Monday, May 6, 2013

Does Porn Take the Sex Out of Sex?


Porn is back in the news. A recent study published by the Journal for Sexual Medicine has argued that porn watching by young Dutch adults had little measurable effect on behavior.

Nowadays we are rightly skeptical of social science research, especially the kind that comes out of the Netherlands. See the case of Diederick Stapel.

Commenting on the study in the Wall Street Journal Holly Finn points out that many young women have been distressed to find that young men who learned about sex from pornography want to model their sexual encounters on what they have seen on the screen.

A woman who feels that she is being auditioned for a role in the next Vivid production does not feel loved or cherished. She feels like she is being used. Unsurprisingly, this is a turnoff.

Finn reports on one young woman’s experience:

This woman finds herself repeatedly in porn-informed situations that are unpleasing, even unpleasant, while—crucially—her partner feels nothing's amiss.

One is naturally curious to know whether these situations involve one man or a series of men.  Random, anonymous hook ups are more likely to involve pornification. To be fair, we have been hearing stories of how porn-watching can influence the sex life of married couples.

Still, if you don’t know who you are in bed with you are more likely to objectify your partner and to try to mimic what you see in pornography.

By now, no one is surprised to learn that men who watch too much porn tend to objectify women.

Beyond that, it is also an addictive substance. Males, in particular, are especially susceptible to becoming pornoholics. My previous post here.

Unfortunately, overexposure to porn changes the way you respond to sexual stimuli. Today’s neuroscience explains what happens.

In Finn’s words:

Repetitive viewing of pornography resets neural pathways, creating the need for a type and level of stimulation not satiable in real life. The user is thrilled, then doomed. But the evolutionary plasticity of our mind makes this damage reversible. In "The Brain That Changes Itself," psychiatrist Norman Doidge writes about patients who overused porn and were able to quit, cold turkey, and change their brains back. They just had to stop watching it. Completely.

Again, this is not news. Nor is the cure. Psychiatrists know well that the cure for an addiction to pornography is to stop watching porn. In time the brains of pornoholics revert to normal functioning.

Yet, porn does have its defenders. Among them is Aleks Krotoski who wrote a spirited article about the value of pornography two years ago in the London Guardian.

Krotoski found something positive about pornography. She argued that it can contribute to sexual enlightenment.  Thus, it would have a didactic function.

She noted that young people who watch porn tend to have a more open and frank attitude toward sexuality. She did not explain why it is such a good thing to speak so openly and frankly about sex. After all, there might be a reason why women invariably call sex: “intimacy.”

Krotoski wrote:

This interactive relationship with explicit content offers the possibility of ushering in a new age of sexual enlightenment: by having the opportunity to get involved with and generate sexual material, people are learning to express themselves as sexual beings and to develop a deeper understanding of what does and doesn't excite them. But in a culture that ridicules, vilifies and commercialises sex, this is laden with politics.

I hope everyone is amused to learn that, since British culture commercializes sex it cannot approve of porn. As though porn is anything but commercialized sex.

And, by the way, how can a culture commercialize sex while at the same time ridiculing and vilifying it? Krotosky should think before she writes.

Of course, pornography is not a guide for exploring what does and does not excite. It influences and even changes what stimulates people sexually. It is not good news to learn that a teenager who is numbed by porn to the point where he can only become aroused by pictures of violent degradation should believe that he has discovered something about his sexuality.

Pornoholics are driven to seek out more degrading and debasing material. That tells us that pornoholism causes people to modify their preferences?

Naturally, we are all in favor of enlightenment. But just as there are limits to how much pornography is good for you, there are limits to how much light we should be shedding on sex.

We have been reliably informed, by no less than St. Augustine, that most human beings have sex in private, not in public. In many cases they go so far as to have sex in the dark. Few people have sex in view of others; fewer still do it on the public square. Perhaps there’s a reason why we call the genitals “private parts.” Absent the mystery desire cannot survive.

This is so for one obvious reason. You are less likely to desire what you already have, in abundance. If sex is no longer a scarce commodity, but has been commoditized to the point where it is readily available to anyone then it will cease to be desirable.

Ultimately, sex via porn cannot be satisfying because the individual qua individual cannot be involved. If the porn is directed to just anyone its viewer is reduced to the status of just anyone. Thus, he is being depersonnalized.

The increasing availability of porn has demystified sex to the point where we have taken the sex out of sex. 

4 comments:

Lastango said...

"The increasing availability of porn has demystified sex to the point where we have taken the sex out of sex."

I had never thought of it that way, but you make an excellent point. Now that you bring it up, I believe I have seen over-exposure and premature exposure work this way in other contexts too.

For instance, when I was a young child, owning a motorcycle was a fantasy. Now, parents buy dirt bikes for their 5-year-olds. When someone's excitement threshold is raised to a high level at such a young age, what's left? Can they still be thrilled by a trip to Disneyland? If not, have such youngsters ceased to be children in some important ways?

