by Pamela Paul
But lately Jessica, a twenty-eight-year-old product manager in New York, and her boyfriend, Joe, have been having “a debate” about his habit. “I don’t have a problem with his pornography, but to be honest, I feel like our sex life isn’t as good as with previous boyfriends.” Joe seems sexually selfish and doesn’t make as much of an effort to please her. Nor is there much sexual energy in the relationship. “Pornography is about him avoiding his own insecurities. It’s safe for him to ‘get’ his fantasy woman without having to risk his self-esteem in any way,” she explains. At a certain point, Jessica said to Joe, “I think you substitute reality with pornography and, as a result, the real live person you’re with isn’t getting the same thing you’re getting.” Joe got defensive. “I use pornography to fall asleep,” he said. “It’s a comfortable place to be for me.”
Many women remark on the lack of foreplay from men who watch a lot of pornography. Because porn is typically about male gratification, it rarely takes the time to plow through any preamble. As Aaliyah, the Southern Baptist from Houston, explains. “I’ve been with guys who watch a lot of porn and that affected how they view sex.” Such men pushed for oral sex all the time, even if she wasn’t interested, and they expected her to be over-the-top enthusiastic about it. The problem, she says, is that in pornography, women are always servicing men. “If some guy is watching porn a lot, they’re not necessarily going to please women in real life because porn never shows that. There’s no foreplay; there’s no romanticizing sex. It’s just, let’s do it.” The first man Aaliyah ever slept with insisted on watching pornography while they had sex. They were both twenty years old. “He’d be watching TV while we were in bed. It definitely distracted him.” Aaliyah also found herself watching rather than focusing on her partner. “It felt like we weren’t even having sex. I was just lying there for him and watching sex on a TV screen.” Meanwhile, the sex itself was far from satisfying. He would just “ram into” her. “That’s the way he knew how to do it.”
Aline Zoldbrod believes many young men today are terrible lovers because they’ve been raised in a pornified culture. “In real life, sexually speaking, women are Crock-Pots and men are microwaves,” the sex therapist explains. “But in pornography, all a man does is touch a woman and she’s howling in delight in two minutes. If men think this is how real women respond, they’re going to be horrible lovers. Today, pornography is so widely used by young men, they learn these falsehoods. That becomes what it takes to arouse them. There’s good evidence that the more men watch porn, the less satisfied they are with their partner’s looks and sexual performance.” And the more skewed their expectations. According to studies conducted on men during the 1970s and 1980s, men who were continually exposed to pornography were more inclined to agree with statements such as “A man should find them, fool them, fuck them, and forget them,” “A woman does not mean ‘no’ unless she slaps you,” and “If they are old enough to bleed, they are old enough to butcher,” demonstrating an increase in what researchers term “sexual callousness” among men who consume porn.5 Habitual male consumers of mainstream pornography—that is, nonviolent but nonetheless objectifying images—appear to be at greater risk of becoming sexually callous toward female sexuality and concerns.6
Women can tell. In a 2003 story in New York magazine, Naomi Wolf wrote, “Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training—and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.” Wolf cites her interviews with college women, who complain about the effects on their sex lives—the “deadening male libido in relation to real women,” the inability of women to be “porn-worthy” in the eyes of young men, the hopelessness of competing on the basis of pornography, and the loneliness induced by porn-infused sex.
Not knowing who to turn to when their boyfriends turn away from them and toward pornography, many women write in to magazine advice columnists for help or ask for support in online forums. Female-oriented Internet communities (chat rooms, bulletin boards, online forums, etc.) teem with discussions on the subject. Every week, an advice columnist across the country addresses the issue; presumably many similar letters go unanswered in print. A woman from Atlanta writes in to “Playboy Advisor,” of all places: “My boyfriend is 28, reads Playboy, goes to the mall during lunch to check out chicks with his 20-year-old friends, spends around $100 a month on Internet porn, not to mention all the free photos and movies he downloads, and has at least 1,600 images in ‘secret’ places on his computer…. He constantly asks me to dress like I’m a 15-year-old slut and doesn’t think twice about starting a fight because I won’t wear sluttier clothes…. Do you honestly think he doesn’t have a problem with porn obsession?”7 Another woman writes to a local newspaper, “We’ve been together five years, lived together half that time…. Recently, I discovered via the computer that he’s fascinated by hardcore pornography, lots of it. When confronted, he said I have no right to be upset, though he’s aware it offends me; he insisted I let it go. He’s still spending hours looking at this and I’m disgusted…. I feel I’m not going to be able to satisfy his urges because I’m unwilling to do what really turns him on. I’ve tried to discuss how degrading and controlling this seems to me but he’s not willing to give it up. I know many people think it’s harmless, but it’s making me question whether I’m willing to continue a relationship with someone who can disregard my feelings so easily.”8
Time for Porn
