A largely untold story in the ongoing debate about pornography is the fact that a growing number of women are very distressed by their partner’s porn use. A number of persistent themes are emerging in research, on internet support sites (for women), in therapists’ offices, in the accounts of divorce lawyers, and anecdotally. This paints a clear picture of women’s distress, and provides an additional argument for the harms of pornography.
Bettina Arndt has missed the mark in her recent article Porn is not a dirty word. While she does a good job at elucidating what many men think and feel about pornography – the fantasy of compliant women, the justifications for deception, the guilt over finding their real partners inadequate, and the ubiquitous sense of entitlement to women’s bodies – she does a very poor job at illuminating what is going on for many women who are the partners of users.
Arndt fails to question men’s entitlement to porn, or the deleterious impact this has on a growing number of women; instead, she explicitly reinforces men’s right to gratification – if not from wives, then from the sex industry. Her justification falls back on an antiquated stereotype that somehow men “need” more sex and women are obliged to give it or suffer the consequences.
Arndt draws attention to the so-called libido deficit of women, the purported mismatch among couples, and men’s abiding sense of sexual frustration in marriage. At no point does she cite (or even show awareness of) sociological research on long-term heterosexual couples that indicates why many women withdraw from sex – unequal domestic loads, a chronic lack of leisure time and sleep after children are born, resentment over the double-shift, a lack of “foreplay”, poor body image, and a sense of emotional disconnect from men who remain persistently unempathic – rather, she paints a picture of long suffering husbands who turn to porn in a valiant effort to avoid hassling their wives.
Here’s a more challenging thought: it may in fact be men who are running from sex – sex that is conducted in the context of respectful, egalitarian relationships with women who know what they want, and enjoy intimacy and orgasm every bit as much as they do. This might require stopping and listening to women, creating a foundation of respectful and reciprocal intimacy, and sharing an equal load of the domestic work and childcare. In other words, we have to ask what kind of sex women are less interested in, and the context within which their interest diminishes, before accepting the “women want less sex” thesis.
Before examining this thorny issue, however, I’d like to turn to women’s suffering because this is the biggest hole in Arndt’s argument. She completely elides a substantial and growing body of evidence regarding the emotional harms of pornography for the female partners of users. What does this evidence show? It shows that many women, especially those who are in long-term committed relationships, are deeply aggrieved by their partner’s porn use and, upon discovery, suffer all the symptoms associated with ruptured attachment and a loss of trust. 
As Arndt notes, many married men view porn in secret and therefore lead a double life. This is a critical point, and one noted in the research literature; if a man’s viewing is open (and agreed to), if a couple watch or make porn together, as in the growing DIY market, this does not constitute a threat to the relationship. Likewise, as Arndt also notes, if the viewing is not accompanied by masturbation, it is less threatening.
However, this is not what is going on in an increasing number of cases. As Jill C Manning, a clinical psychologist and sex addiction expert notes, “This mutual scenario … is not the predominant experience coming forth in today’s cultural milieu or clinical settings”. Most married men who are viewing porn, especially the hard-core stuff, are doing so in secret and maintaining this duplicity in the knowledge that porn is distressing to their partners.
This point is clearly illustrated by one of Arndt’s research participants, who after lamenting his wife’s putative sexual disinterest goes on to recount the following scenario:
… So when she’s asleep I turn to porn where all these young women appear to be totally enthusiastic about pleasing the man. I know it’s all acting and they are only doing it for money and that it’s not fair to expect my wife to be like these porn actresses, but in my fantasy world this is what I love and get off on. I’ll do it for up to an hour, slowly, going from video to video on my laptop, while my wife is sound asleep. I can take as long as I want and get lost in my own world.
Another user who, by his wife’s account, considers foreplay “girly crap”, states how much more convenient porn is where “there is an endless supply of beautiful women, all doing stuff most of us guys can only dream of.” As her interviewees readily acknowledge, in “pornland” the women are on tap, make no demands, exist solely to please men, engage in a wide variety of sexual practices “ordinary women” don’t seem to like, and can be switched off at will. Paradise! Except that this is deeply threatening to, and destabilising for, an increasing number of real women who find themselves unable to compete with the sexed-up Stepford Wives on screen.
