What sounds like a fun idea at first can actually be a pretty unhealthy practice for you and your spouse.
Think about it this way—porn does for sex in a relationship what soda does for hydration in your body. In theory, it seems like it should help, but in reality, it produces the complete opposite of the intended effect.
Watching the most exaggerated versions of sex possible may make partners feel sexier in the moment, but the truth is, real life is nothing like what you see on screen. Sex in person is nothing like the sex acts performed in porn. The actors are performing, not actually loving each other, especially not when hardcore material is involved. Using porn for “inspiration” may be fun at first, but it doesn’t take too much of that fake stuff for things to potentially start heading downhill.
Porn Hurts the Emotional Connection
Taking into account the fantasy aspect of porn, watching porn together can mess with the emotional connection of the relationship. Check out this true story we got from someone who realized porn wasn’t a healthy presence in her love life:
“I always felt as though I was never good enough. Then one day it dawned on me. What if I join in? What if I watch porn with him? So that’s what I did.
And what happened was that I became just as addicted to porn as he was. It began killing the love in our relationship and completely destroying the respect we had for each other, (or what respect was left anyways). It made me a totally different person. The reality vs. fantasy was all too much for me to handle until porn seemed to become more of a reality than my actual reality.
One day, I came to realize what was happening and we both realized we needed help.”
What was fun at first turned into a full blown hurtful thing in their connection. This couple wasn’t connecting, and they relied on the thrill of the synthetic nature of porn to substitute for their struggling reality.
Consider the facts—in one of the most comprehensive studies on porn use ever conducted, researchers found that after being exposed to softcore sexual material, both men and women were significantly less happy with their partner’s looks, willingness to try new sex acts, and sexual performance. Even being exposed to porn just a few times can make people feel less in love with and less attracted to their significant other, and that’s just not sexy.
Porn Harms the Physical Connection
Beliefs and feelings about your partner aren’t the only things that change, either. It becomes blindingly clear that there’s a problem when male porn users realize they can no longer have real sex at all. On top of losing attraction for their mate, a skyrocketing number of couples can suffer real effects from porn in their physical love life.
Thirty years ago, when a man developed erectile dysfunction (ED), it was almost always because he was getting older, usually past 40. As his body aged, his blood vessels would get blocked, making it harder to maintain an erection. Chronic ED in anyone under 35 was nearly unheard of, because it’s often been associated with age.
But those were the days before Internet porn. These days, online message boards are flooded with complaints from porn users in their teens and 20s complaining that they can’t maintain an erection. But for this kind of ED, the problem isn’t in their sexual organs—it’s in their brain.
Real life just can’t compare to the air-brushed fantasies. Actual people don’t look like or sound like porn stars, but that’s totally okay. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, yet porn users’ brains just don’t get the same thrill from an actual person who has quirks and flaws. Talk about taking the spice right out of your relationship.
Porn Damages the Partnership
Even if partners watch it together, the physical and emotional toll that porn has on relationships is real and unhealthy. Pornography shows the most shallow and inaccurate version possible of sex and sexuality, and it conditions the users to want what they see reproduced in their own bedroom. That can’t be good, seeing as porn could never compare to reality. It doesn’t even come close, because sex is so much more complicated than what you see on screen, and porn is just a performance. That’s it.
Part of working toward a healthy relationship is understanding that sex is more than just a single act, and it isn’t about putting on a good show like a porn star. Sex is more than the mechanical movement of body parts, and it’s more than looking like an air-brushed fantasy. A healthy sexuality is a whole-person experience that’s embedded in the connection with another human being. It involves emotions like attraction, excitement, vulnerability, trust, desire, and love. And it includes experiences like dating, holding hands, cuddling, and kissing, all in addition to having sex. Porn doesn’t do any of those emotions or experiences justice, and the more it’s invited into a relationship, the bigger possibility it has of damaging that awesome connection.
Watching porn together can massively detract from the natural, organic connection that you have with your spouse. Inviting porn stars into your relationship can lead down a road of disappointment in your partner, and that’s sad because real love is so much sexier than any on-screen imitation. Let’s face it—your relationship is so much better off without all that fake stuff.
