As easy as porn is to access, it still requires contact with the devices that store and deliver it, money if it is not free, time to peruse it, and privacy from the potentially critical and judging eyes of others. When these conditions are lacking, it is more difficult, and thus less likely, for someone to have an encounter with porn. Lifestyle choices in which porn is not a high priority and in which contact with porn requires an extraordinary effort, tend to inhibit a person’s use of it.
Jack, for example, loves his job working as a manager in a sporting goods store. He lives with several other male roommates who are more into cooking organic food meals, practicing yoga, reading books, and hanging out with lovers and friends than being alone in their rooms. They have an old television and video player they use so infrequently Jack isn’t sure it still works. Jack uses a computer at work for keeping track of inventory and communicating with other stores and suppliers, but he doesn’t like being in front of it for very long, preferring instead to be out on the floor talking with customers. In his free time he likes to be outdoors as much as possible, interacting with nature and not plugged into an artificial world of sights and sounds.
For Jack, getting involved with porn again now would require him to go out of his way to get it and find the time to do it. He told us he barely has time to do the many other things he enjoys doing. Porn is not his first, second, or even fifth priority among the many things he wants to surround himself with and spend his time on.
Even in these days of “free” porn over the Internet, financial concerns can limit the contact some people have with porn. Buying videos, DVDs, and devices to play them on costs money, as does paying to enter many porn Web sites and download materials. Frank, for example, told us he refrains from buying porn because he doesn’t like the idea of spending his hard-earned money on a sexual fantasy product. “I’ve never ever been interested in paying for any kind of pornography. That seems ridiculous. I’d feel like I was being duped and exploited.”
No matter what the reason for limiting contact with porn—time, money, or priorities—when your exposure to porn is reduced, it has an inhibiting effect on your present or future involvement with porn. It’s a lot like getting over an ex-lover—the less contact you have, the easier it is to move on with your life.