Arndt writes of these experiences as if they pose no moral or emotional problems, even as she notes that the partner of this man, Zoe, whom she characterises as “a volatile woman”, cites porn as integral to the decline and break-up of their relationship. Here we see the knock-on effect of porn use as it seeps into the user’s relationship and damages its sexual and emotional core. While this doesn’t happen in all relationships where men watch porn, it is happening in a substantial number of cases.
Arndt’s own examples are consistent with a growing body of research in marital and family therapy which concentrates not simply on the individual impacts of porn consumption (that is, its effects on users) but also on the “systemic” impacts; that is, its effects on the people around the user and, in particular, on his – it is usually men consuming – partner and children. This moves the discussion beyond intractable (though important) questions such as: “Will it turn him into a rapist?” or “Are his attitudes towards women becoming more callous and sexist?” to the everyday relational context of users. How, in particular, does secret use by one member of a couple affect the other – before, during and after discovery?
One of the most counter-intuitive findings of this research is that heavy porn consumption tends to diminish a couple’s sex life – principally by shifting men’s sexual focus away from their partners, and into a fantasy world of endless erotic possibilities. Many partners are consequently left feeling sexually and emotionally abandoned and devalued. Arndt dismisses this finding out of hand, but it has been noted by over a dozen studies, especially in relation to the partners of “heavy” users.
Another key finding is that pornography consumption is much more problematic in long-term committed relationships than in casual ones. For example, survey research conducted by Bridges, Bergner, and Hesson-McInnis (2003) found married women to be significantly more distressed by a partner’s online pornography consumption than women in dating relationships. Moreover, the distress increased according to the perceived frequency of use. This research, notes Manning, “is significant because it supports the assertion that married women generally are distressed by their husbands’ use of sexually explicit material and that this may threaten the stability of the marital bond.”
In other words, casual use in casual relationships is the least problematic for women, on the proviso that this use is not concealed. However, heavy use, especially heavy secretive use in a committed relationship, can wreak havoc, and not uncommonly results in separation and divorce. Fundamentally, women experience their partner’s secret porn use as infidelity. As one woman in a recent study by Zitzman and Butler (2009) put it, it’s “like he’s had a million affairs”.
The visceral appeal of internet porn, especially with the advent of high speed internet connections and high definition images, has, at least in some cases, trumped real women. In her now classic article The Porn Myth well-known feminist writer Naomi Wolf made this connection (in apparent opposition to Andrea Dworkin who had cautioned that porn would greatly exacerbate rape culture). “For most of human history,” writes Wolf, “erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women.”
Wolf is right, however, she may have been rash to assume she had trumped Dworkin’s portentous insight. Arguably, men’s widespread patronage of the sex-industry, including porn, and increasingly “teen porn” and, more disturbingly, “kiddy porn” (what is in fact the filmed sexual assault of children) is itself a form of rape culture. While the women who are men’s equals might be struggling for sexual recognition, those who are structured as their inferiors are struggling to keep up with the demand (or, more properly, the businesses that exploit them are struggling to keep up with demand).
The porn industry is gigantic – its profits are larger than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Apple combined (yes, that’s right, combined), with worldwide profits currently posited at US 100 billion dollars. The stripping industry has doubled in the last decade; global sex-trafficking in women and children, usually from poor countries is booming; and, with the legalization of prostitution in many places, both the legal and illegal industries have boomed. In any given week, 60,000 men visit brothels in Victoria alone. While porn is turning men off women, as Wolf rightly notes, it is Dworkin who forewarned the underbelly.
Research both on users and, as we have seen, the partners of users, indicates two main trends associated with heavy porn consumption: men either begin to ignore their partners sexually (having substituted cybersex for relational sex); or they want to act out porn sex with their partners. Not surprisingly, the partner’s of users typically describe feeling objectified or used. As one woman in a 2002 study by Bergner and Bridges described, “I am no longer a sexual person or partner to him, but a sexual object. He is not really with me, not really making love to me … He seems to be thinking about something or someone else-likely those porn women … He is just using me as a warm body.”
