important opinion is yours. We can find studies to validate any opinion we want but at the end of the day if being right brings only pain then I'd rather be wrong.
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reader, serenity80  +, writes (27 January 2011):
I don't know if I totally agree in all cases. I've used a number of moves I've seen in porn films on my girlfriend during particularly savage encounters with her and she seems to be pretty blown away by it. Sometimes sex is about loving tenderness and sometimes it is about hardcore animistic porn.
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reader, Jmtmj +, writes (27 January 2011):
Are you suggesting that watching porn is adding to the destruction of another human being and porn watchers should be ashamed?
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female
reader, Miamine +, writes (27 January 2011):
 I'll agree, for the brain, imagination and reality actually feel the same. (Brain scans prove it)
The body however knows the difference... :)
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male
reader, Jmtmj +, writes (27 January 2011):
There's a million studies on a million different things all saying different things. Support the ones you want and you can believe anything, but when I see the amazon rainforest or mount everest on the TV I don't get tricked into believing that I'm actually there... conscious or otherwise. Meh, agree to disagree.
How'd your thesis go by the way person12345? Get a good mark?
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female
reader, Miamine +, writes (27 January 2011):
Affect my judgement about what? Doesn't affect my capacity to love, my ability to orgasm or the amount of partners I have.
I walk and see beautiful flowers.. nice... I go home and see more beautiful flowers.. nice.. actually... I can spend hours looking at all the flowers in the world. Just because I like Orchids it doesn't mean I have to hate Roses. Flowers are beautiful, there doesn't seem to be any need to force my eyes to look at one and ignore the other.
Romance novels probably affect me way more than pornography. And since pornography is consumed in low doses (relatively in hours per year/lifetime) it probably affects you less than your daily newspaper, your TV watching, your walk to work in the morning or your day dreaming on the toilet.
I think science would probably show, your daily cup of coffee effects your judgement more than porn.
Two Questions for you though..
1. Why are so few men (relatively)sad about women's use of pornography/vibrators/erotic novels/romantic movies?
2. Why are then few (or no) posts on Dear Cupid, interested in how pornography affects the brains of women and homosexual people?
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female
reader, person12345  +, writes (27 January 2011):
 Actually, our brains can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Several studies have examined exactly why people get turned on by porn and it's not what you'd think. They found that there is a huge impact on our mirror neurons when we view porn. Meaning whether we consciously imagine it or not, we get aroused watching porn because we trick our brains into thinking it's actually happening to us. Our brains think we're the ones in the action. It's not a conscious decision, it's not something you can be aware of. But that is why humans like porn. Because our brains honestly get tricked into believing what's happening on screen is happening to us. Whether or not we want to believe it, that is actually why we enjoy porn.
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male
reader, Jmtmj +, writes (27 January 2011):
True... but the brain also recognizes a difference between reality and fantasy. It knows the difference between seeing a flower on a computer screen that you can't touch, smell, love or fully appreciate in all its complexity with all your senses and one that you actually can.
You are right that porn can be damaging to the mind in unhealthy doses, but comparing and judging real life girlfriends to pornstars is not something that most guys do. I've said it once, I'll say it again... What guy seriously wants to date a pornstar? Gross. (14 year old boys being the obvious exception).
In saying all this its probably been about as much help to partners who are troubled by porn as you saying "just forget about performance". It ain't that easy to rewire yourself from years of social conditioning from the media, advertising etc. Just out of curiosity, what would you deem as "unhealthy" porn use?
(Sorry for coming across as blunt, but I love a good debate once in a while)
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