Use of Porn - Yay or Nay?

[monkey 014]

I’m feeling confused about the conflicting information in the media about whether porn is healthy and a normal aspect of sexuality, or life-ruining and addictive and prevents one from having intimacy. I feel confident in my body and my sexuality, and I masturbate every day or every two days (I only figured out how to do so this summer; I guess the novelty hasn’t worn off yet) and I used a mix of short naturalistic porn clips and literary erotica. I’m overwhelmed because there are articles and studies that say porn is natural and perfectly healthy when used in moderation, but then you have different studies and statistics and first-hand accounts about how supposedly porn warps one’s sexuality and prevents one from having relationships and intimacy and is addictive and life-ruining, and then I feed bad about using porn. I don’t think that I am addicted or will become addicted; I don’t want to consume porn 24/7, I just use it when I masturbate, but I guess some people can have more addictive personalities, so I can understand how porn can be like a gateway drug.

Thanks for any advice!

[Johanna]

Hi monkey. You did not state whether you are looking for experiences and thoughts from other users, or for input from the staff, so I am just going to link you to one of our articles on the topic for now, and you can let us know what you are looking for specifically

Looking, Lusting and Learning: A Straightforward Look at Pornography

[monkey 014]

Sorry about that! I guess I'm just looking at input from the staff, and whether porn can prevent intimacy in relationships (and why there are such polar opposite reactions to porn in the media).

[Heather]

The thing is, almost anything can get in the way of intimacy if people let it. In other words, if someone is basically using the time and energy they have for intimacy with something in such a way, or so much, that there really isn't room for anyone or anything else, it can create problems.

The tricky bits with pronography and this have a lot to do with the fact that we live in a very sex-negative world, and porn is one of those things a lot of people are very invested in controlling and maligning. (Though oddly enough, the groups who are usually most invested in doing this tend to be the groups who, themselves, use it most. Ah, the sweet smell of hypocrisy in the morning.)

So, this is one of those things where a person will figure out, over time, what works in their lives and doesn't. If and when you find porn is having a negative impact on your life in any way, then you can simply make adjustments with it, like what kind of pornography you are using, how much/often, or when. While some people have issues with compulsive behaviour - and that can be something that plays out with porn, just like it can with food, jogging or almost anything - so porn use can become compulsive, that is really about the bigger underlying issue, not whatever thing they are being compulsive with, if you follow. Most people can easily make changes to their porn habits if and when they are not working for them, or it is standing in the way of any other part of their lives.

[Keda]

I know I'm not staff, sorry I just have a quick suggestion which might help you get deeper into the issues you want to ask about.

Whenever I'm dealing with a "Does x lead to y?" question, I find the best place to start is by asking "How would that work?". How do the people saying that, for example, porn gets in the way of intimacy, describe the process of what happens there to make intimacy harder or impossible?

If you can weasel out the reasons, you can decide whether or not they sound right to you. And if you can't find any reasons, it's probably a spurious argument.