Anti-porn activist and researcher, Gail Dines similarly observes (what therapists are seeing on a more regular basis) that young men are increasingly wanting their girlfriends to behave like “porn stars”:
… the more porn men watch, the more they want to play out porn sex in the real world. They become bored with their sex partners because they don’t look or act like the women in porn. What troubles many of these men most is that they need to pull up the porn images in their head in order to have an orgasm with their partner. They replay porn scenes in their minds, or think about having sex with their favourite porn star when they are with their partners.
There is now a growing body of anecdotal and clinical evidence to support this assertion. However, Dines, like Wolf, concentrates on the impact of Internet porn on young people. But, as Manning notes, research has not yet caught up with the demographic profile of users, or the extent to which pornography is reshaping sexuality and relationships across the board. It is not just vulnerable teenagers, or men in their early twenties, whose sexuality is being re-shaped by porn, it is men and women of all ages. Indeed, current Internet Filter Review statistics show that in the U.S. the 35-44 year old age group consumes the most pornography (defined as those users who pay for porn), followed by the 45-54 and 55 + age groups. Hard-core porn is mainstream and men of all ages, classes and cultures are watching it, which is impacting how they see women and sex. It is also affecting how women see themselves.
Research findings on the partners of users reveals a vernacular distress that exists in tension with both liberal apologist and feminist analyses of porn, since the primary concern of women who are the partners of users is not the political economy of the sex-industry, “freedom of speech”, or the relative “agency” of sex-workers, but their own primal feelings of sadness, loss, jealousy and betrayal. What we see in these accounts is a discourse of suffering and abandonment that speaks of ruptured attachment and damaged self-esteem.
The primary concern here shifts from production to consumption or, more properly, the knock-on effects of consumption on the women in relationship with users. If we accept that the overwhelming majority of long-term relationships, and perhaps all marriages, are premised on exclusivity, trust, sexual fidelity, and intimacy, then regular porn use by partnered men – specifically, evaluating, selecting and masturbating over other women – is inherently threatening to couple bonds. When this changes the baseline of expectation for what women (should) look like and do, we are in trouble as a society, not only in our individual relationships.
Returning to Arndt and her key point that men are turning to porn because their wives wont “put out”, we might ask whether men’s endemic porn use is not rather a retreat from (and substitute for) real women – a shoring up of masculinity and male sex right – in a context where real women have made significant advances, including with regards their sexual autonomy. Are porn stars – and sex-workers generally – the new wives who must put out and shut-up? We might also ask, since we seem to think it is fine to question women’s “low libido”, why it is that men want – and in some cases expect – constant sexual access to women? 
A shorter version of this article was published as ‘Porn hurts’ in Arena Magazine, no. 117, May 2012, pp. 15-16.
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Fantastic article. Thank you for writing
It’s not that men want more sex. It’s that we have an apetite, an internal drive for variety which we have to subdue on a daily basis because of our committed “boring” relationships and being with a partner who has become too “comfortable” and not creative enough in bed.
Women are a lot more emotionally attached to the experience of sex than men are so having sex with the man that you love every day is all that you need as long as you’re being pleased in the right way.
Men on the other hand get bored easily and need more variety when it comes to sex. We appreciate a woman who can get creative in bed and can find new ways to spark our interest and keep us wanting more. Unfortunately not every man gets that lucky. Women tend to get too comfortable in their relationship and sex just becomes another repeated process. Sort of like a chore.
I’d like to call it. “eating the same meal every day”. No one wants to do that now do we. It’s only a matter of time before you lose interest if you’re doing the same thing every day in the same way. It’s not a man problem, it’s common sense people.
Have you ever notice how amazing and sexy sex can be when you’re not living together and you guys see each other every few days? Soon as you shack up what happens?………routine happens.
Porn is a way for us to have that variety without actually going out there and doing it in the real world. Ladies if your man is watching porn “heavily”, he is probably not cheating on you………….yet.
It’s a sign if anything that you should kick things up in the bedroom a bit. get creative, don’t get old. We don’t want to feel like we’re old and things are just a routine.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET A HARD ON FOR US.
WE HAVE TO GET IT FOR YOU!
AND LOVE DOES NOT GIVE US A HARD ON! WE ARE VISUAL CREATURES, NOT EMOTIONAL ONES.