This post was taken from Fight the New Drug. You can find their site here: http://www.fightthenewdrug.org/partners-why-looking-at-porn-together-isnt-a-good-idea/
Think about it this way—porn does for sex in a relationship what soda does for hydration in your body. In theory, it seems like it should help, but in reality, it produces the complete opposite of the intended effect.
Watching the most exaggerated versions of sex possible may make partners feel sexier in the moment, but the truth is, real life is nothing like what you see on screen. Sex in person is nothing like the sex acts performed in porn. The actors are performing, not actually loving each other, especially not when hardcore material is involved. Using porn for “inspiration” may be fun at first, but it doesn’t take too much of that fake stuff for things to potentially start heading downhill.
Porn Hurts the Emotional Connection
Taking into account the fantasy aspect of porn, watching porn together can mess with the emotional connection of the relationship. Check out this true story we got from someone who realized porn wasn’t a healthy presence in her love life:
“I always felt as though I was never good enough. Then one day it dawned on me. What if I join in? What if I watch porn with him? So that’s what I did.
And what happened was that I became just as addicted to porn as he was. It began killing the love in our relationship and completely destroying the respect we had for each other, (or what respect was left anyways). It made me a totally different person. The reality vs. fantasy was all too much for me to handle until porn seemed to become more of a reality than my actual reality.
One day, I came to realize what was happening and we both realized we needed help.”
What was fun at first turned into a full blown hurtful thing in their connection. This couple wasn’t connecting, and they relied on the thrill of the synthetic nature of porn to substitute for their struggling reality.
Consider the facts—in one of the most comprehensive studies on porn use ever conducted, researchers found that after being exposed to softcore sexual material, both men and women were significantly less happy with their partner’s looks, willingness to try new sex acts, and sexual performance. Even being exposed to porn just a few times can make people feel less in love with and less attracted to their significant other, and that’s just not sexy.
Porn Harms the Physical Connection
Beliefs and feelings about your partner aren’t the only things that change, either. It becomes blindingly clear that there’s a problem when male porn users realize they can no longer have real sex at all. On top of losing attraction for their mate, a skyrocketing number of couples can suffer real effects from porn in their physical love life.
Thirty years ago, when a man developed erectile dysfunction (ED), it was almost always because he was getting older, usually past 40. As his body aged, his blood vessels would get blocked, making it harder to maintain an erection. Chronic ED in anyone under 35 was nearly unheard of, because it’s often been associated with age.
But those were the days before Internet porn. These days, online message boards are flooded with complaints from porn users in their teens and 20s complaining that they can’t maintain an erection. But for this kind of ED, the problem isn’t in their sexual organs—it’s in their brain.
Real life just can’t compare to the air-brushed fantasies. Actual people don’t look like or sound like porn stars, but that’s totally okay. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, yet porn users’ brains just don’t get the same thrill from an actual person who has quirks and flaws. Talk about taking the spice right out of your relationship.
Porn Damages the Partnership
Even if partners watch it together, the physical and emotional toll that porn has on relationships is real and unhealthy. Pornography shows the most shallow and inaccurate version possible of sex and sexuality, and it conditions the users to want what they see reproduced in their own bedroom. That can’t be good, seeing as porn could never compare to reality. It doesn’t even come close, because sex is so much more complicated than what you see on screen, and porn is just a performance. That’s it.
Part of working toward a healthy relationship is understanding that sex is more than just a single act, and it isn’t about putting on a good show like a porn star. Sex is more than the mechanical movement of body parts, and it’s more than looking like an air-brushed fantasy. A healthy sexuality is a whole-person experience that’s embedded in the connection with another human being. It involves emotions like attraction, excitement, vulnerability, trust, desire, and love. And it includes experiences like dating, holding hands, cuddling, and kissing, all in addition to having sex. Porn doesn’t do any of those emotions or experiences justice, and the more it’s invited into a relationship, the bigger possibility it has of damaging that awesome connection.
Watching porn together can massively detract from the natural, organic connection that you have with your spouse. Inviting porn stars into your relationship can lead down a road of disappointment in your partner, and that’s sad because real love is so much sexier than any on-screen imitation. Let’s face it—your relationship is so much better off without all that fake stuff.
This post was taken from Fight the New Drug. You can find their site here: http://www.fightthenewdrug.org/partners-why-looking-at-porn-together-isnt-a-good-idea/
RSS Feed