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July 25, 2013   ·   0 Comments

Question: I recently discovered that my husband has been using Internet pornography in a big way. He says it’s just fantasy and a “normal guy thing” and that I shouldn’t be so upset about it – that men have a greater sex drive and need for variety. But I feel betrayed – like he’s cheating on me. It makes me feel like there’s something wrong with me, otherwise why would he need to use that stuff?

Answer (continued): Regular or obsessive pornography use acts on the brain like other forms of conditioning. In the famous example of Pavlov’s dogs, they were conditioned by pairing feedings with bell ringing. Eventually, the ringing of the bell even in the absence of food would cause the dogs to salivate. In the same way, repeatedly pairing the pleasures of arousal and orgasm with pornographic images conditions the user to respond sexually mainly or sometimes only to these types of images. This can make it difficult or impossible for chronic users to experience arousal and orgasm with a real woman without resorting to these images in the form of fantasies. Such fantasies during sex can interfere with true intimacy and the bonding that sex can provide in a relationship.

As for the notion that it’s all fantasy and easily distinguished from real sex, one has only to listen to teens in the current generation who are getting most of their sex education from porn. As one sex educator has noted, watching porn is like watching the highlight reels in sports. You only see the goals, not all the play that went before. Teens and others easily pick up the notion that repeated bouts of vigorous penetration and even ejaculation on women’s faces are what sex is all about. And because the actors in hard-core porn are all genitally hairless to make acts of penetration more visible, many sexually active teens remove all their pubic hair. Just fantasy, you say?

Alison Kerr, Ph.D.,

Psychotherapist

905 936-2400 or

allikerr@rogers.com

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