ACCEPT US FOR WHO WE ARE! AND STOP TRYING TO MOLD US!
Have you considered that it is perhaps the use of modern porn, and its fast food-style varieties that is *creating* this demand in men rather than men just satisfying a natural urge?
Many men, including myself, love sex with our partners without finding it boring or a need to supplement it with porn or other women. We enjoy foreplay, “straightforward” sex and even enjoy the cuddling afterwards etc. – all the things that supposedly “only women want”. And yes, I get a hard on for my wife even when she is fully clothed just from being in close proximity to her or just smelling something that reminds me of her.
But I know this would not be the case for me had I not been porn free for some years and I know that stopping porn use lead to a change in me and allowed my natural, balanced male sexual desire to return.
I suspect it is your porn use is driving what you expect from your partner and/or yourself rather than something innately inside of yourself. Why don’t you give being porn-free a try for a while and see what happens to you?
http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/ has some interesting testimonies by men who have stopped using porn and how it changed them for the better sexually and in general.
Bobby J,
You are exactly right. As a 34 yr old male who began looking at porn mags and masturbating age 10, to the advent of the internet porn, it has had a huge effect on me and my sex drive. I can see a beautiful woman and know she is hot but not be aroused and even be with a beautiful women and not get hard. It’s a horrible feeling.
This article is spot on. Men should stay away from it. I would give anything to kiss a woman, have foreplay and have “boring” missionary sex with her. Unfortunately I learned about porn/masturbation as a child and became addicted to it.
It wasn’t until the last year that I realized what it was doing to me and many other men/boys. I grew up thinking manly men watch porn it’s part of us. Women are beautiful and to think a video affects me more than a real women is deplorable. Unfortunately it is only recently that the syndrome is even being recognized.
For women in a relationship of heavy porn use and lack of sex drive by the man there are addiction experts that have experience with this. Many men don’t realize the effect porn is having because we r bombarded by it in some form or another (including scantily clad women) on a daily basis. Understand your man still thinks your are beautiful but his brain is getting rewired in a very unhealthy way. There are also sexual addiction groups out there as well.
Bobby, would really like to hear your story of recovery. If you are willing to share it my email is, Mr11316@yahoo.com.
I hate to break it to you pal but you have as much responsibility for stepping things up in the bedroom as the woman does. Another untruth so often used in these debates is that women are not visual, sorry but that is bull, women are very visual, I see a super hot man.. I want to f**k him.
Also if you think women don’t get bored in relationships you are having a bloody laugh.
In fact the’s a lot you don’t know about women, first sign you should probably stop watching porn. Actually keep watching it and stay away from real women so they can find a real man.
I totally agree! And I personally feel that no woman should feel she needs to remain faithful to a man that looks at porn. Like you said, it is left out that women have also sex drives, and I have dated men that looked at porn even though I wanted sex every or 3 times a day! I like to have sex & if the man doesn’t meet my standards (i.e. looks at porn) I don’t see it as wrong to cheat on him if he feels so ok to cheat on me with porn.
Yes i agree ,after all it takes two to tango and both partners should make the effot to make there sex life more exiting,i think men just become more set in there ways,and an easy option is porn.a quick lonely fix,ahhhh,so yes we women need an erotic experience to,but i think woman would rather a shared experience,so they will cheat with other men if there partner watches porn.i myself am guilty of this as i no what it feels like to be pushed out by a par tter watching porn,along with all the stupid exuses lies,and feeble justifications they make,i am one off the many women extremely hurt by my partner,as a result i have ended our relationship.porn is cheating.
So look at this double standard. “…they will cheat with other men if their partner watches porn. I myself am guilty of this as i know what it feels like to be pushed out by a partner watching porn…”.
So it is OK for you to cheat your partner with other men (I assume you mean sex) but not OK for him to watch images dealing with a part of human nature that has existed since Adam?
going back to Adam we have had war rape slavery and prostitution,the nature of man,but as old as these actions are they are still not right,through history erotic images have been a celabration of love and fertility.not the hamogonized images we see today,and the extreme lengths women go to ,ie plastic surgery.to please men.now suppose for a while that your woman started watching hundreds of men,for pleasure,and lying about it would you not question yourself as a sexual being,when she has cut herself of from you,making you feel rejected and hurt then you would question every aspect of your relationship,i waited three long years before i had an affair human nature i guess.
