The Hidden Truth Behind Porn…Time To Talk About It.

Words of Wisdom: Weekly wit from the man who's done (almost) everything wrong!

By: Sean Weeks

Pornography. It feels almost like a bad word. It’s taboo, or is it. Over the years, and more so in recent times, it is becoming more and more prevalent. It is seeping into popular culture, gaining societal acceptance, and becoming more and more flaunted in our faces. It seems like wherever we turn now adays, it’s there, in our faces. This is especially true in the digital world of the internet and our smartphones. It used to be, back in my younger days, that we had to hunt for it. We had to search through our parent’s secret caches under their beds or steal bits and pieces from our bachelor-uncle’s apartment. We stashed away what little we could find and felt lucky for whatever little material we could acquire. It wasn’t talked about. It’s use was denied. It was shameful and hidden. It was low-budget, poorly made and distributed, less hard-core and explicit, and limited in content and availability, especially for adolescents.

Now, with the proliferation of smartphones and internet access, any person, regardless of age, location, sex, or economic status, can literally access an unlimited amount of any imaginable variety of sexually explicit videos, pictures, and live video and message chats. Think about that for a moment. An impressionable 13-year-old boy who, 25 years ago, may have had access to a few hours’ worth of mildly hard-core pornography videos and a couple of well-used nude magazines, now has, at his fingertips, unlimited access to millions of hours of extremely hard-core, fetish, and extreme pornography videos and picture – all for free and with much of it unregulated. Scary.

To make the situation worse, the use of porn is becoming socially acceptable. It is almost a given now that most men (and an increasing number of women, too) view porn on a regular basis. It is a multi-billion-dollar industry and is readily distributed to every corner of the world thanks to the internet. There is also a huge proliferation of free available content out there with virtually no accountability of age requirements. It has become the popular view that everybody does it, and that there are no real consequences for it, that it doesn’t hurt anybody. Now, I hate to be the one who bursts your happy pornography bubble, but nothing could be further from the truth.

For the person using porn in a relationship, they most likely are not using it because of some inadequacy in their spouse. Generally, though not always, they are using it as a means for no pressure, instant gratification, for an immediate release, to fire the dopamine receptors in the brain, for stress release, and because they are used to it. There is nothing wrong with their spouse, their sex life, and they don’t see it as a betrayal of their partner. They think they are engaging in a socially acceptable activity that is all about them. In most cases, they are not interacting with real people. They don’t see it as cheating and have not been educated on the consequences it’s use has in a relationship. They also don’t understand the addictive nature of pornography and what it does to the user’s brain. When used regularly, especially from a young age, pornography changes the wiring in your brain the same way addictive drugs do. It stimulates the addiction pathways in your brain, stimulates the release of dopamine, and hits those pleasure-centers in your brain in a way that leads to addictive behavior. This “rewiring” of your brain opens dangerous doors that can have a really detrimental affect on your life and relationship.

One of the doors it opens leads to what I like to refer to as “upping the ante”. This is when the porn you are viewing no longer does it for you. This is the same effect as developing a tolerance to a drug or alcohol. You need to consume more to achieve the effect you are looking for. With porn, this can manifest in consuming more and more. I will talk about this further in a minute. It also manifests in the user going to more and more explicit forms pf pornography. The user needs something more exciting to get that fix. This can then lead to explicit communication with live people. Now, the user has definitely crossed the line to overt cheating.

The other path it leads to is the consuming of an ever-increasing amount of porn. This takes the user to a place where, as in drug abuse, the use of porn starts to interfere with their daily life. This is a huge problem and a red flag that this has become unhealthy and is an addiction. At this point, the porn use is overtly affecting their relationship. Both of these paths have led to a betrayal and trauma in the relationship.

The other problem with the proliferation of porn is that, especially with males and especially when viewed from a young age, it engrains a skewed view of what sex should be like in their impressionable brains. Remember, pornography is NOT real life. It is a fictitious representation of what sex and is made for the purpose of ENTERTAINMENT. Pornography is NOT sex education. While there are aspects of it that we may incorporate into our sex lives, it is not how sex usually is in the real world, or in a loving, mutually respectful relationship. People develop unrealistic expectations of their future partners and of themselves that will never be lived up to in a healthy life and marriage. It changes the young male’s view of women in the sense that, instead of seeing women as equal participants and human beings, they are viewed as sex objects to be used for their pleasure.

For women in particular, pornography use in their spouse has some very negative effects that are not often understood by their partner. While it usually has absolutely nothing to do with their spouse, for the spouse, it causes feelings of inadequacy. It makes them feel not good enough. It makes them (especially women) feel like they need to measure up to the looks and perform the acts of a porn star. It makes them feel like their spouse wants something else. They, in their head, create an unrealistic expectation of themselves that they could never live up to. It causes betrayal trauma. It brings up the same feelings as infidelity, more so if the porn use is done in secret. These effects are absolutely real and normal. The partner (especially men) does not understand because this was not at all what it was about for them. They tend to downplay the consequences, making their spouse feel crazy and invalidated. It took me educating myself and accepting some hard truths to be able to stop this habit and start to heal us from this very real trauma in our marriage.

As with any problem, education and acceptance is the key to understanding and healing. While popular culture leans more and more to minimizing and normalizing pornography use, the real, negative effects it has on our life and relationships remain. While I am not here to dictate your morals and beliefs, I will strongly urge you to educate yourself on the realities of porn use and it’s affect on your spouse. We have many great resources about pornography on our resource page on the website. I encourage you and your spouse to start a conversation. You may be surprised what good can come of bringing things out in the open. Have an open, honest conversation about pornography…Confidently!

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