A man has only so much sexual energy. Especially once he’s past his sexual peak and easing into his thirties, it’s not easy to reach orgasm two or three times a day. Many men are drawn to pornography because it’s an emotionally and physically easier route to sexual satisfaction than dealing with another human being, even a willing partner, wooing and pleasing her. Yet pornography further drains men of sexual and emotional energy. In the 2004 Elle-MSNBC.com poll, 45 percent of men who used Internet pornography for five or more hours per week said they were masturbating too much, and one in five confessed they were having sex less often with their partners. Which isn’t surprising, given that 35 percent said real sex with a woman had become less arousing and 20 percent admitted real sex just couldn’t compare to cybersex anymore. “What bothers me is, he claims he’s too tired to make love with me, yet he’s not too tired to go to these sites and pleasure himself,” writes a woman named Madison on the Web site iVillage, under the heading “Husband Porn Watching Hurts My Feelings.” “As far as me not being able to reach orgasm, this is going to sound a wee bit gross, but I am able to reach orgasm … just not with him anymore…. He’s turned me down so many times claiming he’s tired that I often take care of it myself.” Dear Dr. Shoshannah, writes another woman on iVillage, to the resident advice columnist, “My husband won’t stop looking at porn. He knows that I don’t approve and how much it hurts me, but he still does it…. The worst part is that I know he does it while I’m at work, and he’s home with our 10 month old son. How can I make him stop?”9
Many men nonetheless feel the right to reserve a place and time for their pornography. Jonah, the religious-school teacher, cherishes his time alone with porn, a time when he can pursue interests that exclude his fiancee. He likes to view hardcore S&M, going through different phases and fetishes: women in prison, genital torture, rape enactments, water bondage. It excites him to see a woman restrained and helpless, with the man firmly in control. “I like to hear women crying out in pain,” he says. “I have these impulses and dark desires, and porn is a way to vent them in a healthy way.”
What Jonah likes in pornography is not necessarily how he lives out sex in real life. Though he admits to harboring a lot of anger, he considers himself gentle and considerate, not violent in the least. His sex life with Stephanie, his fiancee and girlfriend of six years, sticks to the tame side. He would like to try light bondage with her—just tying her up, no violence—and she has agreed, but Jonah fears being out of control with her; it’s saf
er to confine those desires to porn. And that means he’s getting sexual satisfaction from someone else. “I’ve had moments where I felt like, I shouldn’t be doing this, I should be having sex with Stephanie instead,” he admits. “If I would rather masturbate to other women in porn, then it was like I was stepping out on Stephanie. That I wasn’t devoting that time to improving our sex life or to our relationship meant something was very wrong with us.”
Never mind what a man looks at—where does he get the time? Take your average husband and father. A full-time job often means he’s up at six and out of the house by 7:30. Sometimes he goes to the gym after work, but usually he comes straight home for dinner. He would like an hour with the kids at night, to spend more time with his wife, to get in some reading. But there’s always something that needs to get done—the dog to be walked, bills to be paid, a bit of housework perhaps. On weekends, he’s running between the kids’ soccer game, Home Depot, and the occasional round of golf. An extra two or three hours for pornography every week necessarily takes away from something. Of course, it’s conceivable that he’s all caught up with everything and has time to spare that couldn’t be better spent with friends, his wife, his kids, his parents, or himself—reading, improving his tennis game, catching up on paperwork. But for many men, pornography takes away from time and energy that could be better spent on marriage and family.
Tina Tessina, a psychotherapist in Long Beach, California, notes that in her practice problems related to pornography are the impetus for one-fourth of the couples who seek counseling. “It keeps men from dealing with problems that exist in their marriages,” she says. “And they need to talk about that, rather than substitute those emotional and sexual needs with porn. It’s avoidance.” Couples, particularly dual-career couples, already complain about how little time there is for their spouses and families. Imagine the toll that devoting five or so hours a week to pornography takes on family life. Meals that could have been prepared and eaten together, homework that could have been pored over, family movies that could have been watched in each other’s company. Imagine the anxiety and tension caused to a mother who knows her husband is online looking at pornography while his son is desperate for Daddy’s company.
Pornography isn’t just about how the wife and kids feel. Not surprisingly, researchers have found that prolonged exposure to pornography fosters male sentiments against having a family at all. For those who already have a family, the urge is to withdraw. In 2000, psychiatrist Jennifer P. Schneider conducted a study of ninety-one women and three men whose spouses or partners had become involved in cybersex. Among couples with children, 37 percent reported that children lost parental time and attention due to a parent’s online sexual activities.10 In the 2004 Elle-MSNBC.com poll, men confessed that online pornography was eating up hours formerly devoted to other things. One in five said pornography took away from time they used to spend working, and another fifth said it took time away from hours they used to devote to their partner or their children. Heavier users (five hours or more online per week) were more likely to experience the crunch: 37 percent said time had been eked away from work and 37 percent admitted it took time previously devoted to family.
Furthermore, that so many men consider pornography a private matter, one hidden or downplayed, necessarily creates distance with girlfriends and wives. According to Schwartz, no matter how you look at it, pornography is always a sign of disconnection; those who seek it out often do so because of boredom or dissatisfaction elsewhere in their lives, particularly in their relationships. In his research he’s seen a “whole new epidemic,” largely related to the Internet, of people using pornography to disconnect from their wives. “If porn is increasing involvement with your partner—you’re getting turned on and then running to be with your wife, that’s one thing,” he says. “But we’re seeing more men and women with an intimacy disorder, having trouble connecting with their spouse.”