Actually mate if you want to bring human nature into it, a woman ideally will ‘mate’ with an alpha male but settle with someone whom women are not going to be so attracted to, to bring up her child, making the changes of him staying around and providing for her and her child more likely, whilst still getting the best genes.
Also I think she said the porn came first before she cheated. It’s pretty simple, if a man is going to invest his sexual energy elsewhere and not with his wife, she will invest hers elsewhere also.
WOW! You are so right. Im a therapist. And it’s not about women not putting out or being creative enough. It’s to do with what porn does to a man’s mind – it rewires it. It creates erectile dysfunction, inorgasmia, and all manner of sexual problems in men. Of the men I have dated, those who watch porn were the worst lovers. And for “a man’s perspective” to say men are just non-emotional creatures who get off on visual – that’s not a man thing. That is a person by person thing. Being raised in a society that teaches men to be that way causes that. Men who escape that conditioning generally don’t behave that way and generally are healthier emotionally and mentally. Men are actually quite emotional, they just stuff it down and try not to feel. All the men Ive come across in the therapy and all the ones Ive dated or heard stories about from all my girlfriends over the decades shows me that men are in fact emotional, they just dont use emotional intelligence to work with their emotions. And it causes all manner of problems, including the huge spike in male depression. If “a man’s perspective” would have read the article closely, he would have seen that there are other systems at play that make women lose interest in having sex with their partners. I’m teaching a class on this actually, teaching men how to make their partners want them, and how to be so good in bed their partners are begging for it. This is where we need to turn our attention. Not as women not “putting out” but at men not being skilled in relationships or in bed — making women want to sleep with them and making women feel good enough to want to have “crazy” sex.
Both is article and the referenced article totally ignores the fact that women were violently raped to create the crap.
Exactly.
And IF men want more sex, why don’t they learn how to turn on the woman they are with instead of demanding of her that she somehow turns herself on for his pleasure, or lets him use her after he has been at the computer?
‘Foreplay’ is actually a demeaning term, come to think of it, for something that most women cannot do without.
Sex is not ‘sticking your penis in a warm hole’.
men don’t care what happens to women as long as they Can watch their disgusting porn
Dear Mari,
Its not just men, lets take a good look at some of the women.
Some women enjoy it and don’t care of the consequecnes it may bring to other women. They are very much aware of how porn effects men, women and children. Do they care? No. Some will even do it for nothing as long as they get all the attention. Some even hate themselves. Whilst women are willing to degrade themseves and have no self worth im affraid we doomed. Its children I feel sorry for.
Exactly, Terre. Once again, another article that ignores the fact that women are raped, tortured and enslaved in order to produce pornographic material! Once again, the only people that seem to be involved with pornography are the sociopathic wankers that consume the pornography and their partners!
Porn hurts women… so say those that are used in order to create pornographic material!
“Language has always been used to destroy the prostituted class, and when our allies are part of that destruction, it cuts deep to the bone.
Your words are silencing us, your words are shattering our hearts – your words remind us the prostituted are the bottom of bottom, and should remain there.
Language round anti-porn work is all about them and us – them being the women inside porn, us being “real” women who may be harmed by porn…”
“The law says everyone except the one filmed or the one bought has free speech. Even the law says it doesn’t matter about the subject being filmed or the one being bought and sold… The pain and violation, the anxiety and overwhelming dread of being filmed repeatedly scratch in my mind – it wants out. I learned to leave in my mind only to be brought back by the pornographer, the next assault, the next man, the next object … like a teased mouse is by a cat! The anguish of watching another girl be hurt knowing it would be my turn next is unspeakable, there are simply no words… I was bought and sold, forced and silenced all for someone else’s few minutes of pleasure… The fact that the films were viewed over and over by numerous men makes the shame encapsulate me strangling me with that horrible silence. The fact that edited footage became enlarged stills for others to gawk at, even now after all these years out and safe, slaps shame and humiliation on me. I believe sometimes that I will live the rest of my life in this filthy lie of silence.”
http://rmott62.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/language-cuts-me-to-the-bone/
I agree Mari, males couldn’t care less about the women they masturbate over or about how their behaviour and their abuse of other women, affect their own partners… pornography users and other consumers in the sex ‘industry’ want access to females slaves… they enjoy seeing women suffer… the only people they are ever concerned about, are themselves.
