Is pornography killing the intimacy of our sexual lives?
I don’t normally agree with Russell Brand on anything, but I randomly stumbled upon this video he made recently, and I have to say, the crazy drag queen has a point.
I decided to quit watching porn as a New Years resolution this year (and by quit, I mean I am allowed to watch it once per week). I know you are probably thinking that is crazy since I am a guy, who is gay, so I masturbate at least once a day, but hear me out:
I believe that watching porn desensitizes us to our actual intimate and sexual lives. The sex depicted in porn is not actually a good representation of actual sex (a lot less fumbling, for one thing), but it also leaves out the intimacy and emotions involved in sex.
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Watching pornography turns us into voyeurs, when in reality, actual sex is more about the way it feels to be touched, licked, sucked, penetrated, and possibly electrocuted, or whatever you are into. The way sex looks is only a small fragment of the whole experience, and no matter how hard you try (I’ve tried), you will not get the lighting right to re-create an actual porno-like experience.
Watching porn kills our creative sexuality, and creates unrealistic expectations of our partners. When you masturbate, you are supposed to think about the things that turn you on and let your brain function as a creative sexual machine. Your brain has to create these experiences and images.
When you watch porn, you just look at these images, and don’t have to do anything except jerk off or rub your muff. This also poses a problem, because you will expect all your sexual partners to act like porn stars, and may find yourself acting like one, instead of following your in-grained sexual instincts.
Lastly, kids today have WAY too much access to porn. We have no idea how this is going to effect them, since the closest thing we had to porn in our adolescence was men’s magazines hidden underneath futon mattresses, and grainy, pixelated .jpeg images that took 3 hours to download via dial-up connection.
My point is, our sex lives should be something we are deeply connected to, and the acts we partake in should speak to a deeper part of ourselves, a part that can only be reached through penetration by a real-life live action penis.
Porn takes away from this part of human nature, so while I enjoy it as much as the next guy, I am sticking to my once a week pornography restriction.
And just in case you want to know, my sex life has gotten better since I stopped watching porn. I have even jerked off thinking about my significant other, if you can believe it.
I know, all the married guys reading this just dropped their dicks on the floor in shock and awe. But whatever, that’s why I decided to quit watching porn.