I really like "porn-informed situations" as a term of reference. I've read of some that make me laugh, like the young man off at college who, having his first actual sex, thought the was supposed to withdraw at climax and spew all over the woman's torso.

But then there are the sad stories, like the one you cite regarding pubic hair removal, or the husband who insists on a certain act (which, out of respect for the blog and its readers I won't mention) which leaves her feeling horrible, ugly, and like a dehumanized, role-playing stand-in instead of like a cherished partner and wife.

Also, there may be general risks associated with coarsening. One anecdote that has stuck with me relates to how vulgarity can pry apart the bonds of intimacy:

"I contend that swearing in general has lowered our language skills and is the rotting of virtually all meaningful relationships," says Mr. Rinderle, who was married for 28 years before his 1987 divorce. "To this day I often reflect that swearing was the beginning and perpetual fuel of my marriage decline."

I suspect we're going to regret our descent into pornspace.

Dennis said...

One of the things that makes life interesting and worth living is the risks, challenges, rewards, surprises, chaos and the mysteries that each of us confront in our daily life. It would seem to me that anything that adds a "sameness" to one's life will lead to a boredom and a lack of ability to just enjoy all that is around us.
Pornography is like makeup for a woman. A little enhances her already good looks where a lot just makes a mockery of her beauty. A little pornography might enhance sex where too much makes one a "watcher" instead of a doer. It makes sex into a mundane affair instead of an exploration of each person's sexuality and sensuousness. Too much sexual and not enough sensual.
The preparation for the meal is what makes the meal so much more enjoyable.

Anonymous said...

The expansion of porn availability and culture must have some impact. I assert Krotoski's idea of “sexual enlightenment “ leaves many women feeling treated as material objects. “50 Shades of Grey” may make for tantalizing smut, but that doesn’t elevate it to a desired lifestyle. Even in private.

No one wants to be used. Everyone wants to be valued. Let's be honest, you have to believe in your own value before anyone else will. When a woman allows her physical appearance to define her value, she’s trapped. When a woman’s sexual performance defines her value in they eyes of another, she’s screwed. Literally. It has nothing to do with love. Love is beyond value. For most, it is sacred. Yet there's little for the sacred and/or mysterious in our hyper-sexualized culture. That puts the onus on women to declare how they will be treated and carry themselves, as their comportment sends signals about their self-image and value. Check out the dictionary definition of dignity, as it is truly enlightening.

I've commented a few times here about how disturbed I am with how young women (high school and younger) dress-up for events, from innocuous holiday celebrations (Easter brunch) to 8th grade graduation. It is such a contradiction. Today's young woman is told she can have it all... the sky's the limit to her ambition, success and happiness. But what is most interesting in the last decade or two is how provocatively-dressed young women are. The contradiction is that we tell young women they can be whatever they want in their equality to boys/men, but then we encourage them to flaunt biological advantages on the most primitive level. It’s overt sexualization as an instrument of power for girls 12-17 years. That’s “equality”? Yet we’re simultaneously against teen pregnancy and sentimentally wonder why so much of the innocence and magic of youth are gone. It’s a lack of adult leadership. Don't want to be treated like an object? I get it, I wouldn't want to, either. Then don't present yourself as an object. Present yourself as the glorious human being you are, beyond what Yoda described as this "crude matter."

Dignity doesn't come from the package you're in or the ways you adorn yourself. It comes from inside. I guess that's called your humanity and your soul. If that's old-fashioned and irrelevant, then I'm not sure where the libertine advocates are leading us. I've met women who were average-looking and quiet about their sexuality who were the most desired women in the room. Explain that to me. We have a culture that’s driven by excitement and plays lip service to “sustainability” as language reserved for the ecosystem. If we applied it to sustainable love, we might get better results in the divorce rate, STDs, out-of-wedlock births, etc. Instead we’re told it’s “complicated,” as if the ecosystem were not. More silliness.

That comment that Frank made on another post Saturday about the "Lazy but Talented" T-shirt he saw really made an impact on me. I can't get that slogan out of my mind. I guess the whole porn thing takes it to a new level, eh? A woman walks into a bar and says "I'm lazy in my efforts to find a mutually loving, meaningful relationship, but I'm a porn star in the sack... whaddaya think of that?" Do you think that woman will get attention? Will it be the kind that will bring her long-term happiness? I'm sure the libertines will tell me I'm being judgmental and it doesn't matter. I suspect that it does matter to the vast majority of women.

There's no ban on porn, and limited restrictions anyway, so the cat's out of the bag. However, the idea that people are responsible for their own choices is as important here as it is anywhere else. I'm not going to feel sorry for people who choose to be bored (or ill-used) in bed. Check your premises. Pleasure is a component of life, not the purpose.

Tip

Larry Sheldon said...

I don't notice the problem here, but I have not read every word yet.

But it IS important that this point must be made:

Whether good or bad, there is no call nor right for legislators to impose their opinions on others.

We have the identical situation with the outlawing of 16 oz, drinks.