Many men, if given the choice, would release sexual tension or put some variety into their plain vanilla sex lives by paying a professionally competent woman a decent price for rental of her private parts at a brothel. Women have understood this for ages, thus making prostitution, but not necessarily that confined to the controlled environment of a brothel, the world’s oldest profession.
The way things work in mainstream society is that men have to “earn” sex, in addition to having to bear the responsibility if things go wrong and unintended procreation occurs. Legal brothels allow men to avoid the work of “earning” (= cajoling into?) sex, and ensure that the partner of choice is a willing professional careful enough to avoid any unexpected health or procreational consequences.
Pornography is, for the most part, both boring and silly. What man would want to encounter as sexually voracious a woman as, say, Tori Black, in real life on a regular basis? On the other hand, if a normally horny guy who is unwilling to invest the time and money mainstream society regards as the price he has to pay for a much-needed roll in the hay, pays a hooker €200 for a half hour session, who is exploiting whom? For most people, and not all of them men, porn remains the sexual outlet of choice when nothing better is available. Criminalizing it will only make things worse – for men as well as for women. It is no accident that the sex business is the most profitable industry in the world.
Here again, we have the definition of sex as men taking something from women instead of two people equally enjoying themselves.
I always wonder: why not just masturbating? if you are not actually sharing something with the other person involved in the act, why even bring that person into it?
I think many women turn away from sex because the sex these men have to offer (selfish sex) is not appealing to them.
Here once again the ‘research’ assumes that all women are dead set against pornography. Especially when I was single, I used to watch different videos about once a week to relieve sexual tension.
And can you imagine, I don’t think all men should look like the ones in the video, I don’t think watching this video has turned me into rapist (jeezzz, talking of overreacting). And I really don’t feel that I was cheating with a guy in the video, no more than having fantasies about Leonardo after watching the Titanic.
I know that if I feel like it, I can still watch it again any time. My husband doesn’t care, he is happy with our sex life.
It’s not a question of being allowed to have such thoughts or desires, it’s about keeping them to yourself and the fact that one has to have a private space without judgement or suffocating attention of one’s spouse.
I would never spend my life in a relationship where a bitchy second half is directing my life for me, saying what I can watch or how should I feel about things.
Still I see the author’s point, many women dislike porn. Still many don’t care and even masturbate on a regular basis (this obviously shocks and disgusts all the uptight ladies
How many times will we have to debunk comparisons of porn and hollywood g-rated romantic movies?
I don’t want to be with a man who enjoys seeing girls being humiliated and hurt. I don’t want that bit of information being kept away from me. Why the hiding then if it is just a harmless activity? If you know that your behaviour will offend the person you’re with, why being with that person and lying to her(or him?)?
For women who sense something is amiss, once the truth is known, many things may now be at stake (house, children) making it even more difficult to end the relationship. I do not want to direct anyone, I want to be able to make my judgment (yes, judgement) and take informed decisions: you watch hardcore/mainstream porn? Goodbye.
And again, as others have noted, you do not have a thought to the women on whom sexual torture is being performed on in porn.
‘bitchy’,'uptigh women’… with the tone of your message, I belive you that you do watch porn.
And it still does damage to the viewer, male or female. You forget that as you watch a video, your brain relaxes and parts of it go into a state of receiving. You can be as vigilant as you want, with your conscious mind. The subconscious is always taking in so much more “programming: than you can possibly imagine. Also, the point is not just the “freedom: to watch porn, as you say. Do a little research – look into what the porn industry does to women and men, look into the rape and sex trafficking that is a huge part of it. And you never know which of the actors in the film have ben coerced, forced, raped, etc. By supporting the industry, you are part of this supply and demand chain. Educate yourself about what you are actually participating in when you “innocently” watch some porn. http://www.antipornography.org/home.html
I had to think about this post from Anti Porn Men Project. I actually do believe that prostitution is not a better outlet for men’s sexual interests. Prostitution was mentioned here, so it’s a business worth talking about.