Jealousy
Bridget, a thirty-eight-year-old accountant from Kentucky, had been married for seven years when she witnessed something curious. One evening, she walked into the family’s home office and could have sworn she saw a pornographic image flicker across the computer screen in front of which her husband, Marc, sat staring raptly. In a second, it was gone, but Bridget’s suspicions were aroused. A few days later, Bridget was using the computer when she saw a strange file listed among the downloads. She opened it to an unmistakably pornographic photo. “I got butterflies in my stomach,” she recalls. “I didn’t know what to do or say or how to handle it.” Bridget decided to confront Marc outright. He said it wasn’t his—but who else was there? Of her two sons, the elder, thirteen at the time, lived with his father, her first husband. Her younger son was only eight. “I knew Marc was lying,” she says. “And I felt awful.” But the couple was on their way to a dinner party and Bridget let it go.
She couldn’t stop thinking about it all night. Was this the man she married? Marc had been an exemplary stepfather. A respected man in their hometown. He sang in the church gospel choir. He worked for the state government. Most of his friends were people he had met through church and he was greatly admired by his peers. “When we married, everybody told me what a great guy he was,” Bridget recalls. Bridget broached the subject again when they got home. After asking him about it repeatedly, Marc confessed everything. He had been using pornography on a regular basis throughout their marriage—with careful precautions. Pornographic magazines had been delivered to their home in plain wrappers. He religiously deleted the pornography he looked at online (except for that fateful oversight). When looking wasn’t feasible at home, he went to adult bookstores and spent money on XXX movies there instead.
Bridget couldn’t get over the rejection. “He chose to dwell on these images of other women when he could have been with me at any time,” she says. She thought back over their life together. In recent years. Marc hadn’t seemed as sexually interested in her; Bridget felt dissatisfied by the frequency with which they had sex. “When I found out he was looking at all this porn, I felt like I had just been thrown away.”
According to Lonnie Barbach, a sex therapist in Long Beach, California, when a wife finds out her husband has been using pornography, she feels as if she’s not good enough: “Otherwise, why would he be seeking this?” Evan, a twenty-one-year-old college junior majoring in computer science, admits there’s truth to women’s fears. One of his ex-girlfriends was bothered by his pornography. “She took it as a personal insult,” he recalls. “She felt like she wasn’t good enough.” If his girlfriend saw him reading Maxim or Playboy or watching a DVD, she would say, “Why do you want to look at that? Aren’t I good enough?” The truth, Evan admits, is she wasn’t. No woman can possibly be as attractive or sexy as the women in pornography—that’s why Evan likes them so much. Moreover, his girlfriend had some self-esteem issues. No matter how many times he told her she was just as good as the women in porn, she wanted him to stop looking. Evan felt as though she was fishing for compliments.
No matter what men tell women, many women feel “less than” the porn girls to whom their boyfriends seem so sexually drawn. As Mark Schwartz of the Masters and Johnson clinic explains, “Imagine if you’re a man who has gained some weight and your wife began to subscribe to a magazine where every month she looks at six-pack abs and says, ‘Wow, check out those muscles.’ Think about how the man would feel. Each time a man looks at a picture of a woman who’s eighteen and airbrushed, it’s an insult to the woman he’s with. He’s basically saying, ‘This is what really turns me on—not the woman besides me.’”
When Mia and Jesse started dating, she noticed he had stolen cable. As a lark, the two of them began watching porn movies together. At first, Mia, a thirty-four-year-old New Yorker, was into it. There was the novelty factor and a bit of the risque. “I wanted to be the cool girlfriend,” Mia says. “Like, I’ll be cool and watch porn and fuck you. I didn’t want to come across as Pollyanna-ish.” But before long, Mia
realized Jesse wasn’t watching pornography quite so cavalierly; he insisted they turn on the TV before fooling around and gazed intently at porn movies while they had sex. He seemed more turned on by the television than he was by her. “I’m tired,” he would announce during sex and would lose his erection.
“There was something about him needing the objectification of another woman to turn him on,” Mia says. “Then he could transfer that excitement to my body.” She didn’t feel they were truly connecting. “I’ve had one-night stands that were more intimate,” she says. Finally, one night in bed, Mia asked Jesse to turn off the porn. Jesse demurred: “I really like it. It makes me feel more turned on.” Mia began wondering if something was wrong with her. Her sexual needs weren’t being satisfied; perhaps she was oversexed. Her self-esteem plummeted. “I began feeling very insecure about my body image and I had never been self-conscious before in my life,” she says. “I started feeling like I was fat. Like I wasn’t sexy enough.”
In Glamour magazine (interestingly, the same issue that encouraged women to give porn a chance), an article on body image included “the explosion of porn” on a list of reasons why women struggle with their appearance. The article cited a woman who works in a treatment center for eating disorders describing her female patients bemoaning the effect that the pornified culture has on their body image: “They think the guys who look at it are creeps, but they also wonder how they can live up to the surgically enhanced breasts on unnaturally thin women. And they say it’s hard to find a guy whose standards haven’t been distorted by porn or the media.”11