Another factor that accelerates porn use is having difficulty with intimate relationships. Many of the people we counsel and talk with who have developed serious problems with porn will say things like, “Intimate relationships are too much work,” “I’m not comfortable sharing how I feel,” “Sex is about having a good time, not about love,” and “There is no way I could be fully truthful in an intimate relationship.”
Porn can be an attractive sexual outlet for anyone who dislikes or is uncomfortable opening up to another human being, being vulnerable with others, or caring for someone else’s needs and desires. Real relationships are work. Porn comes easy, so to speak. As Pastor Jim Thomas shared, “In porn, the sexual response occurs outside the context of a relationship. This feels preferable to some boys and men who don’t know how or are afraid to get close to a female. Sexually, males are hardwired to be able to go right from their eyes to their reproductive organs. With porn, they get the message that it’s okay to react like that on their own. Porn use becomes a way they can experience sex without the complexities of a relationship.”
A primary reason Jackson, a twenty-six-year-old law clerk, increased his involvement with porn was because it shielded him from possible criticism and rejection. He said, “When I’m doing porn I don’t have to perform sexually or worry about pleasing my partner. My celluloid girlfriends and the women on the other end of the telephone in phone sex feel safe. The stakes are lower. And, I don’t have to worry about being a failure if I climax quickly or before they do. In real life relationships I don’t have this sense of absolute freedom to focus on me.”
Peter, another man in his mid-twenties, shared similar feelings about how porn gave him the pleasure of a self-centered sexual experience. Reflecting back on his involvement with porn, he told us, “There was no need for foreplay. No sense of anybody else’s sexual needs other than my own. Porn gave me what I wanted and I was like a kid who wanted sex now.”
Anyone who is unsure about their sexual attractiveness or skills as a lover (and most of us are at some time in our lives) is also vulnerable to porn’s lure. Using porn is a sexual activity that allows us to avoid scrutiny by others. No one sees you. No actual human touch or connection takes place. Porn also can feel like the perfect experience for the person who believes the sexual ideal is to maintain power and control at all times. Unlike having to negotiate sexual times and activities with a partner, the porn user always gets to make the choices about what, who, when, and how the sexual interaction will occur.
Ron Feintech, a Portland, Maine, sex therapist, says, “Pornography is a free ticket to an imitation of ecstasy without the risks involved in obtaining ecstasy in bed with a real woman with whom you have a real relationship.” Men can be drawn deeper into porn because with it, they don’t have to suffer the possibility of sexual rejection.
It’s not just that there is less pressure with porn—some people just don’t place as high a value on being emotionally honest and intimate with a partner as do others. Being regularly involved with porn often requires that people are able to tolerate engaging in deceptive practices such as lying about how they spend their time and hiding what they’ve been looking at. Studies show that about 70 percent of people keep their porn use secret. And even when people are up front about their porn use, as Corey was with his fiancee, they often hold back sharing detailed information in order to prevent upsetting their partner. They may consciously omit sensitive information such as exactly what types of porn they looked at or the fact that they needed it to masturbate.
Corey never told Alice that he regularly masturbated to images of underage girls. Looking back on his experience, Corey sees how his inability to resolve his sexual needs within the relationship and his lack of complete honesty with Alice contributed to their eventual estrangement. He said, “The intimacy that I needed from our relationship never really materialized. During the course of our engagement and marriage my porn use escalated and I continued leading a double life that set me firmly on a course toward messing up my life, and other peoples’ lives, big time.”
At different points in our lives, we may have some, or even many, accelerators spurring us toward a deeper relationship with porn. We may be dissatisfied with our sexual relationship, find porn readily at hand, need something to help us mellow out from the stresses of our life, or want to feel more sexual like we used to in the past. When these factors are not equally counter-balanced by the inhibitors we discussed earlier, the chance of a porn entanglement intensifying and perhaps getting out of control is very high.
Once again, we’ve provided a checklist, this time for the accelerators that may be driving you deeper into a relationship with porn. Now that you’ve heard other people’s stories, you may want to take a few minutes to identify which factors are present for you.