When I think of prostitution, I know it’s historical. But other businesses are historical too, like slavery, indentured servitude, genital modification or mutiliation. These are just as old as prostitution, but do we recommend them because they’ve existed for what seems like forever? Prostitution is a business to serve men. I don’t want to ring hollow words to anyone here, but prostitution as patriarchy still rings true to me. It is a very partiarchal business solely designed for women, girls, or boys to provide a sexual service to men.
The business doesn’t involve mostly adult and competent women who are emotionally all right, rich, and in envy by us. Instead prostitution mostly involves girls and ones who were sold into it. Sex trafficking applies to this demographic of girls. But not all of them were forced into prostitution.
The other girls who actually chose to be involved in prostitution had no options of education, a kind family life, or good welfare to put themselves through college/university to completion and go into a career of law, health, finace, social work, the trades, government. The girls who did choose prostitution as a career for themselves are “damaged” people. They have a history or life of abuse, drug addiction, violence of every kind and a lonely life. These other girls seek out to be prostitutes because it is an easy way to earn money and it’s a business that hasn’t yet failed. So these emotionally as well as physically harmed girls go into prostitution because they can’t earn money or support themselves in better ways.
very good article. Thank you
Great article. Of course it hurts people – everyone involved. God, I wish people had more self-respect and cared more about other people. Viewing porn and buying into the industry is just so selfish.
it’s a problem when they lash out on you!
sex vids by willing couples are fine by me
The whole problem is that male sexuality take up far to much time, money and place.
It is not that important.
If you get in a monogam relationship and you are well and healthy to control yourself:
Masturbate if you feel you are not getting enough.
There are alot of women that don’t feel that they get enough sex from their men.
But they don’t start thousands of discussuin groups, travel agencies etc because of it.
Tone down your sexual drive. It is not a social problem we all have to deal with.
The more we hear about it, the less interested in sex we get.
And if you dont want to live in a monogam relationship, then step up to the responsibility and leave women alone, apart from when you have sex with someone with the same lifestyle.
The problem occur when these men want it all.
A loving and caring wife and mother, and then porn/prostitutes on the side.
what i really like about this article is that there does not seem to be a single solution or step for men who are involved in such debacle to follow or implement.
I would like to explain to you why men do watch such disease, they link at some level of their conscious that watching such garbage gives them pleasure, after all we all know that human being are always trying to gain pleasure and Avoid Pain. So the solution, Hear me Now, is to associate massive, tremendous pain to the idea or thought or belief of watching such sickness ( Porn). If you do so, you are going to trash that thought.
You need to also associate gigantic pleasure to the idea of effacing, getting rid of such trash ( porn), as it created for you nightmare after nightmare. and you are more than this garbage. you can deal with it, because you have the potentiality to efface such garbage from your shelf of thinking.
after associating massive pain to that garbage thing ( porn ), you need to get an alternative, a better one that will make your life more placid. because you have trained you mind a body to watch that sickness, so now even if you hate that garbage and associate massive pain to it, you Now need to get your mind and body watch alternatives, better than this disgusting, nauseating ad sickening thing, to create a new belief for you and support it with references, and these references are the real alternatives to your new exciting belief.
Bottom line, Associate massive, tremendous pain to that sickness and you are granted more happiness.
You are more than that garbage which is controlling you. Are you?
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Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Brilliant article, I am in total agreement. Pornography is destroying relationships, more importantly it is destroying society. Women are being viewed as objects and mens’ lowering of their gaze is destabilising. Before men would look forward to seeing their wives for great sexual intimacy, now they look forward to pornorgraphy.
I would like to add if i may,
Those that have been watching such sicknesses, have been training their mind and body that this is a real pleasure, Which is not, and they have literally created within them morbid patterns, but the best and only way to end, annihilate, and wreck their life at their own hand is to keep nurturing that lethal and deadly pattern.
One of the ways to get rid of any nauseating pattern, is to interrupt it, and the best way to interrupt any pattern is to do something out of the extraordinary, something that is very outrageous with your body and voice that your mind and body does not expect or not used to, because now, your mind and body will be overwhelmed by such an outrageous new pattern that you are starting to nurture and feed whenever that old sickening pattern pops up to you telling you to go back to the fake pleasurable pattern. the exciting thing is that getting rid of your old pattern is more than easy and so is shaping a new one, but the scary news is that if you left your old unhealthy pattern grow and your new pattern die, you are digging a hole for your own self to fall into, and you are stronger than that, and more decisive than that.
Take charge of your own destiny, by reclaiming your true identity, and by making the decision that no more will i settle for that garbage to imprison me, even though you know that it is creating nightmare after nightmare in your life.
Love to hear more from reviewers.
change is easy, staying the same is difficult.
Plenty of women make more money than I’ve ever seen in my life off the porn and prostitution industry. I do not pity them. The “kiddy” porn, however, is evidence of totally dysfunctional men and some women. They should be shot, they have zero value to humanity and are not acting within the natural code of the species. Just off ‘em on sight.
Ladies, its 2012. If you’re with a porn addict, he probably sucks in bed. Life’s too short for crap sex. Save the money on therapy and go buy a shoe collection, and quit fussing over that turd smackin his meat staring at women who will never f*&# him.
Love this post!
Briefly, it isn’t simply jealousy or betrayal, it is the sheer horror of seeing what your partner wants to fantasize to: rape, women tortured and jackhammered and sodomized in further painful position, etc. This may be a man whose soul you loved, you cherished, and then you see what arouses him to ” lovemaking.” Then you learn that this man you trusted enough to let into your life needs to see women masturbated on in the center of a circle jerk of 20 men. This man with whom you’ve created daughters sees female human beings as what they see us as, meat to maturbate into while they imagine engaging in sexual crimes against your entire sex.
And your soul dies a little; it dies a lot. Your safety in every sense of the word is stripped.
And if you complain, mostly what you face is his rage that you might want to infringe upon his freedom, upon his very sexuality. Then you’re committing a crime, because see, women being sexually abused is mainstream and plenty of other women even will validate his right to use women however he sees fit. Don’t think it’s just masturbating to the torture of women. How many women truly consent to being the body used while the mind is thinking “double anal?” That in itself is a form of psychic rape if nothing else.
Women need to just start treating men like shit since they refuse to evolve. I’m tired of forcing myself to be nice to such skunks. Why should I bother when they are creating hell on Earth for me.
Your partners very much prefer to look at proper women whao are not forced, no they fuck out of choice and don’t mind being photographed because they get paid fortunes for it and are not ashamed to show that they can. They are not exploited: they are the exploiters, using men’s need to satisfy their sexual needs to get rich.
Good luck, you old cowardly bunch, you truly are irrelevant, bitching about something that’s been around since Adam.
thank you, thank you so much. thank you for writing what we all feel, the betrayal, the fact that it is done behind our back that gives away the truth about their deep desires, of wanting women to please them, the feeling of being inadequate, absolutely ugly, refused even when you want sex, you want to give it and receive it, but his mind needs those images, it craves them and sooner or later you are no longer enough. and u had trusted him, he doesnt want to objectify you, but he wants to objectify them and they are always in his mind. there is no competition, bt he didnt tell you. he let you beleive that you are the only one, the only one he wants and needs and fantasies upon. he didnt tell you that you cant compete with them, with the images, with women who will do anything for them. it’s just all fucked up, these men, this filth, should just all burn in hell and die!
This is SO spot on!!! Thanks for a seriously great article. Everyone should read this!
It seems that a big issue for both men and women surrounds a low sexual confidence – a fear of expressing and sharing your sexuality openly with your partner. And here we go around thinking that people in today’s sexualized society are all sooo sexually free-spirited…
Another issue is, of course, the general lack of moral consideration and action, and, more importantly, empathy and compassion.
Anti-porn does NOT equal anti-sex – Isn’t that wonderful?
Thank you for writing this article. I’ve been dating my current boyfriend for 3 years now, and it’s still a battle to make him understand what it does to ME when he watches porn. I plan to share this article with him, and hopefully he’ll realize how his behavior is affecting our relationship.